Mr. SponsorPants

it says "and" not "or"

 

Apologies for the late posting today. Apparently TypePad is recovering from a DDoS hacking attempt which impacted authors' access to our blogs. (I guess this is a thing now, in the 21st Century.) TypePad is all over it though, and no information was lost or compromised.

 

When I read about -- or someone tells me about -- a "great new study" from X University about some Important Topic my initial reaction is usually something like: "Wow! I'm glad someone is studying that!" followed closely by "Wow! I bet that Study is really long and boring to read!"

Fortunately I can assure you that the link below may reference a Study, but it is neither long nor boring.

Brown University recently completed a study on Mindfulness Meditation, the results of which have been circulating around the news of late. To absolutely no one who studies meditation's surprise, the results add to an already impressive body of concrete, scientific evidence as to its positive effects on a person's health.

The link will take you to a page summarizing the Study, with simple definitions of terms and a few commonly asked questions. Beyond that -- and here is what I was excited to find and share here, and what I will be exploring myself -- are twelve links (including two for phone apps!) that take you to everything from examples to guided exercises.

The 11th Step of Alcoholics Anonymous, "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out" does not include the word "or." It does not say "prayer OR meditation" as if you can opt out of one by choosing the other. Yet I know any number of people who give themselves a pass on actively trying to develop a meditation practice.  I am certainly not perfect on this myself, but hopefully, if you're stuck for whatever reason, some things at the link below will help you either get started or get back on track.

Cheers!

Mr. SponsorPants

 

Mindfulness: Brown University

 

 

 

Prairie Voles

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Professor can be so serious and earnest and buttoned down on occasion that it brings out the absolute worst in me.

I'm sorry, I just can't help myself... sometimes I have to devil him a little.

We were meeting for coffee and he rushed up, breathless to tell me about an article he'd read.

 

The Professor: Mr. SponsorPants! Hello! I think you should read this article. Maybe you could even write about it.

Mr. SponsorPants: Hello and what article and okay.

Prof: It's about a study they did on the effects of alcohol on pair bonding in Prairie Voles.

Mr. SP: Wait. What? The effect of who on what?

Prof: They did a study on the effects of alcohol on Prairie Voles.

Mr. SP: Is this the set up for a joke? "Two Prairie Dogs walk into a bar..."

Prof: Voles.

Mr. SP: Voles?

Prof: Yes, Prairie Voles, not Prairie Dogs.

Mr. SP: Prairie Voles. What the hell is a Vole?

Prof: It's a kind of rodent.

Mr. SP: So it's a prairie rat.

Prof: No. Yes. Sort of. That's not the point. They did this study of the effects of alcohol on Prarie Voles.

Mr. SP: Someone got paid to get Prairie Rats drunk?

Prof: Voles! No. Sort of. Look, do you want to hear about the Study or not?

Mr. SP: I don't know if I want to hear about the Study or not. You brought it up, not me.

Prof: Oh my God! You are... what is going on with you today?

Mr. SP: What? Nothing. I just...

Prof: You should have a warning sign some days.

Mr. SP: I think "Warning Label" would be more appropriate. And don't get into my "Best by" date while we're going down this track, because clearly that is long past.

Prof: Aren't you going to ask me what your Warning Sign would say?

Mr. SP: No. Because obviously you want me to.

Prof: It would say, 'Warning! I come equipped with Character Defects and I'm not Afraid to Use Them!'

Mr. SP: How long have you been waiting to use that on someone?

Prof: Couple weeks. Since I saw it on the internet. So anyway, the reason they did a study on Prarie Voles is because they Pair Bond for Life.

Mr. SP: So somewhere out there on the prairie there are... monogamous rats?

Prof: Yes. But they're not technically rats, although they are in the rodent family.

Mr. SP: Tomato, Tomahto, Rodents, Rats... so these Prairie Ra... Voles. They 'Pair Bond' for life. And some scientist came along and got them drunk and tried to break them up? Wow. Did this scientist have a doctorate?

Prof: What? I don't... why?

Mr. SP: 'cause they should call him Dr. Asshole. That is just mean. Mean science. Did they build them a little bar to get drunk in?

Prof: Don't be ridiculous. It was a study.

Mr. SP: They should have built them a little bar. They could have called it... ready?

Prof: No.

Mr. SP:... come on.

Prof <sighs>: Ok. What could they have called it?

Mr. SP: The Vole Hole.  No! Wait! The Vole in the Wall!

The Professor gamely perseveres.

Prof: So the Study showed...

Mr. SP: Vole Lotta Trouble!

He ignored me.

Prof: The study showed that when you gave alcohol to the Prairie Voles...

Mr. SP: The Vole in One!

Prof: ... the pair bonding started to break down. That some of the bonded voles explored different partners. He concluded that the alcohol interfered with the Pair Bonding and...

Mr. SP: Well, paging Dr. Asshole, that is not the correct result from that study.

