Toe-Rag Parables, Rob Bell, & Foolish Risks of God

I've long been a fan of Rob Bell. Now even more so, having seen Bell's Tumblr series, especially What is the Bible?  Part 15: Everybody Loves Stuart and Luscious and the preceding post, What is the Bible? Part 14: What are you going to do with Stuart? I think these posts present a very creative way of reading, then thinking about and discussing the Bible through parable.

In Part 14 of Bell's Tumblr series, and without giving many clues about what he had in mind, Bell threw a modern-day parable at his Tumblr readers. It was a story about a nephew, "Stuart," entrusted to care for your house while you're away, but who massively screws up and throws a nightmare party. Upon returning and seeing the chaos, your opening gambit is to comment to Stuart on an unwatered plant.

Another of my Faith Heroes, (retired) Bishop Michael Ball (who lives in my tiny village) wrote a Lenten study, Foolish Risks of God, which is devoted to the parables and has a similar view to to the thinking I surmise lies behind Bell's approach in these posts, namely that parables are a compelling, shape-shifting way of teaching. Compelling because in trying to understand and apply the parable, you become much more deeply hooked into the text. Shape-shifting because the stories / analogies have a flexibility that makes them readily adaptable to every age and life.

Father Michael spoke about parables at a home group I went to a few years ago. He gave me a copy of his introductory comments. This will give you a flavor of his humble brilliance:

These stories [Jesus' parables] are like a jigsaw whose pieces can constantly be rearranged to portray all things necessary for the needs of each age, for every condition of humankind. What we must never do (again it seems to me) is glue the pieces of the puzzle onto the table and surround it with a reinforced edge, so they can't be moved around. Parables are flexible pictures of God's wonderful nature, his forgiveness, his acceptance, his love, his treasures, and best of all, his saving grace...

Even the verbal structure of them has a timeless ingenuity ... Situations of his age yet transferable to every era. The cunning of the telling and the choice of words are constructed so that they are repeatable with different emphases for different occasions. The colours of the painting are so exquisitely, incomparably brushed on the canvas that the different lights of different centuries reveal new unrealised glories...

Rob Bell is seizing exactly this power of the parable to engage his readers/followers in the Tumblr posts. In Bell's latest book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, he says we can read the Bible as a trajectory, a demonstration of the direction God has been leading humankind over the eons -- the way forward. The parable exercise on Tumblr may extend the trajectory by a few microns. Bell's looking at where and how God is moving in his relationship with people, and inviting readers to participate... help sniff out which direction God is leading. At least "have a go" as the Brits say. It's pure genius that Bell's using the ultimate "trajectory" verbal medium -- the time-travelling, shape-shifting parable. (Can you tell I tuned in to the Dr. Who special?)

In Bell's Tumblr post, Part 15, he shares readers' responses (Including mine!) He also discloses the message he intended with the Stuart parable:

... This will take a while...

[upon returning home to find the chaos] your priority probably won’t be finding out who Luscious is and where the AK-47 came from and why the dog smells like beer and is cross-eyed pacing in circles ... However important those are, you may not get to them for a while. Stuart may not be ready…

• Is this why slavery isn’t condemned in the Bible?

• Is this why polygamy isn’t forbidden in the Bible? 

• Is this why certain barbaric and primitive actions and practices aren’t prohibited?

You can’t deal with the entire mess all at once..... First you’d get the kids off the roof because that’s a matter of life and death. Then maybe you’d ask Is the kid in the refrigerator OK? . .. However you went about it, there would be something happening underneath everything else, something that is more important to you than all the rest of it: You and Stuart making things right together. 

Wow. Talking about God working with his creations to restore creation by telling a contemporary story about setting things right which works with readers via parable interpretation. The echoes are deafening!

Here was my interpretation (responses were limited to 400 characters):

Stu’s Everyman, beloved child of God & he’s screwed up, like we all do. Pointing out the minor fault, not yelling & threatening to throttle the little toe rag, gives Stu something he can apologize for & fix. He starts with that & goes on to get the drunk friends off the roof. The friends pitch in to help. Pretty soon the whole world’s restored. I’ve been there. Cheerios & ping pong balls everywhere! Son did apologize and make some efforts. Friends picked up some trash. Mom cleaned up the rest. 

Lke most parable interpretations, this comes from personal experience. Yes, we have come home to find caretaker-son having screwed up in throwing a party. One time there was a hole in a wall and Cheerios everywhere. Another time, a bizarre selection of things disappeared (bamboo toaster tongs, stacking container for coasters); the good crystal wine glasses got used; there was goo inside the layers of glass in the oven door window; and there were ping pong balls everywhere. Beer pong. Who knew? 

But we love Sam. I wasn't thrilled to wash the floors, dig goo out of the oven window and go through the rubbish (Sam's friends had helped him clean up, but put the numerous bottles and cans in the trash rather than recycling). I am hopeful that the next time Sam has a party, he'll  be better at social engineering. More shalom, less mess.

And,  in case he's reading, and because he asked, this is just for Rob Bell (a fellow Michigander, but one who has not been living in the UK soaking up these coloUrful expressions): About "toe rag," From the Urban Dictionary:

The definition derives from old England where convicts used to tie bits of shirt around their toes and feet as a makeshift sock, hence "toe rag" means scoundrel, criminal, thief, indecent/unlawful person etc. ..."Come back with my wallet, you little toe rag."

