Controlling your left brain

If we want to have any control of our constant left-brain resentments and angers, our mental movies and replays, we need to develop skills and confidence through regular practice. Last week I mentioned some of the methods I use, and I have been asked to explain what I do to quieten my left brain and leave room for grace.

I try to fit in at least one 20 minute slot each day - but my choice depends on where I am and how tired I am. For instance if it is 2am and I am trying to get to sleep I use the Jesus prayer - and I use the beads by my bed to give my fingers something to do (I find the physical involvement helps my concentration). 

Here are four simple methods I use - and you can also use - to develop skill in turning your left brain down when you need to for your own peace of mind (literally), or to develop a better relationship with our Creator. And they are just techniques: they work when my faith is strong - but they also work when I doubt or am feeling negative.

I. 

The Jesus prayer (or you could use the rosary, or any repeated brief prayer). 

I first came across the Jesus prayer in J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey (about two kids of a talented but eccentric Catholic family) when I was at St Bede's in the 60's! 

The Jesus prayer is a repeated brief prayer that allows us to deaden our left brain and be open to God. An anonymous Russian Orthodox pilgrim from the nineteenth century uses and explores the prayer in The Way of a Pilgrim. 

The pilgrim's inner journey begins when he becomes obsessed with the words of Paul (I Thessalonians 5:17) to "pray without ceasing." He visits churches and monasteries to try and understand how to follow this clear instruction.

His travels lead him to a starets (a spiritual teacher) who teaches him the Jesus prayer - "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me" - to be repeated all day(!) as the pilgrim walked, until it became part of him and echoed his heartbeat. I have adapted the words to fit my personal experience of Jesus.

2.

Focus on my breathing ... so I can clearly see when my left brain sends in resentments, jealousies, mind movies, re-runs of my day. See "We have two minds" - from an earlier post. 

3.

Centering prayer. 

This form of prayer requires a quiet place (best to be the same place each day). Begin by asking God's help - and then concentrate on your focus word. You need to deliberately empty your mind, and then insert a simple focus word such as "God" or "Love". As left brain thoughts come (and they will!) gently note them, then gently push them away and return to your chosen word.

4.

Use this line from Psalm 46: "Be still and know that I am God". Begin by breaking down this line - and then stay with "Be" for five minutes (or up to 20 minutes). As left brain thoughts come (and they will!) gently note them, then gently push them away and return to just "being" with God - and God "being" with me.

Be still and know that I am God
Be still and know that I am
Be still and know
Be still
Be

There are other ways professional meditators (in the Catholic tradition this includes religious orders such as Trappists and Carmelites) calm their left brains using techniques such as chant and silence. But the four above are simple, and they seem to work for people with complex and demanding lives, and without the support network of a monastery. People like us.

Why bother?

That's the big question. I believe that we are each created deliberately by God - but we are placed in a busy world full of distractions, and we each need to work out ways to find our selves, our purpose, and our relationship with our Creator. These techniques take less than 20 minutes a day, and they work.

Routine

A few weeks ago I retired and in just that small time I have learned a lot about the power of routine.

I have learnt that I need to develop a new daily routine - and if I don't do that, I will drift through days, accomplish very little, and frustrate myself.

I have quite deliberately given up all my old routines, but not yet developed new ones. My body clock no longer gets me up at 5.40 every morning, but because I am now waking when my body has had enough sleep I am awaking at different times. That means my start-up routines are non-existent. 

One routine I have lost over the last month is morning prayer. 

Some years ago I became very interested in the Orthodox Church as an organisation which has held onto more early Christian practices than other Churches. There are things that happen in their liturgies for instance, that I really like. 

One of the things that distinguishes the Orthodox Church is formalised routine prayer for lay people. I picked up that practice, developed it for myself, and still formally pray twice a day.  It is not the Catholic Divine Office, but I can see common ancestry.

Well, I did pray twice a day - but when we lose our routine we lose the regularity in all sorts of things.