Prof: How can you... of course it is! He has all the data...

Mr. SP: That only proves there were no alcoholic voles in the study.

Prof: No alcoholic... what on earth are you talking about?

Mr. SP: Yeah. Because if you gave alcohol to an alcoholic vole, they wouldn't want a different partner.

Prof: No?

Mr. SP: No. They'd have wanted more alcohol.

Prof: ...

Prof: ...

Prof: ...

The Professor begins to chuckle just a little.

Prof: ... You are impossible sometimes -- often, in fact -- but I'll give you that one.

He begins to chuckle a little harder.

Mr. SP: Yay! I win! More coffee?

Prof: Why not.

 

 

 

I don't have to "know" for it to work.

I went for one of my favorite walks.

It takes me past a long row of tall evergreens, planted next to the sidewalk, which slowly curves, following the road, so the trees progress in a graceful arc.

The sidewalk, and thus the trees, are set back some from the road, which carries little traffic, so while it's hardly a walk in the woods, it feels like I get my green fix.  I used to walk this route home from work five days a week, and it was often my favorite part of the day (or evening, depending on the shift).  "Hello, Ladies" I said then -- and again today --  when I pass these trees -- they remind me of Grande Dames -- it is a cliche to use the word "stately" to describe them, but it is too apt not to say it anyway.

Today, as I usually do on this walk, I brushed my hand along some of the needles and then raised my palm to my nose and took a good strong hit of the sap scent.  Mainlining evergreen.  I don't care where you're from or what your associations, there's something about the way that smell hits your olfactory nerve that shouts "Tree!  Alive! Tree!" all the way down to your DNA.

It has been my habit to make this bit of path a walking meditation as well.  The pine smell makes it easy -- it's like a key which unlocks a different way of thinking for a little bit.  Not about God, specifically, but about the connectedness of the natural world.  I think of the trees and then with my eye follow their branches all the way up, consider the sunlight as it comes through the needles, how the light dances a bit more, a hundred tiny peek-a-boos, as the needles move in the breeze -- it's sharper than the mellow green glow you get from other, regular leaves filtering the sun.  Seems fitting, really.

I imagine the trees drinking in the sunlight, the photosynthesis, the release of oxygen, the roots going down into the earth and drinking water from the soil ... typing it out here makes it sound like either a very bad rough draft by Rod McKuen or the intro to some 7th grader's science presentation, but walking, thinking, smelling ... it has a way of shifting my perspective -- pulling the camera up and back for the big long shot from above.

Before the walk today I came across a great article in "New Scientist."  You can read it yourself here, if you like, (it's not very long).  It talks about how people tend to ascribe their own bias to whatever their idea of God is.  (I made myself laugh, thinking about a magazine called "New Scientist" as if it was in response to a publication called "Traditional Scientist" or "Old Scientist" -- and then I started imagining what kind of articles "Old Scientist" would have listed on it's cover:  "Gadget Guide:  Six New Must-Have Sextants!" and "Flint is the new Tinder!" or "Bathysphere Babe: Dr. Millicent Farnsworth - Cutting edge research in the controversial new field of submersibles!  Don't ask her if she's going down!" I think these things and then I make myself laugh and then I realize I am laughing to myself out loud, and might have also said the last couple of things I was thinking out loud... and then I just hope anyone who sees me thinks I have a Bluetooth.)

The book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book) talks about how we can pay for the presumption of assuming we know what God is thinking in all sorts of foolish ways (a rough quote, but the spirit is intact) and counsels us to make sure we include other people's input in our considerations before we decide we know what God is "telling us" to do.  The real trick might be to make sure I'm not just asking people who all think the same way I do -- then we'll all just have an agreement that our Higher Power agrees with us...

The article also mentions that the part of your brain which lights up when you talk to or about a friend is the same part of your brain that lights up when you talk to God.  I like that.

None of the science or brain research troubles me.  When it comes to the Big Question (is there or isn't there) I've let all the doubts in and let them chase me around the room.  I went toe to toe with the fascinating, witty and insightful reasoning of Julia Sweeney's "Letting Go of God" in which Ms. Sweeney -- who had been a lifelong Catholic, and wrote (very funnily -- which is a word but never sounds like it ought to be) about her brother's terminal illness and how her faith sustained her through his passing in "God Said Ha!" -- describes how she no longer believes in God.  She writes a wise and compassionate goodbye to her faith in that piece.  Frankly, I loved it, and the way it made me question.

And I'm okay with all of it.  That, for me, is the beauty and freedom -- and yes, power -- of what Alcoholics Anonymous has given me in the idea that I can make use of spiritual tools -- first to address my drinking and then to help me live -- via a Higher Power as I understand said Higher Power.