I can't resist including Definition 2, pretty much the same, but offering a slightly different background:

2. toerag--A derogatory British insult made antique by more popular words ... Used to describe one who is seen as worthless in society. The word 'toerag' is believed to come from a rag used to wash the feet... making it very lowly... "They were just a bunch of toerags anyway."

I think the connection to foot-washing makes"toe rag"  a perfect word to describe parable-wise, all of us humans, us party-throwers, polluters, climate-changers, war-wagers, gamblers, haters, thoughtless stewards... Jesus washed our feet, asked us to do that for one another. Nothin' but toe-rags, all of us.

Pollyanna Versus Chicken Little

One of the dualities of my life -- and one that I struggle to hold in equipoise -- is Pollyanna-like optimism versus Chicken Little-like pessimism. I give my parents credit for making me bi-polar in this regard. As I wrote in my mother's eulogy:

Her optimism and confidence that the glass was half full was never daunted by [my father] Frank’s worst-case certainty that it was half empty.

Growing up, my mother's blind optimism -- and what I perceived as an associated inability to empathize with our setbacks and heartbreaks -- drove me crazy. I was determined I would grow up to be neither an optimist nor a pessimist, but a realist.

Now I'm not so sure. I'm not sure that our very subjective emotion-governed brains actually permit us to be objective realists.

Beyond that, I've written before about the value and power of belief -- in anything, really -- as a sort of willing self-deception that can induce courage and confidence--even miracles. This positive thinking starts a self-reinforcing spiral that can elevate mood,  yield creativity and productivity, and thereby create a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, and gratitude. In a previous blog I talked about psychological techniques that counteract a human being's natural "negative cognitive bias" -- a propensity to focus on negative phenomena. For our caveman ancestors, heightened sensitivity to harm was critical for survival. It's possible that psychology might actually be in danger of falling overboard on the bright side, but that seems to be the way they are thinking these days.

At any rate, what brought me back to this subject today was contemplating the effect that a strong negative bias can have on others. For example, I understand the frustration of some of my friends as they try to stay supportive of one of our group who sees a dead-end to any and every suggested avenue for circumnavigating her numerous challenges in life. We listen to her woes and try to empathize. We invite her for tea. We listen some more. We make more suggestions of resources that could help with that. But there's always some reason this won't work and that won't help.

It's awful to be Job, but it's also not much fun to be one of his friends. Psychologists have found that good fortune tends to generate a penumbra of optimism and satisfaction with life in the neighborhood of people who are lucky. I wouldn't be surprised if they found that the Jobs and Chicken-Littles of this world create local pockets of depression.

Robert B. Cialdini, Noah J.Goldstein, and Steve J. Martin write in their book Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive that strongly negative, fear-inducing communications

usually stimulate the audience to take action to reduce the threat. However this general rule has one important exception: When the fear-producing message describes danger but the audience is not told of clear, specific, effective ways of reducing the danger, they may deal with the fear by 'blocking out' the message or denying that it applies to them As a consequence, they may indeed be paralyzed into taking no action at all.

I suspect that the same psychological forces could be at work in relationships and when we are called to choose people as our spouses, mates, leaders,  friends, team-members, or co-workers. Taking Chicken Little on board could portend endless hours fruitlessly trying to reassure him or her that the sky is not falling -- rather than enjoying life or solving immediate problems. So instead we block out the message, stop listening, stop wasting our time offering suggestions -- or just turn the gloomy one away.

Sadly, I think that's what happened to me in my village church. I see problems at all levels--from mindboggling challenges with basic aspects of contemporary Christianity to the way our local clergy fail in their interactions with our village congregation. Serving on the parochial church council, the only suggestion I've offered for reducing risk of the church dying is a survey to ask our village what people do and don't want in a church. It's not really a solution -- but I don't think it will be possible to keep the church alive without taking that basic step. The suggestion wasn't taken up. Perhaps if I'd just focused on tiny problems and immediate solutions, I would not be feeling like a Chicken Little- non grata.

Back to Pollyanna -- and the types of people who are instantly welcome in our corporate and individual lives -- I think it's the people who make us feel good about ourselves and the world. Not with platitudes and flattery, but through insight. Their very presence reassures us that everything's going to be fine. They call out special gifts that we might not have noticed. Their careful gaze and thoughtful consideration convinces us that they know and love us. They may also see urgent problems--but also see "clear, specific, effective steps...to reduce the danger," as Cialdini and his colleagues write.

And somewhere in there likes a happy point of equipoise -- a way to be a sympathetic and tuned in to the woes of a friend, a spouse, a child, an organization, the world--yet never lose hope or lose sight of the good and the possibilities for fresh, creative answers.

God of Aller

The church--Home to God and John of Aller--viewed from Aller Hill, where the dragon's eggs were buried

Our friend Tina has a five-year-old grandson who is utterly enraptured with life... As you are, if you're a lucky five-year-old. This charming child visited our village some months ago with his Grannie, and I had the privilege of giving them the grand tour.

The Saxon Font

I took them "To the Ancient Church" -- as the somewhat obscure sign reads at the end of the drove. I showed them the Alfred (The Great) window, the Saxon font, and well-preserved architectural details from the old part of our church.