And it is important. We are surrounded by influences that tell us we are primarily individuals living in a material world, that MY individual happiness, wealth, security, style and presumptions are really important, and definitely far more important than anyone else's - that I am an island - and that only the things we can see and touch exist.

I do not believe any of that - but everything around me keeps telling me I am wrong. If I am not careful I find myself drifting into grudges, resentments, worries about appearances and comfort, and a primary concern for personal financial security.

One way to keep my feet on the ground is to maintain regular contact with God and the spiritual world, and there are many ways to do that. Three that I use are daily reading, meditation, and morning and evening prayer. Other people use daily Mass, rosary, or social justice and other support groups. 

When I led St Peter's College and Garin College I was regularly told we were very "lucky" as a school. Good things happened for us. That was true and I always agreed when people said that. 

But I smiled too. "Luck" implies that life is random and there is no way to predict what will happen. That just isn't true. Good things happen far more often when people pray for them - and in both schools I know that individuals and small groups of people regularly prayed for the students and staff. I certainly did.

So, as I move into the next phase of my life, I am working to establish new routines. And one that is more important than others is my slot for morning prayer - if only to keep myself truly aware of the presence of God within me, and God's creation all around me.

The mother of Jesus

On Saturday the Catholic Church in New Zealand celebrates the feast day of its patron saint and national day for New Zealand on the great Feast of Mary, the Assumption. Depending on your point of view, that choice of patron was courageously myopic or inspired. The early Church held Mary in very high esteem - but since the Reformation Catholics have often overstated her role or downplayed it, and many do not "get" the Assumption.

Mary was important during Jesus' life, and after his death Mary became even more a touchstone. It was a crazy time: the ruthless Roman authorities found the Christians challenging, and the Jewish leaders found their intensity and refusal to compromise difficult. On top of that, everyone was trying to make sense of what had just happened. Paul was soon speaking authoritatively - but often in seeming contradiction to the understanding of those who had known Jesus. 

People like us were trying to understand the bits of the teachings we might have heard in the light of things we had previously believed - and there was no established church to explain it all or pull it all together.

In that environment there were two solid teachers everyone trusted: James the Just, bishop of Jerusalem and the first leader of the Christians - recorded as the brother of Jesus - and Mary. Sadly for us, both were people-people and pray-ers, rather than writers, and we have just one sermon from James recorded as his letter - and nothing from Mary. But there are many many surviving references to show the high esteem in which they both were held.

Mary's body seems to have disappeared after her death and a tradition grew up that as the one woman in all history chosen to carry the little boy we now know as the Christ, she was such a holy person that God lifted her body to heaven.

We know so little of Mary. 

We know she enjoyed "God's favour". She accepted God's call. She was "full of grace", "blessed", and "the Lord was with" her. Mary was a woman of deep prayer: proclaiming the greatness of God from her "soul" and rejoicing in her "spirit". She is the model of humility. She was there (standing silently) in the difficult times. We can't be sure of much else. 

Perhaps we see her values in the actions of her son: his care for women (particularly those on the margins - indeed all those on the margins), his gentleness, perhaps his anger at hypocrisy and double standards and people treating others badly, his passion for God (and maybe his anger when God was taken for granted or minimised).

Probably because we know so little, many people see in Mary what they want to see. 

• She is the model for contemplatives who need to empty themselves to be able fill themselves with God. 
• Feminist Christians see her strengths and independence.
• Mothers pray for her intercession (she is the one who said "My child, why have you done this to us?" the cry of every loving parent who has been let down). 
• For many religious orders she is the model for their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
• The only saint I can remember invoking as a teacher was Mary - when I had to tell classmates that one of our students had died. I remember the words I used: "let us ask Mary for her prayer and support - if anyone knew the pain of a child dying, it was Mary." I then led them in the Hail Mary.

So the Church in New Zealand chose Mary as our patron, and this particular Marian feast, as our national day. Why? 

For me it is because we too seek God's favour: we are blessed with wonderful people and a land where the Creator's hand is so apparent - we are brimming over with potential! 

As well, we are a humble people. 

