Someone I heard somewhere explained our life journey and relationship with God this way...
Monkey Theology
When in danger Momma monkeys expect their babies will hop on their back and cling for dear life. Sometimes with a large brood, a few of the little ones have a very precarious grip even using all 4 of their hands/feet! Getting to safety is entirely dependent on the small baby monkey hanging on with all their might for the duration.
Cat Theology
Momma cats grasp each kitten individually around the back of their neck to get them to safety. Large canine teeth that kill prey can also safely lift the kitten without harm. However, if the kitten struggles, the same canine teeth that safely lifts and transports them can fatally puncture an artery. Getting to safety is entirely dependent on the kitten remaining still and doing nothing.
We experience moments when we feel like we have hopped onto God's back, are hanging on for dear life as He is taking us to a safer place. If we let go, we die.
Then there are times when God has us by the scruff of our neck. We are just hanging there, doing nothing, as He removes us from danger. If we try to help, we die.
Father,
give me strength to hang on
give me peace to remain still
and the wisdom to know which I should do this day
in the name if Jesus I pray
amen
Friday, March 25, 2011
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Apparently "old dogs" CAN learn new tricks!!
This is too good not to quote the whole thing! From the New York TImes...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03adult-t.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
January 3, 2010
ADULT LEARNING | NEUROSCIENCE
How to Train the Aging Brain
By BARBARA STRAUCH
I LOVE reading history, and the shelves in my living room are lined with fat, fact-filled books. There’s “The Hemingses of Monticello,” about the family of Thomas Jefferson’s slave mistress; there’s “House of Cards,” about the fall of Bear Stearns; there’s “Titan,” about John D. Rockefeller Sr.
The problem is, as much as I’ve enjoyed these books, I don’t really remember reading any of them. Certainly I know the main points. But didn’t I, after underlining all those interesting parts, retain anything else? It’s maddening and, sorry to say, not all that unusual for a brain at middle age: I don’t just forget whole books, but movies I just saw, breakfasts I just ate, and the names, oh, the names are awful. Who are you?
Brains in middle age, which, with increased life spans, now stretches from the 40s to late 60s, also get more easily distracted. Start boiling water for pasta, go answer the doorbell and — whoosh — all thoughts of boiling water disappear. Indeed, aging brains, even in the middle years, fall into what’s called the default mode, during which the mind wanders off and begin daydreaming.
Given all this, the question arises, can an old brain learn, and then remember what it learns? Put another way, is this a brain that should be in school?
As it happens, yes. While it’s tempting to focus on the flaws in older brains, that inducement overlooks how capable they’ve become. Over the past several years, scientists have looked deeper into how brains age and confirmed that they continue to develop through and beyond middle age.
Many longheld views, including the one that 40 percent of brain cells are lost, have been overturned. What is stuffed into your head may not have vanished but has simply been squirreled away in the folds of your neurons.
One explanation for how this occurs comes from Deborah M. Burke, a professor of psychology at Pomona College in California. Dr. Burke has done research on “tots,” those tip-of-the-tongue times when you know something but can’t quite call it to mind. Dr. Burke’s research shows that such incidents increase in part because neural connections, which receive, process and transmit information, can weaken with disuse or age.
But she also finds that if you are primed with sounds that are close to those you’re trying to remember — say someone talks about cherry pits as you try to recall Brad Pitt’s name — suddenly the lost name will pop into mind. The similarity in sounds can jump-start a limp brain connection. (It also sometimes works to silently run through the alphabet until landing on the first letter of the wayward word.)
This association often happens automatically, and goes unnoticed. Not long ago I started reading “The Prize,” a history of the oil business. When I got to the part about Rockefeller’s early days as an oil refinery owner, I realized, hey, I already know this from having read “Titan.” The material was still in my head; it just needed a little prodding to emerge.
Recently, researchers have found even more positive news. The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can.
The trick is finding ways to keep brain connections in good condition and to grow more of them.
“The brain is plastic and continues to change, not in getting bigger but allowing for greater complexity and deeper understanding,” says Kathleen Taylor, a professor at St. Mary’s College of California, who has studied ways to teach adults effectively. “As adults we may not always learn quite as fast, but we are set up for this next developmental step.”
Educators say that, for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners should “jiggle their synapses a bit” by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own, says Dr. Taylor, who is 66.