That freedom, and hearing people share in meetings about finding their old conceptions no longer suited them and they needed to get a "bigger" God, leaves me plenty of room to consider that what I believe today, while helpful, may not be right tomorrow.  It leaves me with the humility to say, "I don't know everything" which can lead to the wonderful peace of "Oh, I'm never going to know everything!"  And when my human foibles step in to taint the process, and I realize "Oh, that's not a spiritual connection, that's my ego talking on that one bit" I can understand that this does not mean I have to lose my entire concept or connection.  The open mindedness and its attendant humility allows me to chuck the bits that aren't a fit anymore, but not chuck the whole thing because of it.

In embracing that sometimes I may need to change how I think about God, AA reminds me to leave room to remain always open minded on all things spiritual.

Then, ultimately, it doesn't matter which part of my brain lights up when I talk to God, or if humanity as a whole often makes the same mistakes in whatever our belief systems are.

It doesn't matter because I am seeking -- it's a process -- and all of my "oops!" and "I don't know's" and doubts and conclusions and brainstorms and ideas about God are fine for me at each point along the road, because it works for me at that point, but the "as you understand" part keeps me in check from thinking that just because my conception works for me today then that must mean I've got it, I'm finished and I'm right! -- and ipso facto that means others are wrong.  "As I understand" also leaves me room to allow others their understanding -- or lack of.

I walk, I pray, I reflect, my perception changes and I have relief and peace --  the result is my proof for today -- and I will keep seeking and I will remain open minded.

Whatever science discovers is wonderful new information -- sometimes about how humanity approaches religion, which often has nothing to do with my own personal spirituality -- but I can use that information to guard against my ego secretly pulling the strings in my seeking, and to reach for compassion (through understanding) when the belief systems of others seem close minded and a little scary.  Religion has not always treated gently the people who arrive new to AA, and it can leave wounds which make any talk of spirituality offputting -- maybe the more I understand about religion and the brain, the better I can open my heart to people who have a negative association between God and prayer and some organized religions.   

Regardless, science may be right about some things, I may be right about others ... it is the open mind, the "I don't know" which frees me to keep seeking, to consider without threat or fear all new ideas as they come along, and while doing so keep my spiritual equilibrium -- and thus my sobriety -- since I don't have to "know" for it all to work.

 

NPR: Prayer May Reshape Your Brain ... And Your Reality -- which is good, since both of mine are still a work in progress.

If you poke around over on the NPR site there is a fascinating series about prayer, meditation, spirituality and the brain.  In particular, the piece "Prayer May Reshape Your Brain ... And Your Reality" intrigued me.  There is both an article and an excellent audio piece I recommend - 8 minutes and 7 seconds long, if you have the time (for me it got very interesting around the 4:17 mark).

I must confess, though, that what left me irritated with myself was -- and I am chagrined to write it here -- my reaction to some of the study subjects' prayer and meditation routines.  Many of these people pray and/or meditate one to two hours a day, every day*. 

Personally, I have had some pretty profound spiritual experiences -- this whole damn blog came from one, in fact -- but ... one to two hours?  For reals?  To say that I find that daunting is ...

well, actually it's inaccurate.  I don't find it daunting. I find it ... well, the truth is it sounds really, really boring to me. 

Now, I am the kind of man who, when I was drinking and using, could spend literally 8 hours sitting on the same bar stool drinking.  8 hours.

And I suggest to people all the time that if they "turn up the volume" on their spiritual practice they will garner greater results.

Yet my first reaction to setting the bar at, oh, let's say one hour, in prayer and mediation a day is that I'm worried I'll be bored?

Jeeze, that's pretty sad.

But of course, by now AA has ingrained in me certain tools that come easily to hand when faced with a problem that either daunts, or, as in this case, embarrasses me:

I'll pray about it.

No, really.

I don't think I'll be praying for an hour to ask God, the Universe or The Great Whatever to help me to pray for an hour -- but I think that a major addition to my prayer routine now (which, I confess, is pretty solid.  It's not that I don't pray, or meditate every day ... it's just that I'm really ... ummmm ... efficient at it) will be to ask for the willingness and the focus and the desire to spend more time doing so.

And I will let you know here how it goes.

*Unfortunately one of them also sound a little crazy to me, which doesn't help when it comes to keeping an open mind on all things spiritual.  I am, it seems, still a terrible and judgmental man.  Stick with me, though -- I'm working on it.  But really, I might find a personal exchange with someone like that very trying:  "So, how's the coffee here?"  "God told me it was excellent."  "Ooookay."

(And how's that for effed up?  I mock the very things that I've experienced and written about here at Mr. SponsorPants:  Prayer, contact with a God of your understanding, etc.  What terrible pseudo-intellectual superiority do I still labor under?  I'm not sure, but I admit it's occasionally good for a few laughs as I go through my day.  I suppose the real trick is to take the seeking of a contact with God seriously, but not ourselves.  If, on occasion, my "not taking seriously" spills over onto other people ... well ... sorry!  Like I said, working on it.)