Because the boy was very interested in dragons that day, I showed him the effigy of John of Aller and John of Clevedon, which lie in repose in our church. The latter effigy is well-preserved and is of an armoured knight, as Clevedon died jousting.

John of Aller, what slayed the dragon

               

John of Clevedon

 Aller's effigy is weathered from having been outdoors for a few hundred years. But he was the one I really wanted to introduce to my young friend. According to legend, it was John of Aller who made our village safe from dragons.

Aller Hill, where dragon eggs be buried

One day, the dragon that had been terrorizing our village was flying back to its nest of eggs on Aller Hill, I told my young friend. Brave John of Aller saw the dragon and was ready. He hurled his spear at the dragon and killed her mid-air. Then the good citizens of Aller climbed the hill and buried the dragon eggs deep in the ground, preventing any further dragon attacks--to this day. 

John of Aller's spear was in another nearby church for many years -- so it must have been quite a long throw. I'm not sure if the spear is still at High Ham or if it's been relocated to a museum someplace. The dragon remains our village mascot--we have dragon mosaics and dragon tiles adorning various landmarks. We celebrated the Queen's Jubilee by commissioning a very fine dragon sculpture. I showed all these sights to my young friend, who clearly absorbed all these details and proudly wrote his name in our church visitors' registry.

Aller's Dragon-themed sculpture, left
and mosaic above 

Several months later the boy returned to our village, this time with his mother as well as Grannie. I was out-of-town when they visited, but Tina later related her grandson's breathless enthusiasm at showing his mother what he'd seen and heard here, albeit through the filter of a five-year-old's memory and understanding. What the boy was really keen to show his mom was "God of Aller" in our village church.

Matthew 21:16 (King James Bible:) Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?

I am not sure if it's pathetic or glorious, but I come as close to finding God in this boy's experience as anything else I've experienced myself in our village church. I see -- and am induced to recollect my own experience of -- the wonder and amazement of childhood: The excitement of stories; lore and evidence of ancient times; the sense of a world filled with adventure, mystery, and pure wordless delight.

And love. I find love in Tina's care and celebration of life with her grandson and daughter. I feel Tina's loving friendship in telling me about their return visit to "God of Aller." I find a completely open, no-strings-attached invitation to join this spirit, to be like a child again, tuned in to such a wondrous place and time: right here, right now.

Matthew 18:3 (King James Bible:) Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Or for a secular version of what I'm sayin', see YouTuber Jason Silva's take on childlike wonder here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCCHn1cWhOg#t=119
or his take on awe here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QyVZrV3d3o

.

Choice Architecture: Clever Big Brother

I've been fascinated recently by new ideas about motivation coming from economists and behavior scientists--in particular an approach variously known as "Nudge Theory" or "Choice Architecture." At its heart, this field devises psychologically astute ways of predisposing people to one behavior instead of another, typically by manipulating what, when, or how choices are presented. For example, two recent research papers applied choice architecture to improving children's nutrition and getting adults to save for retirement.

The subject has not escaped the attention of U.S. President Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who are using -- or have used-- nudge theory in hopes of advancing political goals on the cheap. Once I heard about the idea, I started to notice examples everywhere... a study of reducing theft of petrified wood from a National Park; improved drug packaging; Finnish government gift boxes for new moms ....

But back to the recent scientific papers. The school lunch paper didn't brand itself as an instance of choice architecture per se, but that's what it was. In two elementary schools in Upstate New York, researchers from Cornell University's Department of Applied Economics and Management studied the lunch choices of 272 pupils in 14 classrooms. Andrew S. Hanks, David R. Just, and Brian Wansink made one small change in the pupils' lunch entrée selection. Some students pre-ordered their entrées during the 4-week trial; others chose entrées while in the cafeteria line.

If your mother ever warned you not to go grocery shopping on an empty stomach, you can probably guess the outcome of this experiment:

When students did not [pre]order but instead selected their entrée as they entered the lunch line, it appears that hunger-based, spontaneous selection diminished healthy entrée selection by 48% and increased less healthy entrée selection by 21% ... data demonstrate how a simple environmental change—preordering—can prompt children to choose healthier food.

In the introduction to their research the authors of the study cite statistics showing that almost a third of U.S. children aged 6 to 13 years are obese. The hope is one healthy meal a day for more children could help combat this obesity epidemic.  Beyond that, there's room to hope that exposure to a healthy meal each day could nudge kids toward a preference for healthy foods and better food choices throughout their lives.

Such hopes for improved lifelong nutrition are stoked by observations from happiness guru/motivational speaker  Shawn Achor.  Writing about his personal experiments in reforming life habits, Achor says the key to increasing good habits and extinguishing bad ones is to make it absurdly easy to do the good thing and harder to do the bad. For example, he was much more likely to practice guitar if he left it out on a stand, within sight and close at hand. He sharply reduced his TV-watching by taking the batteries out of the remote control each time he turned off the set. Each behavioral manipulation made only a 20-second change in how long it took to start an activity--but that's just long enough to encourage or discourage an action. Repeat a behavior change for 21 days, Achor says, and you've got the makings of a life habit.