We are often stunning when it comes to supporting people in need. We are idealistic, peace-makers and peace-keepers. 

I believe that although we are not a "religious" people, kiwis are a spirit-filled people - idealists constantly searching for beauty and peace and goodness. 

As a people (like all peoples) we fail too often - but Mary's perseverance in the face of difficulties should be a constant reminder that being there, standing solidly with those in pain, refusing to buy into the conventional self-serving values of the world around us is always important - and may be the only thing we can do. 

Finally, the choice of this feast was also a conscious act of hope for our people: after our earthly life, we look to a next life. As the prayer for the feast says: "All-powerful and ever-living God: you raised the sinless Virgin Mary, mother of your Son, body and soul, to the glory of heaven. May we see heaven as our final goal and come to share her glory."

My prayer is that we may each see heaven as our final goal and come to share her glory.

The next step on the journey

Philosophers and psychologists and dramatists have enjoyed breaking our lives down into neat phases or stages - each with a set of characteristics - and each with a major goal we need to accomplish before we can move on successfully.

Certainly when I look back at my life I can see 

• pre-school, at home mostly with my mother, 
• childhood, 
• adolescence, 
• searching for purpose and vocation in young adulthood, 
• maturity, as I focused on the paths to becoming the person I was created to be. (I think maturity started for me the day Suellen and I brought our first child home from the maternity hospital in Ashburton and I realised this tiny boy's life was in my hands!) 
• personal mastery (where I became a very good teacher), 
• contribution (where I learnt to lead other teachers, and learnt to build the sort of community I believed in).

I don't believe that my next stage is "second childishness and mere oblivion" as one of Shakespeare's more cynical characters would have it - but whatever it might be, I am at that stage and beginning to explore it.

I have been very moved by - and grateful for - the many very generous words from parents and teachers and students this week after I announced my need to move on from Garin College. I am really sad to be leaving your wonderfully talented and caring students, your very involved and talented teachers, and you: the most supportive and positive group of parents I have worked with. 

The positivity that characterises our school is something very special, maybe a consequence of the fact that we have been responsible together for creating a new school and have had the opportunity to create the sort of school we really want.

The blessing for me is that parents, students and staff have bought into a vision of a school created to live the values of Jesus: a community school based on love and acceptance, and growth. 

Together we have created and fostered a school that believes that God did, in fact, create each one of us - and that each one of us is therefore unique, with a purpose no-one else has, and gifted to fulfil that purpose (even if we sometimes struggle to recognise our many gifts).

Of course we all lose confidence in that at times, and allow the world to tell us that we are ordinary. But like a great parish, the Garin community remains positive and idealistic and connected, and draws each of us back to the birthright of each member of our God's creation: love, the fullness of life - and the right and responsibility to add our unique contribution to the development of this community, our wider community, and even the whole of creation. 

If each of us leaves our world a slightly better place, we will have fulfilled our purpose - and not one of us knows all the effect of our ripples. That is for God to plan and judge. We just need to acknowledge our right and duty to make the best ripples we can!

So, as I leave leadership at Garin College, I am not leaving our community. I still expect (and am expected) to contribute. I will continue adding to this blog (without the weekly reminder in the newsletter), but I am definitely moving past the need or passion to be a formal leader and hands-on builder. 

I have things I need to do for my own salvation - and so, my happiness. I don't intend to keep those secret and personal: they will be chronicled in these blogs for anyone who cares to read them.

Aren't people wonderful?

Last night I was in the audience for the show-piece concert of our arts festival: Te Wairua o nga Mahi Toi, the Spirit of Creation in the Arts. And once again I was forcefully reminded of the wonderful gifts our students and teachers have been given.

When I think about it, I realise that I should not be surprised. I say often enough that God made us, and that God does not make junk: each one of us is wonderfully gifted. That makes me realise that every school in the country - every school in the world - has an equivalent range of talents available. If the students are given (and take) the opportunity to show them.

So not only was I proud of our students and teachers as I sat there; I was also proud to be a leader in an organisation that sets out to discover and display the gifts God has given each of us. Not every school is able to do that as well.

