Hopeful Thinking

My daughter’s favorite expression is “thoughts become things.” It’s a quippy, simplified way of saying that thought precedes all action, but in ways which hint that more is occurring than the typical cause-and-effect scenario as we understand it. It has a bit of mysticism to it. In the most basic and understandable way, first we think of something before we can do it. We mull it over in our heads, we contemplate. We envision. Typically, this envisioning process helps us work out a few kinks before we more fully invest in our ideas. A lot of times we think about things first so that we can get used to the idea of them. Something I often find myself both talking and writing about is the physics of prayer. I’m always careful when using words like “prayer” because people have very strong feelings about the word. People feel conclusively that they know what it means to pray. Depending on your faith, or lack of it, you yourself already have a preconceived idea about the nature, practicalit...

It’s a points system really. Sometimes we are carrying around a lot of points against us. Sometimes we arrive into stressful situations carrying the baggage of one or more already stressful situations in our lives. How many points are you carrying around right now?  We love to worry like it’s our job. We feel we’re being productive with our downtime if we are gnashing our brains over something. How many things are you worrying about right now? We justify that we are giving our concerns ample consideration and prayer if we maintain sufficient angst over them.  I have news for you. That’s a lie our biology is telling us in order to preserve itself. Not that preserving our biology is a bad thing, of course. Our biology is essential to life. But, its base instincts do have their shortcomings in the modern world.  Our brains are wired for immediate gratification, not future planning. It’s the difference between what’s called an immediate-return environment and a de...

Tomorrow is Easter. A time for recognizing the phenomenon of resurrection. For not all that appears to be dead, truly is. Unless, of course, the particular kind of death of which we speak is less about the cessation of life than it is a death of the old self. The death of our former way of doing things. Is that life new? Ultimately, rebirth is a word we use to describe something or someone that was once something else, but then, suddenly and forever, changed. Oftentimes, the choice to make a change in our lives comes as a result of having experienced great hardship. They say there are no atheists in foxholes. We often turn to a hope in the existence of a higher power in times of extreme stress. But is that the only way to start over? Must we experience trauma in order to be reborn? Ot rebooted? And what does being “reborn” even mean? At this time on the wheel of the year we witness the rebirth and resurrection of the land. Since every molecule of our bodies came from that s...

A thought regularly occurs to me that a cell often mutates to its advantage when forced by outside circumstances. If I understand it correctly, mutations occur when life is exposed to a drastic change of situation. Right down to the cellular level we adapt to adversity through the act of mutation. I’m sure it will please many fans of the Marvel Universe to know we are all to become mutants now. They say a kick in the ass is good for the soul. Let’s see what attributes we can add to the complement of our souls right now. The reason we go to church, the reason we follow spiritual teachings or good advice of any kind, is so that we know what to do when faced with a crisis. So that we know how to act. How to make our choices when fear is speaking much more loudly than normal. In church, or while sitting and listening to spiritual teachers, while we are calm, and relaxed, we are methodically taught principles of ethical and humane standards of behavior so that we know exactly wh...