Making a good habit easy is at the heart of research on how to increase retirement savings. This research was reported by Shlomo Benartzi (at UCLA) and Richard H. Thaler (at the University of Chicago) and published in Science on March 8, 2013. The authors begin by observing that the savings of an increasing proportion of U.S. workers will be insufficient to sustain their lifestyle through retirement. Thirty years ago, just under a third of people were setting aside too little. Three years ago more than half were at risk. This doesn't even address the 78 million employees who will be completely dependent on savings because their workplace offers no retirement plans.

"Fortunately, there are solutions to these problems. We simply have to change the choice architecture of retirement plans by utilizing the findings of behavioral economics research and make such plans available to all workers."

Benartzi and Thaler say that increasingly employers have moved away from defined-benefit retirement plans to defined-contribution plans, in which employees choose whether to participate and then how much of their paycheck they want to go towards retirement. Unfortunately, almost 25% of those eligible don't even bother to sign up, and savings rates are too low for many who do. Choice architecture offers an easy fix: Make participation in the plan the default for all employees, but allow them to "opt-out." Studies show only around 10% will do so -- raising participation significantly compared to an "opt-in" system. For those in a savings scheme, most employers now offer a sensible, age-appropriate default investment option, sparing employees the daunting job of devising their retirement savings portfolio.

Choice architecture really comes into its own for deciding how much of each paycheck to contribute toward retirement over the years. Bernatzi and Thaler say:

Automatic enrollment does a good job of getting people started, but employees can be stuck for years saving at an insufficient rate.

What is needed to help employees save at higher rates over the years is automatic escalation of savings,

a plan we devised called Save More Tomorrow (SMT), based on behavioral economics research ... First, employees are invited to commit now to increase their saving rate ... in the future. Self-control is easier to accept if delayed rather than immediate. Second, planned increases in the saving rate are linked to pay raises. This is meant to diminish the effect of loss aversion—the tendency to weigh losses larger than gains. Because the increase in the savings rate is just a portion of the pay raise, employees do not see their pay fall. Third, once employees sign up for the plan they remain in it until they reach a preset limit or choose to opt out. This uses inertia to keep people in the system.

At the first company where SMT was tested, employee savings quadrupled in four years, and many employers have now jumped on the scheme, or at least some type of automatic escalation. To assure a decent participation rate and increased savings, very easy or default signup and savings escalation are crucial.

On a completely different front, I saw a less subtle example of choice architecture -- and found an explanation for a personal annoyance -- when I recently read the results of a study of packaging of pain relievers in England and Wales. Shortly after I moved to the UK seven years ago, I was irritated and mystified to discover that aspirin, acetominophen (called "paracetamol" in the UK), and other pain relievers and related products are only sold in tiny packs, and stores won't sell you more than a couple of  these per visit. In the U.S. I had tended to buy economy-sized bottles of 500 tablets. The results of the packaging study ended my mystification (if not my inconvenience).

Evidently the UK introduced legislation in late 1998 to restrict pack sizes of paracetamol. The pain reliever is effective and safe in moderate doses, but taking too much at once or over a long period can cause serious, even fatal, liver toxicity. Extensive aspirin use can cause pitting of the gastro-intestinal tract. Both drugs are also components of other over-the-counter medications, so people who don't read the list of ingredients may not realize they are getting "hidden" doses of aspirin or paracetamol. Doctors hoped the small pack size would reduce intentional and unintentional overuse of the pain relievers by making it inconvenient to buy more than a few doses at once.

The study, by Keith Hawton at the University of Oxford Centre for Suicide Research (and colleagues at Oxford and elsewhere)  looked at deaths (intentional, unintentional, and undetermined) and liver transplants in England and Wales due to poisoning by paracetamol before and after the 1998 legislation. The data pointed to a 43% reduction in accidental and suicide deaths due to paracetamol liver poisoning. Over the entire 11¼ post-legislation years that the team studied, they estimated there were 765 fewer deaths, thanks to the inconvenient packaging.

I saw a sweeter face of choice architecture when I read about the Finnish Baby Box. An article on the BBC website reports:

For 75 years, Finland's expectant mothers have been given a box by the state. It's like a starter kit of clothes, sheets and toys that can even be used as a bed. And some say it helped Finland achieve one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates.

Wildly popular with new parents, the box appears to have everything a baby needs for its first year of life. The contents change a little each year -- different fabrics chosen for the gender-neutral clothing, for example, and new items reflecting changes in thinking about best practices in infant care. In 1969 the boxes switched from cloth to disposable diapers, but by 2006 they returned to environment-friendly cloth "nappies." Baby bottles and pacifiers, ("dummies" in UK parlance) were previously included, but also ditched in 2006 to encourage the healthier practice of breastfeeding. The current box pictured in the BBC article includes condoms, a picture book, and bra pads--also encouraging breastfeeding. The box holding all the goodies is just the right size for a crib and includes a mattress and sheets. This subtly discourages "co-sleeping"--putting the baby to sleep in bed with the parents--which has been linked to infant suffocation.

The boxes serve as an incentive to healthy parenting in another way: To claim the box, expectant moms must visit their local doctor or pre-natal clinic before the fourth month of pregnancy. Because items in the box can be handed-down to baby brothers or sisters, Finland also permits parents to take cash in lieu -- currently €140. The BBC article says 95% of parents opt for the box, however, "as it's worth much more."

