Before church this morning, I participate in a daily morning ritual with my daughters: I detangle their hair.
This is not fun ever. We employ various products, special brushes, and gentle mother-strokes to get their hair orderly and smooth. They used to cry and shout about this. Now, they resign themselves to it, clenching their jaws, staring stoic into the mirror to endure the process.
As I'm brushing and comforting, I wonder about this process. Tangle, as a verb, means to mix together in a confused mass. The verb actually approximates "confuse" more than any other verb. Confusion refers to "the state of being mixed or blended so as to produce indistinctness or error; indistinct combination; disorder; tumult."
As I think more about tangles and confusion, I think about my own mind. If confusion results from blending what shouldn't be blended--of mixing up what doesn't go together--then something about peace, order, and enlightenment involves separating out parts.
In the past, confusion always resulted when my emotions disagreed with the truth of what should be or should happen. My feelings clouded a topic, tangled up the truth of a situation, and made a mess in my head. I had to part my feelings from what was actually true.
Working to separate tangles reminds me to do the work of parting my emotions from the truth regarding a situation. Just because it's appealing to my emotions doesn't mean this or that action is right. And just because I don't want to do something or it's painful doesn't mean it's wrong.
As we leave for church, I'm thankful for a truth outside of my own perceptions and my own feelings. I read the Bible and learn the commands of God because they tell me what is true and right about my life and my interactions with others. I can make decisions, plan a course, leave a situation, or enter a new one based on ancient (but so current) wisdom.
It's the ultimate detangler.
Showing posts with label mind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mind. Show all posts
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
The Throw Back
There you are, eating a burrito or picking at a hangnail, and all of a sudden, it happens: You have a thought.
I wonder about this. I read recently, in a Richard Selzer account, that "a surgeon knows the landscape of the brain but does not know how a thought is made." Does anyone? Does anyone know how a thought begins? It's a mystery to scientists.
Today, as I was drinking coffee and watching sunlight filter through the potted tulips, I had a thought. I wondered what great thing I might do in my life. It was a nanosecond of a thought.
I closed my eyes and thought about the great people I know. I concluded that every great person I know has sacrificed deeply. They live for a mission that’s bigger than their own comfort. As I sat there (very comfortably) on my couch with my just-right coffee, I wondered if I could rise to the challenge of mission. What would it take? And why do people do this? Why some and not others?
I sat there, reflecting on a life's purpose. What does it mean to reflect? Is it useful? Reflection means to pause in the day and contemplate what I’m doing and what it means. A reflection literally is a light or sound wave being thrown back from a surface. I want to let things I observe and experience be “thrown back” in my face; I want to consider them deeply and fit them into the narrative of my life.
If a reflection is a “throwing back” of light, I wonder what I throw back to people when they observe me. What do I reflect, what do I teach?
My moment of reflection stirred something up in me. But I almost lost that thought in the rush of life. I could have ignored it altogether. (I mean, even at this very moment I'm thinking about 20 other things including but not limited to: how to manage the ladybug infestation in my house, how many calories are in a serving of ham, or why all the kids like that Iyaz "Replay" song). That greatness thought, like some shooting star across a dim sky, was barely there, embedded in the mush of neurons. I just had to figure out a way to hold it in place, let it do its work, and honor it today.
I want to be more reflective. I want to teach my children to develop curious, reflective minds. I want to be able to ask them, each day, what they wondered about. (I'm not sure how to guarantee this. I briefly considered sending the children to their room to meta-cognate before lunch.)
Living with flair means I let my experiences "throw back" something to me.
I wonder about this. I read recently, in a Richard Selzer account, that "a surgeon knows the landscape of the brain but does not know how a thought is made." Does anyone? Does anyone know how a thought begins? It's a mystery to scientists.
Today, as I was drinking coffee and watching sunlight filter through the potted tulips, I had a thought. I wondered what great thing I might do in my life. It was a nanosecond of a thought.
I closed my eyes and thought about the great people I know. I concluded that every great person I know has sacrificed deeply. They live for a mission that’s bigger than their own comfort. As I sat there (very comfortably) on my couch with my just-right coffee, I wondered if I could rise to the challenge of mission. What would it take? And why do people do this? Why some and not others?
I sat there, reflecting on a life's purpose. What does it mean to reflect? Is it useful? Reflection means to pause in the day and contemplate what I’m doing and what it means. A reflection literally is a light or sound wave being thrown back from a surface. I want to let things I observe and experience be “thrown back” in my face; I want to consider them deeply and fit them into the narrative of my life.
If a reflection is a “throwing back” of light, I wonder what I throw back to people when they observe me. What do I reflect, what do I teach?
My moment of reflection stirred something up in me. But I almost lost that thought in the rush of life. I could have ignored it altogether. (I mean, even at this very moment I'm thinking about 20 other things including but not limited to: how to manage the ladybug infestation in my house, how many calories are in a serving of ham, or why all the kids like that Iyaz "Replay" song). That greatness thought, like some shooting star across a dim sky, was barely there, embedded in the mush of neurons. I just had to figure out a way to hold it in place, let it do its work, and honor it today.
I want to be more reflective. I want to teach my children to develop curious, reflective minds. I want to be able to ask them, each day, what they wondered about. (I'm not sure how to guarantee this. I briefly considered sending the children to their room to meta-cognate before lunch.)
Living with flair means I let my experiences "throw back" something to me.
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