Mix in some new experiences with the familiar

A variety of studies have shown that to remain healthy the human brain (like those of other higher organisms) needs a balance between the familiar and the different, the customary and the novel. When the brain encounters too much new information, it becomes anxious and may even oversimplify the situation in order to cope. When the brain encounters too little new information, it becomes bored and may even create doubt or complexity. The latter gives rise to the adage, "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." The former explains why we sometimes "freeze" in situations utterly beyond our experience.

That echoes in a study I encountered several years ago that defined leadership as "helping people to change at a rate they can absorb." Without some change, nothing happens, which is not good. When change overwhelms us, nothing good happens. If we want a congregation to learn a new hymn, it works best to have a familiar tune in the liturgy as well. We need the new to keep growing, and the familiar reminds us where we are.

How's the balance with our life-mates? All couples have favorite traditions and activities that gain meaning through the years. Yet, unless we add some new experiences, our under-stimulated minds may create complexity where there is none. There's enough real complexity in relationships without creating more. Take tango lessons or try some new food.

This applies to grief as well. The death of someone we love fills our awareness with the newness of a loss we did not seek and may not have anticipated. Since we cannot change that, we need to have lunch with dear friends, play with the grandchildren, sit in our usual pew even when it hurts, or engage in another familiar activity. Good friends and comfortable rituals ease our anxious minds and help us to keep our balance.

Teachers, politicians, and preachers face a similar challenge. Repeating the same exercise ad nauseam may work well for multiplication tables, but offers little help in understanding geometry. Varied illustrations help us to see the shapes move. Similarly, sayings that become cliché clearly once worked; but when we retreat to them without exploring new dimensions or possibilities, inquiring minds become suspicious. We say something new not for the sake of novelty, but for the sake of healthy balance in thinking, responding, and living.

Next month we will ordain and/or install a new class of elders and deacons. Fortunately, those presently serving on our Care Ministry Team and Session have some institutional memory and experience. Fortunately as well, those beginning their terms have a fresh perspective and new questions. The Spirit (and our minds) works in both.

Mix in some new experiences with the familiar. That's good for the mind, body, soul, and spirit. We are indeed wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).

Grace and Peace,

LP

Become even more aware.

Each moment of our lives our nervous systems and brains weave billions of bits of information together in ways that allow us to perceive, evaluate, and respond to our environment. Our brains not only receive information from our sensory systems, but also collate, sort, heed, and ignore that data and discern optimal ways to respond. That is a neurological wonder that even our most creative engineers cannot replicate. Yet, something more wondrous occurs as we receive and respond to all this sensory input. Somehow and in some way we perceive that we exist. We have self-awareness. Nothing neurological explains our self-awareness. Scientists and philosophers hypothesize, but cannot say with certainty how we know that we are.

Other creatures may also have self-awareness. Montaigne mused in his Essays, "When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not more pastime to her than she is to me?" No cat or kangaroo has stepped forward to assure us of their self-awareness. Nor have we communicated at that level with them. Nevertheless, we remain aware. How? Why?

Awareness seems to be a gift to receive with gratitude and to develop. Perhaps awareness links us with our Creator. It certainly is too precious to take for granted.

In a handbook for prospective monks, Thomas Kelty (Thomas Merton's mentor at the Abbey of Gethsemani) noted that religious communities sought those who could smell the bread and taste the soup. He wanted people aware of the wonder of being alive. How aware of the wonder of having life are we? Awareness comes to us mysteriously, but we can cultivate and develop it.

Our local produce stores have fresh oranges. Pick up one, carefully peel it, and enjoy it slowly and intentionally. Place a wedge on your tongue, hold it and notice the aroma and texture, then bite into it and savor all that your senses perceive. Ponder as well how much sunlight, rain, and soil came together to make the pleasure of an orange possible. Then, while savoring another wedge, ponder how many hands it took to move that orange from the field to your tongue. Then, while enjoying another wedge, ponder the people with whom you have enjoyed an orange. Gratitude and wonder will accompany the sensory data flooding your wondrous mind and self-awareness.

Or try this. Read our annual reports and attend our Annual Congregational Meeting. Reflect on how many hours of service and relationship stand behind each fact and figure included. How many people does it take to teach a Sunday School class, go on a mission trip, deliver PowerPacks to our local elementary school, offer a worship service, support those who grieve, have a fellowship meal, or offer any of the other ministries that comprise the life of faith we share? That evokes gratitude and wonder as well.

Life is short and it is filled with wonder. Smell the bread. Taste the soup. Become even more aware. No one can explain how that can happen, but the more we cultivate and develop that gift, the more linked with life we are. Something good surely flows in and from that.

Grace and Peace,

LP

Embrace Pluralism

Michael Jinkins, President of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and one of our Centennial guest preachers, recently responded to the rancorous divisiveness in our culture by challenging us to accept the fact that "there really are a variety of ways to be faithfully and fully human." In other words, Jinkins invites us to embrace pluralism.

As Dr. Jinkins notes, scripture illustrates and supports this approach. Our Bible includes not only the two creation accounts in the opening chapters of Genesis, but also several other understandings of how what is came to be. We rarely benefit from pitting them against each other to determine which rings most true, but we have much to learn as we consider them complimentary accounts that point to the mystery behind all that is. Similarly, our four Gospels offer distinct portrayals of Jesus. When we attempt to conflate them we fail to hear their unique messages. As we ponder how they intersect and collide, we glimpse more clearly into the wonder to which all four point.

Yet, accepting the fact that there are a variety of ways to be faithfully and fully human does not mean they all have equal merit or even any merit. How can we measure the validity of worldviews or understandings of faith? I'm not ready to offer a manuscript proposal, but here are a few suggestions.

First, does the worldview or faith system appeal to a broad variety of people? Jim Jones's Peoples Temple had a few hundred adherents, but most considered it reprehensible. To lead to faithful and full humanness, a system must make sense to those not already committed. We cannot reduce everything to numbers, but a faith that works only for an identifiable group (white males who own property or blue-eyed, left-handed tenors) deserves suspicion.

Second, does the worldview or faith system hold individuals and groups accountable to others and "the Other"? All that is exists in relationship. Every action and attitude affects someone and something else. We cannot change that, but we can look for measures and means to hold each other accountable. Faithful and full humanness balances belief in the preciousness of each individual with adamant devotion to the common good. Devotion to the common good extends our relationships to all creation, including all that precedes and follows us, and to the Mystery behind, beyond, and within.

Third, does the worldview or faith system awaken and deepen a sense of gratitude? We have varied ways of asking, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" No matter how we respond, the fact remains that there is something! We exist. How utterly wonderful! Too wonderful for a cynical, "So what?" or a despondent, "And we have to deal with it" or a fatalistic "Yes, and one day all that is will die." A worldview or faith that does not awaken and deepen gratitude lacks awareness of the wonder of it all. Yes, there is hunger, poverty, war, and myriad ills and evils. Yet, they exist only because there is something instead of nothing. That makes it worth the effort to seek ways to help everyone pulse with gratitude.

When we debate who's right and wrong, we regularly end up in a brawl or worse. Why not try to identify basic values and principles to which all can aspire in varied ways. That will not come easily, but it seems a lot more satisfying than what we spend so much time doing now.

Grace and Peace,

LP