Too often I've heard the jokey line, "Babies don't come with an instruction manual!" The Finnish Baby Box is better choice architecture than an instruction manual could ever be. It simply makes it easy and fun to do the right thing when it comes to parenting. They don't tell you "Statistics show you increase your baby's chance of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome if he sleeps in your bed" -- they give you a separate bed the baby can sleep in until past the age where SIDS is a problem. They don't lecture you "breast is best" -- they just don't give you baby bottles and pacifiers/dummies. They don't lecture you about reading to your child -- they give you a starter book. Since Finland began handing out its treasured Baby Boxes in 1938, infant mortality has declined from around 70 deaths per thousand to fewer than five.

But beyond just making good parenting easier, I think there's some other important psychology behind the baby boxes that could explain statistics showing Finnish mothers are among the happiest in the world. The boxes seem like Finland's cheery welcome to all its babies. This sets a loving tone for the new baby's family. The article quotes one new father:

This felt to me like evidence that someone cared, someone wanted our baby to have a good start in life. And now when I visit friends with young children it's nice to see we share some common things. It strengthens that feeling that we are all in this together.

A Finnish history expert told the BBC that the Baby Boxes are "A symbol of the idea of equality, and of the importance of children."

Thinking about choice architecture led me to a book by Robert Cialdini and colleagues, "Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive." The book identifies deeper veins of influence on human behavior, and I believe some of these may be at work in the Finish Baby Box. For example, Cialdini & Co. say the most influential messages subtly convey that a desired behavior--such as breastfeeding or using cloth diapers -- is both socially prized and most prevalent for people like you. This nudge may be the most valuable gift in the Finnish Baby Box.

The work of Cialdini and his associates over the years forms a body of research -- experiments that isolate key factors that encourage people to do the right thing -- to recycle and save energy, for example. Other early studies isolated psychological principles that discourage doing the wrong thing -- like littering or theft of petrified wood from a National Forest.

Some of the other persuasion concepts in Cialdini's book might be worth another blog entry, but for now I'll end by pointing out that "nudges" can also be used for less salubrious purposes than saving for retirement, helping the environment, preserving national heritage, and improving health, nutrition, and parenting. Choice architecture could also be used to subtly influence purchasing or voting decisions, for example.

Being able to recognize the more clever, insidious ways Big Brother or Big Business may influence our decisions is empowering. Check who stands to profit when your choice suddenly seems like "a no-brainer." Look that gift-horse in the mouth! And consider the possibility you're being manipulated when a fast-talking politician or salesman claims his gizmo has impeccable credentials and is in huge demand -- whilst the competitor's is unpopular and far short of standards for people like you.

Kernels from the Nutshells: My Reading of Mindfulness Poems

This is an overflow page, excising my interpretations from the Mindful Poems page. I've included links to the poems covered.

My summary of these poems would be:

Poem 1, The Summer Day. Be intensely present here and now.

Poem 2--Autobiography in Five Chapters. Break your habits of not really seeing, not taking responsibility, disparaging yourself, not learning from mistakes, lying to yourself, not trying new things.

Poem 3--Wild Geese. Whatever your situation, just practice being human, connecting to others and to nature in front of you.

Poem 4--The Guest House. Be hospitable to whatever comes your way, good or bad.

Poem 5.  I wouldn't dare try to summarize T.S. Elliot's Little Gidding, but would note that the commentary on wikipedia alludes to the "the mystical nature of the poem and how its themes were closer to Buddhism than Anglicanism."  

Poems 6/7 (retreat poems): Lost by David Wagoner and haiku-like The Birds Have Vanished by Li Po [Bai] - These speak to the transience of human concerns and the timelessness of nature, mountain, here, now.

Poem 8 (Penultimate week): Love After Love -- This echos a theme of Little Gidding -- returning to the familiar place -- or in this case face, your own face -- and knowing (and loving) it for the first time in the light of personal evolution. Great metaphor for treating yourself with compassion. The bread and wine could be a communion allusion, but in this eucharist, your  feast of thanks is for your own life.

Poem 9. In Kindness, I think Naomi Shihab Nye proposes that the great losses of our lives may give birth to deep kindness.

Bonus Poems:  Keeping Quiet-- That's mostly what we do in Mindfulness classes and meditation...
Neruda was apparently an "early adopter" as he touches on the omnipresent "busyness" of life and speculates on what the world might be like if everyone, just for a few seconds, was still.

#14 from The Kabir Book--This poem takes us to the mysterious paradise accessible when we give up desires and expectations of the exterior world.

Alberto Caeiro: Complete Poems, IX -- A key way Mindfulness brings us back into the present is by urging us to substitute intense use of our senses for thoughts

You Reading This, Be Ready-- A compelling invitation to live in the present.

Analgesic Meditation--Mindfulness helps adult pain much as imagination and the world of toy soldiers on a child's counterpane helped the child in Robert Louis Stephenson's poem.

Prelude to the Dance -- Striving and forcing yourself to improve versus just being and unfolding. 

-------------------------------

The Neuroscience of Thanks

The UK's Chief Rabbi, Lord (Jonathan) Sacks, is probably our favorite presenter on BBC Radio's "Thought for the Day" (Sorry, Giles Fraser, you would be a close second). Today Lord Sacks landed a theory squarely in the sweet spot between faith and science: He offered a plausible explanation for why expressing gratitude is good for you.