Teaching new facts should not be the focus of adult education, she says. Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up against people and ideas” that are different. In a history class, that might mean reading multiple viewpoints, and then prying open brain networks by reflecting on how what was learned has changed your view of the world.
“There’s a place for information,” Dr. Taylor says. “We need to know stuff. But we need to move beyond that and challenge our perception of the world. If you always hang around with those you agree with and read things that agree with what you already know, you’re not going to wrestle with your established brain connections.”
Such stretching is exactly what scientists say best keeps a brain in tune: get out of the comfort zone to push and nourish your brain. Do anything from learning a foreign language to taking a different route to work.
“As adults we have these well-trodden paths in our synapses,” Dr. Taylor says. “We have to crack the cognitive egg and scramble it up. And if you learn something this way, when you think of it again you’ll have an overlay of complexity you didn’t have before — and help your brain keep developing as well.”
Jack Mezirow, a professor emeritus at Columbia Teachers College, has proposed that adults learn best if presented with what he calls a “disorienting dilemma,” or something that “helps you critically reflect on the assumptions you’ve acquired.”
Dr. Mezirow developed this concept 30 years ago after he studied women who had gone back to school. The women took this bold step only after having many conversations that helped them “challenge their own ingrained perceptions of that time when women could not do what men could do.”
Such new discovery, Dr. Mezirow says, is the “essential thing in adult learning.”
“As adults we have all those brain pathways built up, and we need to look at our insights critically,” he says. “This is the best way for adults to learn. And if we do it, we can remain sharp.”
And so I wonder, was my cognitive egg scrambled by reading that book on Thomas Jefferson? Did I, by exploring the flaws in a man I admire, create a suitably disorienting dilemma? Have I, as a result, shaken up and fed a brain cell or two?
And perhaps it doesn’t matter that I can’t, at times, recall the given name of the slave with whom Jefferson had all those children. After all, I can Google a simple name.
Sally.
Barbara Strauch is The Times’s health editor; her book “The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain” will be published in April.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03adult-t.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
January 3, 2010
ADULT LEARNING | NEUROSCIENCE
How to Train the Aging Brain
By BARBARA STRAUCH
I LOVE reading history, and the shelves in my living room are lined with fat, fact-filled books. There’s “The Hemingses of Monticello,” about the family of Thomas Jefferson’s slave mistress; there’s “House of Cards,” about the fall of Bear Stearns; there’s “Titan,” about John D. Rockefeller Sr.
The problem is, as much as I’ve enjoyed these books, I don’t really remember reading any of them. Certainly I know the main points. But didn’t I, after underlining all those interesting parts, retain anything else? It’s maddening and, sorry to say, not all that unusual for a brain at middle age: I don’t just forget whole books, but movies I just saw, breakfasts I just ate, and the names, oh, the names are awful. Who are you?
Brains in middle age, which, with increased life spans, now stretches from the 40s to late 60s, also get more easily distracted. Start boiling water for pasta, go answer the doorbell and — whoosh — all thoughts of boiling water disappear. Indeed, aging brains, even in the middle years, fall into what’s called the default mode, during which the mind wanders off and begin daydreaming.
Given all this, the question arises, can an old brain learn, and then remember what it learns? Put another way, is this a brain that should be in school?
As it happens, yes. While it’s tempting to focus on the flaws in older brains, that inducement overlooks how capable they’ve become. Over the past several years, scientists have looked deeper into how brains age and confirmed that they continue to develop through and beyond middle age.
Many longheld views, including the one that 40 percent of brain cells are lost, have been overturned. What is stuffed into your head may not have vanished but has simply been squirreled away in the folds of your neurons.
One explanation for how this occurs comes from Deborah M. Burke, a professor of psychology at Pomona College in California. Dr. Burke has done research on “tots,” those tip-of-the-tongue times when you know something but can’t quite call it to mind. Dr. Burke’s research shows that such incidents increase in part because neural connections, which receive, process and transmit information, can weaken with disuse or age.
But she also finds that if you are primed with sounds that are close to those you’re trying to remember — say someone talks about cherry pits as you try to recall Brad Pitt’s name — suddenly the lost name will pop into mind. The similarity in sounds can jump-start a limp brain connection. (It also sometimes works to silently run through the alphabet until landing on the first letter of the wayward word.)
