Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. -- Psalm 119:105
Recent developments in neuroscience have allowed researchers to get totally new views into the structure and function of the human brain. They've learned many new and exciting things about how amazing God is in forming us. For example, that the number of neurons (nerve cells) in the brain outnumber the stars in the universe. That repeated or habitual ways of thinking create neural routes or pathways in the brain such that the same initiating thought ends up in the same place, tripping the same almost automatic physical and emotional responses; that these pathways can be changed and re-routed with work of will and taking charge of our thoughts. We are not helpless victims to how our brains work or to aging. All can be changed.
This is good news indeed. To change attitudes, sinful patterns, difficult relationships, and even our abilities to accomplish great and glorious deeds all are significantly possible by taking charge of our wants, desires, thinking, and perspectives. The realities about our lives that we've assumed were set in stone can be changed. What better way to take control of this new found power than to use the Word of God as our template to new neural pathways that re-route us around problematic thinking/attitudes and into wholeness living with Christ under girding us every step of the way?
One of the most powerful ways this new information from science can help us is in our prayer life. No other single place in our life can have a greater impact than spending time re-routing our stressed, worried, over-worked lives than through time spent praying and meditating on God's will for us. God's will is a lamp to our feet and a (stronger, new, better) light to my (brain's) path.
Staying on the Path with Christ,
Dr. Mark
"About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning The Way." -- Acts 19:23
Over the past few days "no little disturbance" has arisen on Facebook over Starbucks' release of their very plain red paper holiday cups. A one-person cry of blasphemy toward Christmas, and by extension Christians, has managed to morph into a near rebellion with even one leading Republican candidate to suggest boycotting Starbucks for not including a "Merry Christmas" message on their cups.
This struck me as not altogether unlike the disturbance told in the later part of Acts 19 only in reverse. According to the story in Acts, the popularity and spread of the Christian Way through the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor is starting to pinch some businesses. The silversmith's union in Ephesus was up in arms over the new number of Christian converts who were not buying statues for the goddess Artemis anymore. A large gathering was threatening Paul's life and riot in the streets. The town clerk stands up and basically says, "They aren't doing anything illegal so disperse."
In 21st century America, it seems we've come full circle such that over-sensitive Christians feel offended by a business simply including a free cup with their coffee. The ridiculousness of this claimed insult has bypassed all rationality, and seriously damages public perceptions of the Christian Way that the Apostle Paul taught us. Why is there such a powerful siege mentality among a loud, significant minority of Christians? One video online this morning showed a "Christian" so offended by a paper coffee cup that he rebelliously waved his handgun while ranting about Starbucks encroaching on his rights. Seriously? I don't get it.
From the beginning of the Church, legitimate Christians secure in their salvation have never raised alarms or weapons over the very real persecutions they endured. "Blessed are you when people revile and persecute you... your reward is great in heaven," --Matthew 5:11. American "Christians," who will be whining all through this entire holiday season about the "oppression of Christianity," need a reality check. Their sickening sense of entitlement and privilege being used to whine over their "persecuted status" is an egregious insult to those brave Christians throughout Church history who did endure gladiators, torture, imprisonment, and death for their faith.
Please take your guns, your cameras, your computers, phones, and vitriol and just quietly pray somewhere. If your faith feels threatened, then do something constructive for the rest of Christiandom -- find someone who needs a loving hand and the True Word of our Lord's hope and grace.
Lord, forgive them for they know know what they do. Amen.
Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Christ who loved us. -- Romans 8:35, 37
There were 21 Egyptian Christian men murdered last week by ISIS in Libya. First, I want to honor them by listing their names here. More important than these fallen ones (who are now with Christ) are their families, who are still among the living, grieving their absence from their lives. Even though the news cycle has moved on and these eleven men are passing out of our awareness, let us remember their families in prayer as they still smart from the loss.
Richard Rohr begins a talk about "How Men Change" by listing the hundreds of thousands of war dead since 1990 and comments, "When one person dies, those who knew him or her feel the tragedy; when thousands die it's a statistic and we have trouble relating. We simply can't get our heads around it." Some of Rohr's stated figures included, 2 million dead in Afghanistan, 1.5 million in the Sudan, 500,000 in Angola, 200,000 in Guatemala, 150,000 in Liberia, 77,000 in Algeria, and 880,000 in Rawanda (in 90 days).
Violence pretty effectively generates more violence in it's wake. Egypt's response to the ISIS murders was to bomb ISIS bases. Many "defense experts" feel military retaliation is a necessary response. A State Department spokesperson, Marie Harf, got soundly criticized for making the statement, "We can not kill our way out of this war." She was suggesting that there were socio-economic reasons for violence being perpetuated. Why the resistance to talking about the socio-economic changes needed? Because such change would shake the foundations of the wealthy, who ultimately benefit from the cycles of violence.
All Christians should spend time in prayer and study during Lent pondering all the structures that support and maintain violence -- from racism, classism, and sexism to a world that bases individual identity on possessions and consumption of the world's resources. We say we worship the Holy Trinity and yet, when famine, fire, sword or other lesser threats challenge our lives we resort to defensive strategies that protect me and mine by destroying you and yours. Rhetoric and actions that wave a flag and declare war violates the victory we already know through Christ. In addition, hatred, hostility, and revenge pumps more massive negativity into the world emotionally and energetically. The cycle needs to be broken and belief in Christ along with the New Testament provides a strategic plan for doing this. The Pauline Letters, and in particular the 4th chapter of Philippians summarizes sound Christian advice on transforming the negative downward spirals in our private emotional lives, as well as in our collective global life.