Thankfulness is one of the pillars of positive psychology and the happiness movement. Keeping a gratitude journal, in which you list a few things that you appreciate in each day, for example, has been shown by scientific studies of children and adults to improve positive outlook. Being thankful helps bolster happiness, a positive work and classroom environment, and assuages depression.

Expressing appreciation has also been a pillar of religions over the eons. Think of the psalms attributed to David, for example, or the classical hymns of thanksgiving (too often typecast and just used at Harvest or Thanksgiving Services). My Dear Husband points out that "Eucharist" comes from the Greek word for "thanks."

Sacks' insight about why gratitude makes your outlook more sunny was inspired by BBC TV's recent Horizon Show on the subject, "The Truth About Personality."  On the show, reporter Michael Moseley, a self-confessed pessimist, follows instruction from leading psychologists on ways to "worry less and become more of an optimist." The two techniques they lead Moseley through over two months are Mindfulness meditation and cognitive bias modification.

It was primarily the latter practice that was involved in Sacks' theory. Cognitive bias modification (CBM) starts with the premise that some people's brains are predisposed to pay inordinate attention to the negative. They inevitably see the glass as half empty--they worry excessively about potential hazards and pitfalls. They read negative, ominous messages into the innocuous. A storm cloud follows them around (like cartoonist Al Capp's jinx, Joe Btfsplk, shown here --->)

CBM subtly changes this negative-bias brain-setting through computer games that increase sensitivity to positive signals. The games might entail picking out a positive image, such as one smiling face in a field of frowns, for example. (You can try it here: http://baldwinlab.mcgill.ca/labmaterials/materials_BBC.html). Although there's not yet vast data to support CBM,  some evidence suggests it may be helpful in treating alcoholism, pain, depression, recurrence of depression, and social anxiety, for example.

Sacks proposes that expressing gratitude works in the same way. It re-tunes our brains to focus on the good things in everyday life, increasing the odds that we'll notice positives more and negatives less.

This feeds my growing suspicion that where spiritual practices are beneficial to people's lives, there's some very good psychology involved, ancient magic and religious practice notwithstanding.

Sacks was impressed by statistics showing optimists live, on average, 7 years longer than pessimists. The fact that techniques like Mindfulness and cognitive bias modification can nudge people towards a sunnier disposition show this is not genetically determined from birth--at least not completely in all people. And, connecting the dots, or in this case the population studies with the disposition modification experiments, buying longevity through such practices seems a reasonable conjecture. It's certainly a testable hypothesis

But it hasn't been directly tested yet, much less scientifically proven. So if its really more years in life you're after, the evidence is much stronger for quitting smoking, avoiding obesity, eating healthily, and exercising daily.  What the studies say more strongly is Mindfulness, and other practices that raise optimism can at least put more life in your years, or at least happier life in your years -- "Stress less; celebrate more," as Sacks said. "Be surprised by joy."

 So, go on then, make your day: If you're a person of faith, count your blessings and thank God. If you're not religious,  just hone your gratitude attitude -- stop and smell the roses; tell someone you appreciate their hard work; start a gratitude journal; send a thank-you note or pay a visit to someone who positively influenced your life.

I end with a pictorial gratitude-journal entry (Father and son photo is courtesy of Lisa Morris-Moxham; Miracle Babe photo is courtesy of Char and Pete Herb; Sam 'n Jamie Jumpin' Jam and Camelia photos are by C. Kozlowski; Painting is Maxfield Parrish's, The Lantern Bearers, from FB "I Require Art" postings; other photographs by C. Kozlowski; Starry night photo from FB by unknown artist):

 

Two Sisters, Two Countries, Two Rural Churches

I started this blog entry with the story of my growing despair for my rural English church. But today my sister Fran sent me a wonderful response, describing why her rural American church, set in Thomas Jefferson's rolling foothills of Virginia, is increasingly feeling like a home for her. So I've amended this blog entry to include Fran's love letter, creating a more hopeful tale of two country churches.

Can this Rural Parish be Saved?

Basically, if you rub two Anglicans together, you can't start a fire, but you could well ignite at least three new religions.  As an official national Church, the CofE is officially obliged to be expansive and accepting of a wide range of flavors of faith -- at least broadly, globally, theoretically. A National Church needs to be a Big Tent, I was told. This should mean there's a spiritual home for everyone. But from the local real-world perspective, it's not working, not here, not now. My local church, like the Church in many benefices in England is dying, person by person, parish by parish, dwindling congregation by dwindling congregation.

I claim this is only the personal, somewhat quirky, view of an expat American -- and one who was enamoured of her former (United Methodist) church. Adding to the quirkiness of my background is that I migrated from a populous community to a tiny rural village in England. In suburban Maryland there were numerous churches of several denominations to choose from within a mile of my home; if I drove a few miles, I could have my choice of dozens of different churches. But now there's just one CoE church within a mile of my UK home. If I'm willing to drive a few miles, I have my choice of: Roman Catholic, URC, Methodist, Society of Friends, or an independent chapel, St Cleer's.

