Reason Breeds Insanity

Within the past twenty-four hours, I have had the best and worst session of meditation so far. The one last evening was amazing. I settled right into it and felt this warmth subside around my body as if I was being cradled in warm ocean water. I was able to focus on my breathing while letting an entire movie of thoughts unfold without interruption on the screen of my breath. I wonder if I have worked through most of my stress by evening, so I am more able to calm my thoughts and focus on my breathing.

This morning was an entirely different story. I was unable to still my mind at all. There was no silence coming forward until a couple of minutes before the tones interrupted my mediation. I was bogged down in all the chaos that I hadn’t processed the night before, so I couldn’t relax. When I did, though, it was very deep and intense and I saw bright lights at the edges of my periphery and I wanted to follow them. I centered on my breathing and the lights danced around in a calming rhythm. I am not sure if any of this is supposed to happen when you meditate, but it happens to me. And I love it.

Last night I attended the Muncie Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Celebration at Christ Temple. Talk about having church! I had forgotten how much I love that style of Christian celebration, and I think I may have been inspired to write my paper for African-American literature on the use of sermon in the slave narrative. Basically, this qualifies with one of the best worship experiences I have had in a while. Don’t get me wrong, I love my church and its worship team, but there is a certain lack of restraint when it comes to praising Jesus that is present in the Black community that isn’t present in our lily-white one. I think I mean that once a people group has been persecuted, there is more to live for, more to praise for, and less to hold back from. There is an unabashed love of Jesus that is unique to the Black community. Like one of the choir directors said: “The devil nearly took my life, he tried to take my mind, he came for my husband and my kids!” And the choir answered: “Take back!” I think I want to say that even when the devil comes to steal, we can take it back and not have our joy stolen from us in the process.

I worry about the stuff with my grandma, but I am not about to have my joy stolen by worry. I know that as a family, and with God’s help, we will make it through! God didn’t bring us this far in order to drop us off by the side of the road. Take back!

I guess I should clarify my statement yesterday about not believing in hell, since I wrote a lot about the devil today. I don’t believe that hell is a place that immortal souls are cast in order to make them suffer for eternity for sins they committed on earth. I think of it more as Sheol, where we go to rest until Christ returns. I do believe there is an adversary, Satan, who is real and present throughout Scripture, but I don’t think his job is to torture us with hellfire and damnation for all of eternity. I believe in grace. As a colleague of mine said the other night: It doesn’t even make sense. Why would the guy who hates Jesus torture you for eternity for also turning away from Jesus? So essentially, we are to believe that the Devil tortures the people who are on his side? Seems a little like nonsense.

I think he has a very excellent point. I think of the Devil as more of real-live presence who is our adversary in daily life, who pursues us in order to cloud our correct judgment. This Adversary is what makes us do things like bomb innocent people, keep money that we could give to the poor, make decisions that screw little old ladies who worked hard all their lives. The Adversary is the impetus behind our ill treatment of each other and our constant desire to outdo each other. So, while I don’t believe in hell in the sense that I am afraid I might one day go there for eternity, I do believe that Satan is real and scary and at work. Think of it as the feeling you get when you say you have the willies or the heeby-jeebies or something. You know that slimy, cold feeling you can’t shake.

Today while meditating, I think I stumbled on a truth about myself: It takes me a long time to settle down. Part of this style of meditation is learning to settle on your breathing while letting your thoughts roll along behind them. Dr. Wolfe used the analogy of driving. When we drive we pay attention to driving the car, but we have conversations and we think about other things. Our attention remains on our driving no matter how invested we are in those conversations. Last night, and again this morning, I realized that my attention can remain on my breathing while I am thinking about other things and it takes me this place somewhere between being awake and feeling asleep. Strange noises startle me there, but my thoughts seem clear and concise. They seem like they are running on a projection screen. Dr. Wolfe compared it to a movie theater where the image is being projected onto the front of the screen, but it seems to me to feel more like one of those backlit projections where the image shows through the screen. I say this because when you project something from the front, if someone walks in front of the screen you see a shadow rather than the image. If you project it form the back of the screen, if someone walks in front of the screen you get a clear picture of them and the movie. It is like they are moving together and you can see them both, but you aren’t distracted and no part of either image is compromised. Call me crazy, but that is how meditation is. I can tune in to my breathing like a backlit movie, but the other thoughts can walk in front of the screen without compromising the image of the breathing or casting a shadow on that image. My problem with this then? I get to this point at the very end of the time right before the chime sounds to signal the end of the meditation. I am sure it takes practice to make this happen earlier, and I am willing to wait.

I have noticed one almost instant benefit of meditating: I find that I can concentrate better in interpersonal communication. I usually have a hard time focusing on what people are saying without letting my mind wonder, but today when I had coffee with Amber, I was very real and present with her in a way that I haven’t been with people in a long time. I feel like it is tempering my moods (the highs and lows of it all) for which I am sure Becky will be grateful. For many reasons, I feel like I am tuning in to myself and the earth. If you have ever been in the woods and felt like the trees were speaking to you, that is how I feel. It isn’t just meditating.

I am at a place in my spiritual development where I feel like I can release some more of those constraints. I mean being hemmed in by regulations. I am at a place where I can say that I think there is more to spirituality than can be contained in what we consider as Christians to be holy writ. I have known this for a long time, and I could say it for a while, but to really feel like it is okay to express it out loud and to admit that I am not scared of going to hell because I don’t really even think it exists. That is new. I am okay with the idea that God may reuse my soul. I am fine with thinking that my dead body could decompose to feed a tree or a worm. I am okay with not knowing or pretending to know what happens next.

Dave talked Sunday about simplicity. Why DO we make things so much more difficult than they need to be?

Part of trying to become a professional and part of attempting to carve a place in academia is giving papers at conferences, but I must say that one should write the paper before being accepted to a conference. You see, I have been accepted to our own local conference PCM, and it is in three weeks, but I haven’t written the paper for it yet. I also haven’t even started my stuff for PCA, and I need to find somewhere that has Inside Brookhaven Obesity Clinic on video. I can find most of the episodes on YouTube, but I am not sure if that is the appropriate means through which to show video clips at a conference. I guess I will take my chances. Maybe if I write to TLC and ask for copies of the first season they will send them to me? I am not sure. So all that said, I have to do my presentations for Will’s class and for Pat’s class soon, as well. I suppose I’ll spend all afternoon doing that.

Meditation, I think as my friend Myra’s son, Phil, might say may be the key to all of this. I have only done it four times, and already I feel calmer and more well adjusted. When I meditate, I feel this warm sensation come over me; my body literally gets hot enough, so that were my hands were resting on my legs is hot to the touch. I am not sure that is the physiological response that one is supposed to have when meditating, and actually, I think it may be the exact opposite of the one I should be having since most of my friends got cooler.

One more reason to love my pastor. He is filled with compassion.