This association often happens automatically, and goes unnoticed. Not long ago I started reading “The Prize,” a history of the oil business. When I got to the part about Rockefeller’s early days as an oil refinery owner, I realized, hey, I already know this from having read “Titan.” The material was still in my head; it just needed a little prodding to emerge.
Recently, researchers have found even more positive news. The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can.
The trick is finding ways to keep brain connections in good condition and to grow more of them.
“The brain is plastic and continues to change, not in getting bigger but allowing for greater complexity and deeper understanding,” says Kathleen Taylor, a professor at St. Mary’s College of California, who has studied ways to teach adults effectively. “As adults we may not always learn quite as fast, but we are set up for this next developmental step.”
Educators say that, for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners should “jiggle their synapses a bit” by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own, says Dr. Taylor, who is 66.
Teaching new facts should not be the focus of adult education, she says. Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up against people and ideas” that are different. In a history class, that might mean reading multiple viewpoints, and then prying open brain networks by reflecting on how what was learned has changed your view of the world.
“There’s a place for information,” Dr. Taylor says. “We need to know stuff. But we need to move beyond that and challenge our perception of the world. If you always hang around with those you agree with and read things that agree with what you already know, you’re not going to wrestle with your established brain connections.”
Such stretching is exactly what scientists say best keeps a brain in tune: get out of the comfort zone to push and nourish your brain. Do anything from learning a foreign language to taking a different route to work.
“As adults we have these well-trodden paths in our synapses,” Dr. Taylor says. “We have to crack the cognitive egg and scramble it up. And if you learn something this way, when you think of it again you’ll have an overlay of complexity you didn’t have before — and help your brain keep developing as well.”
Jack Mezirow, a professor emeritus at Columbia Teachers College, has proposed that adults learn best if presented with what he calls a “disorienting dilemma,” or something that “helps you critically reflect on the assumptions you’ve acquired.”
Dr. Mezirow developed this concept 30 years ago after he studied women who had gone back to school. The women took this bold step only after having many conversations that helped them “challenge their own ingrained perceptions of that time when women could not do what men could do.”
Such new discovery, Dr. Mezirow says, is the “essential thing in adult learning.”
“As adults we have all those brain pathways built up, and we need to look at our insights critically,” he says. “This is the best way for adults to learn. And if we do it, we can remain sharp.”
And so I wonder, was my cognitive egg scrambled by reading that book on Thomas Jefferson? Did I, by exploring the flaws in a man I admire, create a suitably disorienting dilemma? Have I, as a result, shaken up and fed a brain cell or two?
And perhaps it doesn’t matter that I can’t, at times, recall the given name of the slave with whom Jefferson had all those children. After all, I can Google a simple name.
Sally.
Barbara Strauch is The Times’s health editor; her book “The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain” will be published in April.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
What is too old or crazy?
What would we think if Abraham (100 yrs old) and Sarah (99 yrs old) had Isaac today?
A few years ago Tony Randall (the actor) sparked ridicule when he, in his 70s, fathered a child. There was a united chorus of detractors pointing out that Tony wouldn’t be able to play catch with his child or probably see him or her graduate from high school. Tony was perceived as being selfish and egotistical to father a child so late in his life.
More recent reproductive conversations have centered on the dangers of pregnancy for women in their 40s, and the ethics of artificial insemination. Today, conventional wisdom is that a woman in her forties is recklessly endangering herself and her child, unless she has some mitigating circumstance. And we have seen that the conversation turns vicious when if an artificially inseminated woman has eight children at once!!
The REAL question we have but are seldom brave enough to ask is: What do we really think of a God who would expose an centenarian couple to the dangers of a pregnancy?
The strange part of Genesis 17 for me is that both Abe and Sarah laughed at the whole idea. Or version today might be, “Yea, right!” But God was serious. Abe became serious, and believed, and is the poster child for faith that God counts as righteousness. So here are the bottom line questions I have…
Do we even hear God’s voice today? I have to assume God has not lost his voice, and is still speaking. Not everything God has to say is how he plans to build nations of people from “dry bones”. But he is still speaking, isn’t he?