My village church is ancient and lovely. But the clergy (a vicar and a curate, with several retired priests and some lay readers brought in to take services) serve seven churches (not to mention one non-church venue, The Angel) within the benefice, and, largely don't have time to get to know or respond to each congregation individually. By and large, we all get the same clergy, almost all with a narrow (conservative evangelical) view of Christian faith, the same sermons, the same style of worship. I've seen no evidence that any of them are progressive or keen to dig deeply into meanings of faith today. No signs of ongoing growth through personal reading and study, or innovation in their approach to discussing, encouraging, or cultivating mature faith in others. The curate is the one exception. She actually does seem to be interested in exploring the heart of faith in new ways. Parishioners are supposed to be passive, brainless bumps on the pew; like it or lump it. Meanwhile, the church continues its inexorable decline.

Where I lived in America,  I picked a church where I thought my young son would find friends. It proved to be a great choice--growing, diverse, varied, challenging, thoughtful, serving lots of different people in different ways. But here... I don't feel at home in church, and I'm not the only one. One church in the benefice has already closed. Will ours be next? It's extremely hard to get people interested in what our local leader, the church warden, sees as the critical issue: doing the many jobs that must be handled by lay volunteers just to keep the doors open.

What's the problem? In my opinion, it's that no one finds what they want in a church like this. Yes, Anglicans are a diverse and cranky lot. But here, here especially, it's hopeless: Drive-by preaching -- which is pretty much the extent of clerical involvement in our village church -- does little to support, much less encourage life and new growth in a church that would be relevant to people's lives today. The status quo barely keeps a service on the schedule and a few coins dropping into the plate on three Sunday mornings a month.

For the elderly who grew up attending a traditional CofE service every Sunday, this might at least be emotionally satisfying. They, possibly, are among the people who have an inner rosetta stone that translates the ancient vocabulary of church liturgy into emotional operators that stabilize and calm their interior landcapes. I don't in any way discount these people or their needs.

But sadly, the more elderly elders have served their years as church warden or organist or PCC members. Now they are tired and want others to serve them -- and in the same way the church did over the past century... the same hymns, the same short sermon (content doesn't actually seem to matter much to anyone but me), communion (every Sunday if possible for some, but once a year would be enough for others)... They're quick to say how nice it would be to have more young people involved in the church (i.e. to do the work and keep things going exactly as they have been), but they don't seem to have a clue what this would actually entail, much less the interest or energy to find out.

I've used the Rob Bell line before in describing my feelings about such a church: for me, the clergy bring no THERE there. They might feed the emotional needs of the elderly and others who cherish the old traditions. But I'm lacking their Rosetta stone. The worship, and especially the preaching, does not help me to grow in faith -- and could actually cause people to go backwards in Christian faith sometimes, in my opinion.

I get the feeling the Readers and priests who preach at our church would be astonished to know that a good number of people in the congregation are at least as advanced in faith as they are. Many of us have actually studied the Bible. We've read it through and discussed it. Members of our parish have been military, artistic, intellectual, and community leaders. Our children are molecular biologists and rocket scientists. Some of our numbers have a soulful depth of emotional understanding that far surpasses that of low E.Q. clergy who have led pampered middle class lives sheltered from poverty, deep personal sacrifice, or ravaging losses that would test the faith of Job and everyone else reflective and honest enough to admit it. Thanks to books and the internet, some of the readers among us are quite up-to-date on contemporary theology and other subjects that we dare to hope would be making an appearance in churches today.We may be from a country parish -- but we're not bumpkins!

Why do I continue to put up with meaningless (for me) worship services and unenlightening sermons? At this point it's this: to keep community -- it's how I show my love for the people in my village who like that sort of thing. And because I have seen what a church can be; and, perhaps idiotically and romantically, still have some tiny trace of hope and vision for what it could be.

But as things stand,  I feel that vision won't be realized here, not in my lifetime, not in rural CofE churches, not with the sort of priests the church is turning out and hiring these days. It might be different in the cities, where a concentrated population can support more diversity in churches and people can shop around until they find a corner of the Big Tent that suits them... Here in rural England my little benefice is in its death throes.

Fran's Love Letter: A Rural Church that Works  

Hi Cec. I wish you could come and visit my small country church. It’s plain and simple (but with wonderful acoustics!)--not the grand church that yours is. It's old by our yard stick --but very modern by yours.

Like your church, it’s the center of a community that is spread over some considerable countryside. On an average Sunday we get maybe 30 butts in seats (as we in the transit business would say) and it’s not unusual for 10 or 12 of them to be singing in the choir. On Christmas Eve or Easter there are over 50 people worshiping at the church.

Ours too is largely an older congregation: only two young ladies in school who come with their Mom maybe once a month and get to light the candles when they are there, and one young man who comes with his parents maybe once every two months. But when they are there, there's always a children’s message. They come up and sit on the front steps with the pastor who talks with them about some part of the sermon or the readings that makes it meaningful for them.

Pastor Jane is making a big difference in the church, enriching the lives and the faith of the congregation, and getting those who have in the past come for community to now come to learn and to think new thoughts. She organizes Sunday morning classes that are interesting and challenge the participants; and the women’s group that she started provides a wonderful mix of theology and sisterhood.

While we get the official Presbyterian scriptures to read each week and do what we're supposed to do as a Presbyterian church in good standing, I'm sure that our church would generally be viewed as having a liberal point of view. But there are some who I'm sure are rock solid republicans and there are some who will exclaim a loud "amen" upon occasion, which always startles the rest of the congregation. There are also several people who have some church standing -- they help the pastor with communion and wear some sort of shawl that makes then look official.

