How the City Hurts Your Brain

I haven't blogged yet this year - still numb from all the Christmas festivities & food perhaps. I came across an article in the Boston Globe on How the City Hurts Your Brain that I thought was worth exploring & posting. Here's excerpt:

Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.

The article goes on to note that humans were designed to interact with nature and that even simply seeing trees helps patients in hospitals recover faster - providing a mental break from a harsh urban environment. Here's another tidbit I found interesting,

This research is also leading some scientists to dabble in urban design, as they look for ways to make the metropolis less damaging to the brain. The good news is that even slight alterations, such as planting more trees in the inner city or creating urban parks with a greater variety of plants, can significantly reduce the negative side effects of city life. The mind needs nature, and even a little bit can be a big help.

I'm about to take a group of students on a mission trip to inner-city Winnipeg and I've noticed that there is only so and so much I can take of living there. In part - it is the chaos of organizing & transporting people to different areas of the city that drains me but I'm used to being near nature. Even though I live in a small city - my backdoor literally exists into a park area.

I also have found that spending time at our parents cottage in the Whiteshell provides me with an outlet for stress & consistently is the best environment for me to actually relax. During my graduate studies - I skied every evening after completing research for a paper and I found it was the only way to shut my brain down effectively.

This article is a reminder for my need for interaction with nature in order to better balance my life and I urge everyone to take advantage of your escapes to God's Creation! Shalom!

Calm Before the Storm

The last week of August is approaching and I have to admit being somewhat apprehensive. I'm looking forward to teaching in September but there is a ALOT of prep still be done for this year to run smoothly. I have three syllabi to tweak further and an e-blast to send regarding a youth event, my travel plans semi-confirmed to a conference later in November, my outdoor education out-trips planned out & confirmed, etc. Hopefully will find some shalom in this all, some calm in the chaos.

Shalom

Do you ever just marvel at how wonderful your life really is? How perfect things really are? We don't take enough time to reflect on what we have to celebrate do we? Part of the problem is that our lives move way too fast. The classic 'too much to do in too little time' mantra that our planet revolves on. Gravity - it seems we've forgotten your pull and flown off to this place called busyness or successfulness or simply stuck in a daze of numbness.

Imagine what it would be like to slow down and to actually stop to contemplate it all? For most of us that is a scary proposition. What might we discover? It means we actually would spend the time to look into the mirror of our souls - what image would reflect back? Sure we glance to see if our hair is in place and that our buttons are done up properly but rarely do we examine our hearts or our lives for truth, purpose, or meaning. Unfortunately, we often only realize what really is important when we experience some sort of tragedy or loss.

Thankfully, I'm experiencing the opposite. New life, new adventure and new possibilities. There is nothing quite like the smell of such things - intoxicating, invigorating, it is all indescribable really. This musing in many ways is a futile attempt.

Music has always connected with me on a spiritual level. It seems most of my conversations with God are woven in some sort of a soundtrack. The 80's proclaimed "the futures so bright I gotta wear shades!" The 90's woke up with grunge-full remorse yelling "the world is a vampire - sent to drain" and wallowing in the reality of "despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage." Now here we are in the 00's confused and not sure what lyric to sing? We seem stuck in the 60's, 70's, 80's & 90's all at once - schizophrenically in sync with this place called vertigo - "it's everything I wish I didn't know!"

But right here, right now, in this place that I am - all is right, all is as it should be, all is what I dreamt of and much, much more. It is a delight to be surprised by a reality that oddly doesn't seem quite real. A "through-the-looking-glass and down-the-rabbit-hole" kind of twilight zone. When a kiss is more than a kiss, an embrace warmer than it should be, when eyes explode with lights & colour, when the pulse quickens into drums more passionate than war, when lungs experience pure oxygen after a rush up from a deep dive near the ocean's bottom, when you run out of words to describe whatever it was you were hoping for...

Imagine such a Shalom!

Escape to Play

Every now and then everyone needs to run away. I mean escape from the pressures of normal life and dive into something new, foreign, or out ones' comfort zone. I think that's why holidays bring renewed energy - we were meant to experience a full life and not get stuck in the rut of doing the same old same old. Well right now as I type this - I'm in Costa Rica with my lovely wife Wendy celebrating our ten year anniversary - how's that for an escape! We spent the morning and early afternoon on whitewater enjoying the sights of the jungle along the banks of a beautifully blue river of rapids. Shalom in the midst of the chaos of crashing waves. I don't think I've been this relaxed in a long time. No due dates, no papers to mark, and I can read fiction books instead of academic ones. Okay, I admit the squawking parakeets that flew over at 7am this morning will a little annoying but all in all - day one & two have been an amazing escape to play, to rest, to renewal! I'll be in touch - tomorrow we escape to a volcano!

In Search of Sacred Places

I am the midst of preparing a reading that I will be presenting on a college retreat this weekend. That's right on top of lecture prep, teaching, and marking I get to do some public speaking. I've decided to explore the idea of pilgrimage and linking it to the pursuit of Shalom. It is a concept that I've explored somewhat in preparing for a course I teach entitled Interpersonal Processes.

A pilgrimage for those not enlightened can be describe as a physical journey to a spiritual destination. Daniel Taylor in his book In Search of Sacred Places says, "the act of going is itself a vote for the possibility of meaning. It accepts risk - the risk of coming to harm, of being a fool, of wasting time and money and energy - for the mere possibility of a highly intangible reward." Taylor's journeys took him to the mystical islands (such as Iona) that Celtic monks used as spiritual retreats.

The second concept I hope to merge with the first is the idea of Shalom. Shalom is a Hebrew word most commonly translated as "peace." However it has much richer nuances including the concepts of justice, prosperity, and reconciliation. Walter Brueggemann wrote: "The central vision of world history in the Bible is that all of creation is one, every creature in community with every other, living in harmony and security to the joy and well being of every other creature...Shalom is the substance of the biblical vision of one community embracing all creation."

We seek Shalom because we live in a world of broken relationships. In a sense we all should be on some sort of pilgrimage for peace, a journey that looks towards restoring that which is broken. Is it mere trinkets that we work our lives away for? I hope not - I hope the riches we strive for are found in family and friends.

I've travelled much over my thirty plus years of existence and each trip has taught me much about myself. But it also has taught me much about others, about culture, and ultimately about my understanding of God and His Creation. What have you learned on your journeys thus far? Are they worthy enough to be called pilgrimages of self-discovery? The pursuit of shalom seems to be at times impossible, much like Frodo and his companions' journey (see LOTR) to Mordor to bring healing to a broken land.

G