If we hear him, might he be saying something just as “crazy” or “irresponsible” to us as he did to Abe and Sarah? Who are we to say what is or is not crazy? Yes, we have experience and science to go on, but our experience has been filtered and is incomplete, and our science is constantly expanding to include more observation. What was yesterday “crazy” and made us laugh, is today normal making us laugh that anyone would have doubted it. So, we must allow God to be “crazy” from time to time, and know that it will look different tomorrow.
Abe and Sarah initially laughed, but came to believe, and trust, and were righteous! When the baby was born, he was named ISAAC, which means “he laughs” – seems appropriate.
A few years ago Tony Randall (the actor) sparked ridicule when he, in his 70s, fathered a child. There was a united chorus of detractors pointing out that Tony wouldn’t be able to play catch with his child or probably see him or her graduate from high school. Tony was perceived as being selfish and egotistical to father a child so late in his life.
More recent reproductive conversations have centered on the dangers of pregnancy for women in their 40s, and the ethics of artificial insemination. Today, conventional wisdom is that a woman in her forties is recklessly endangering herself and her child, unless she has some mitigating circumstance. And we have seen that the conversation turns vicious when if an artificially inseminated woman has eight children at once!!
The REAL question we have but are seldom brave enough to ask is: What do we really think of a God who would expose an centenarian couple to the dangers of a pregnancy?
The strange part of Genesis 17 for me is that both Abe and Sarah laughed at the whole idea. Or version today might be, “Yea, right!” But God was serious. Abe became serious, and believed, and is the poster child for faith that God counts as righteousness. So here are the bottom line questions I have…
Do we even hear God’s voice today? I have to assume God has not lost his voice, and is still speaking. Not everything God has to say is how he plans to build nations of people from “dry bones”. But he is still speaking, isn’t he?
If we hear him, might he be saying something just as “crazy” or “irresponsible” to us as he did to Abe and Sarah? Who are we to say what is or is not crazy? Yes, we have experience and science to go on, but our experience has been filtered and is incomplete, and our science is constantly expanding to include more observation. What was yesterday “crazy” and made us laugh, is today normal making us laugh that anyone would have doubted it. So, we must allow God to be “crazy” from time to time, and know that it will look different tomorrow.
Abe and Sarah initially laughed, but came to believe, and trust, and were righteous! When the baby was born, he was named ISAAC, which means “he laughs” – seems appropriate.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Needy or Wanty?
An email arrived this morning in which a friend wondered if they had become a needy person. Their musing triggered in me this question:
Why is it that people can be 'needy', but are hardly ever admit to being "wanty"?
It seems fairly obvious, but track with me for a moment.
Needs seem to be more honest, more genuine, and often more urgent. On the other hand, wants seem to be less honest, superfluous, or perhaps even selfish desires.
When basic needs aren't met a person is in a real state of deprivation and often desperation. Legitimate needs can exist on all levels of human existence: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual; although we seem focused on the physical needs most of the time. There is no shame in being needy on these levels. If shame exists, it is on those who could provide relief, but who choose not to or remain unconcerned.
However, sometimes our stated or perceived needs are actually wants in disguise. We humans often confuse needs and wants. We so intensely want something that over time we dress up the want in need-clothing. We come to see the want as a need and we claim to be needy, when in fact we are actually "wanty"
Of course God sees right through the disguise and deception, and answers our misguided or deluded prayer for our wanty-needs the only way he can, with pity and waits patiently for us to awaken from our self-induced deception. He may even proactively attempt to rattle us awake by orchestrating some of those pesky life-lessons we so often appreciate only some time after they cross our paths.
So my prayer this morning is...
Lord, help me to see what you see,
and to discern my needs from my wants.
Lord, help me to want what you want,
and to trust you for all my needs.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Psalm 70.5 (NLT)
Yet I am poor and needy;
come quickly to me, O God.
You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay.
Why is it that people can be 'needy', but are hardly ever admit to being "wanty"?
It seems fairly obvious, but track with me for a moment.
Needs seem to be more honest, more genuine, and often more urgent. On the other hand, wants seem to be less honest, superfluous, or perhaps even selfish desires.
When basic needs aren't met a person is in a real state of deprivation and often desperation. Legitimate needs can exist on all levels of human existence: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual; although we seem focused on the physical needs most of the time. There is no shame in being needy on these levels. If shame exists, it is on those who could provide relief, but who choose not to or remain unconcerned.