Supporting our community and other communities in need is an important part of the church. The church has been home to and has supported a pre-school. It has particularly served low income families in our part of the county for years--continuing a tradition in education that started when the church was formed in the early 1800's and included educating slaves before the civil war. Each month the church contributes a carload of food for the local food pantry. And there are frequent mission trips that members of the congregation participate in -- to Haiti, Central America and SW Virginia, as well as one workday every couple of months with Habitat for Humanity in Charlottesville.

This year's church directory lists 39 families or singles, including the summer intern and our wonderful Jewish pianist! Some folks end up doing more of the work than others. It’s not easy to recruit people to bring flowers, set up communion, be a lay leader or usher on Sunday, to organize the monthly potluck dinner, to send notes to visitors or those in need, to say nothing of the upkeep and maintenance of 200+ year old  building and its surroundings. The call for help on clean-up days gets answered by a few, but somehow it gets done.

I think what really makes our church go is the combination of the spiritual enrichment AND the community, and the freedom to do those things in our own way. There are a few new people who are coming to our church, slowly but surely, when they hear about it or just trip over it driving up Route 29. Some of us are good friends outside of church, but the entire congregation truly cares about each other and they demonstrate that caring in a variety of ways. There is a menu of spiritual offerings that the church offers to those who want to partake in them but nobody is counting who does and who doesn't.

I guess we are just lucky that we don't have to carry the weight of the CofE on our back, and that Pastor Jane was willing to accept the challenge of a small country church that needed some gentle direction and nurturing. Someday I hope you'll come with me -- I sit in the 4th pew from the back on the left center section. There's room for you and your Dear Husband in the pew too.

Love you Cec.

Mindfulness: Skip the Spirituality *Please*

My apprehensions about linking Mindfulness to spirituality grew a bit yesterday.

In my previous episode of this blog, I described my fears about connecting Mindfulness conspicuously to ancient Buddhist practices and beliefs. Mindfulness might well have zen roots, but at this point, I argued, faith references can only put people off who identify with other faiths. I mentioned that one journal author was already proposing a Christian version of mindfulness based on contemplative  "centering prayer."

What I didn't mention is that faith groups are invariably prone to fractioning and bitter division. Putting Mindfulness in a faith context makes it subject to these.

The growth spurt in my apprehension was brought on by reading an article by Dr. Gary E. Gilley, an evangelical pastor at Southern View Chapel in Springfield, Illinois. Gilley's blog is a diatribe against contemplative prayer.

A Christian version of Mindfulness would be open to Gilley's criticisms -- which center on there being  no Biblical basis for contemplative prayer. Meditative and mystical practice should not be part of spiritual formation, Gilley says, because such practices were invented and promoted by human beings. Prayer, he says, should not be listening for an inner voice or awaiting some inner experience of God. This isn't in the Bible. Prayer should be us speaking to God -- praising, thanking, requesting, for example. God speaks audibly in the Bible, not via inner voices heard during meditation. So no one needs to be trained in special practices to hear Him. If God wants to tell us something, He'll say it right out loud.

Gilley concludes:

Spiritual formation seeks to lure evangelicals into ancient Catholic and Orthodox contemplative practices in order to draw closer to God, experience His presence, and hear His voice apart from Scripture. In order to embrace this mystical form of spirituality, contemplatives are willing to compromise at virtually every turn. Central doctrines such as sola fide and sola Scriptura are shrugged off as secondary. Methods never found in the Bible as the true means of spiritual growth and of knowing God, are emphasized. And complete heretics such as Thomas Merton are seen as reliable spiritual guides to spirituality. The contemplatives have sold out to Catholic mysticism and abandoned the clear teaching of Scripture. Sadly, in the process many undiscerning evangelicals will follow suit.

I expect Gilley would find a Buddhism-based Mindfulness even more objectionable than contemplative prayer.

Could he and other Christians accept Mindfulness strictly as a therapeutic practice, supported by research and scientifically validated data if all the Buddhist references were expunged? Could he see this as a healthy living practice, like washing your hands, not smoking, eating your veg, getting exercise, and keeping your weight down?

The nice thing about medical practice is that it's testable. If you have a theory about some aspect of a scientific practice, you design an experiment and confirm or reject the theory. People can argue with your experiment and perhaps design a better test, but accepted practice follows the data.

Spiritual practice is another kettle of fish. One faction believes this; another that. One group says subjective personal feelings and experiences are allowed as evidence in support of a spiritual practice or truth. Another group says only the experiences of approved saints, the Pope, and the Bible are allowed. Evidently Dr. Gilley believes only the Bible (and probably only one translation and his interpretation of it) are the basis for true religion.

The Bible vs the Buddah? Catholicism vs Conservative Protestant Evangelicalism? Science -- and Mindfulness -- simply don't belong in these contentious realms where truth and the paths to it depend on subjective choices and group affiliation, not testable hypotheses.

Update, 4 December 2014 ... The battle between Evangelical Christians and mindfulness continues, though still at a fairly low level. From the Associated Press via the Worcester, Massachusetts News Telegram:

Last year, an elementary school in Ohio ended its mindfulness program after parents complained it was too closely linked to Eastern religion and a conservative Christian law firm unsuccessfully sued on behalf of a couple in Encinitas, California, arguing their school district's yoga classes indoctrinate children. 

Just saying...