However, sometimes our stated or perceived needs are actually wants in disguise. We humans often confuse needs and wants. We so intensely want something that over time we dress up the want in need-clothing. We come to see the want as a need and we claim to be needy, when in fact we are actually "wanty"
Of course God sees right through the disguise and deception, and answers our misguided or deluded prayer for our wanty-needs the only way he can, with pity and waits patiently for us to awaken from our self-induced deception. He may even proactively attempt to rattle us awake by orchestrating some of those pesky life-lessons we so often appreciate only some time after they cross our paths.
So my prayer this morning is...
Lord, help me to see what you see,
and to discern my needs from my wants.
Lord, help me to want what you want,
and to trust you for all my needs.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Psalm 70.5 (NLT)
Yet I am poor and needy;
come quickly to me, O God.
You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Let's talk about Racism.
This 3 minute video entitled "How to Tell People They Sound Racist" is well done and very good advice. It is worth watching more than once.
video link
grace and peace
bob
video link
grace and peace
bob
Monday, February 16, 2009
So what is Emergent and Emerging church
Calvin College has a couple 6 minute videos posted to YouTube that help a person get started with a working understanding of what the Emergent Church is all about. Please, note there is overlap but also a demonstrable difference between an Emergent Church approach and an Emerging Church approach to theology. More on that later. Just remember that the videos mix the two approaches together, so it is a bit confusing. But these snippets are a good place to begin understanding the way some sincere Jesus seekers, preChurched, deChurched or unChurched are thinking about God.
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuY3YlKndSQ
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7klfx4YzEw
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuY3YlKndSQ
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7klfx4YzEw
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Reverse Psychology Actually Works?! Didn't know that.
Church Uses Devil To Rebrand Prayer Channel
TV and radio spots will feature the devil as an "anti-spokesperson"
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 12/3/2008 4:47:00 PM
A campaign debuting Wednesday will use the devil to pitch the rebranding of a New York religous cable service, The Prayer Channel, into NET (New Evangelism Television).
According to a spokesman for LA-based agency Cesario Migliozzi, which is handling the rebranding campaign, TV and radio spots featuring the devil as an "anti-spokesperson" will begin running Dec. 3 and will include MySpace and Facebook pages, a web site www.StopGoodTV.com and NYC bus advertising (the channel is on Time Warner Cable and Cablevision). The spots feature a "vertically challenged" devil trying to warn viewers off the channel.
NET, which is affiliated with the Catholic Archdioses of Brooklyn, programs religious news, lifestyle, entertainment, and kids programming 24/7 to approximately 850,000.
"The Church has used the good vs. evil conflict to promote religion for two centuries,” he added. “In our campaign, the Devil urges viewers to avoid good TV and stick with ‘crappy, pointless, bad television,’ said Ad Agency parnter Michael Migliozzi in announcing the new campaign/ "There is even an online petition fronted by the Devil, in which viewers pledge not to tune into NET."
The Archdiocese's TV arm approved the campaign, according to agency spokesman Ted Faraone.
TV and radio spots will feature the devil as an "anti-spokesperson"
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 12/3/2008 4:47:00 PM
A campaign debuting Wednesday will use the devil to pitch the rebranding of a New York religous cable service, The Prayer Channel, into NET (New Evangelism Television).
According to a spokesman for LA-based agency Cesario Migliozzi, which is handling the rebranding campaign, TV and radio spots featuring the devil as an "anti-spokesperson" will begin running Dec. 3 and will include MySpace and Facebook pages, a web site www.StopGoodTV.com and NYC bus advertising (the channel is on Time Warner Cable and Cablevision). The spots feature a "vertically challenged" devil trying to warn viewers off the channel.
NET, which is affiliated with the Catholic Archdioses of Brooklyn, programs religious news, lifestyle, entertainment, and kids programming 24/7 to approximately 850,000.
"The Church has used the good vs. evil conflict to promote religion for two centuries,” he added. “In our campaign, the Devil urges viewers to avoid good TV and stick with ‘crappy, pointless, bad television,’ said Ad Agency parnter Michael Migliozzi in announcing the new campaign/ "There is even an online petition fronted by the Devil, in which viewers pledge not to tune into NET."
The Archdiocese's TV arm approved the campaign, according to agency spokesman Ted Faraone.
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