In some cases, schools focus on bringing out other talents. In some schools the focus is more narrow - on academic success, for instance. The nice thing about the excellence we saw at the concert is that these students are able to have their cake - and eat it! They are able to shine in performance - but their NCEA results also shine!

Earlier this week I was able to use the gifts of our students for something else entirely. Sadly, we had a couple of incidents of students bringing alcohol to school (and just a warning: they usually bring it from home). On the other hand, I was very proud of the way junior and senior students supported a student who had become very ill as a consequence.

To make sure everyone got the message about the risks, we asked a Drugs and Alcohol counsellor to talk to seniors about the dangers of alcohol, and I asked a group of our year 13s to talk to year 9 and 10. And they were great. 

I went to the junior assembly, and their message was not to bring alcohol to school, and that there is no point in protecting your friends and keeping them from getting into trouble if they are seriously damaging themselves. 

A growling at home or a suspension at school are nothing compared to drowning in vomit! Teacher and Ambulance Officer Kylie Beckers then showed students how to put someone into the recovery position if they might vomit. The message was forceful without being emotive or over the top.

The gifts on display that day were responsibility, communication, and compassionate leadership. And it was just great to see our seniors accepting the responsibility without any hesitation. This week I have had reaffirmed that the future of our school and our community is in good hands - the hands of gifted and responsible young adults ready to make their mark in the adult world.

Commitment

Most of us are so busy we jump from one thing that must be done NOW, to the next.

I tick off plenty of achievements - but somehow, when I look back on my week or month, or even when I reflect on my career or my life, I get the feeling that I have been so busy that I have somehow missed my life.

Life seems to be absorbed by doing things.

American writer Wayne Dyer makes a point that means a lot to me: I am a human being, not a human doing. Don't equate your self-worth with how well you do things in life. You aren't what you do. 

As I say, we are all really busy; we have so many things to do - and sometimes, because of that, we miss out on our lives. In our rush to do, we miss out on being - being alive, appreciating the world and people around us, the tastes and smells and textures of seemingly ordinary things around us. We gulp down coffee, wolf down food, scan headlines, glance at the snow-covered mountains, and are satisfied if we can just touch base with people we love and who love us.

Last weekend I was reminded of that very strongly. I was honoured to be asked to sponsor one of our teachers when she was received into the Catholic Church - and this weekend I will be there again for her Confirmation and First Communion.

That really made me think. She clearly appreciates working in a Catholic environment. But the thing that made me think is her next step: making a commitment to be an active part of that Catholic environment, a commitment to find out more about it, a commitment to become one of the standard-setters of Catholic values and expectations.

WOW!

Commitment may be one of the most important things about being human. Maybe the most fully human people are those who purposefully gather data, examine it, and then make a conscious and deliberate decision to act on that, to live their lives based on that. It is this that makes the difference: gathering and sorting information is not the same as taking the next step - committing to change ourselves in the light of our new perception.

I read somewhere recently that 90% of people who are told to change their unhealthy lifestyle or they will die, do not change their lifestyle. Nine out of 10 of us cannot commit even to saving our own lives!

So when we see a person commit to a new way of seeing, a new way of being, we are in awe! And we should be: we are in the presence of one of the most important and defining characteristics of being human. We are in the presence of someone who has taken Jesus at his word: he came to to offer us the "fullness of life". He offers it to each one of us - but not all of us make the commitment to accept a life more full.

Jesus' only pass/fail test

I know we are in the middle of Mahi Toi - and the whole school is immersed in creativity and imagination, but this week I have found myself thinking about some of the ways we put ourselves to the test. 

I love our arts festival. Of course, part of that is my love of imagination and creativity. Part of it is my Catholic educator's heart, delighted to see aspects of our Creator's whole person emerging in all sorts of surprising places. And part of my delight is my teacher's satisfaction watching young people put themselves on the line: testing themselves to see if they can face their fears and stand up in front of their peers and perform - or not.

I have always been a fan of high-stakes assessment - a fan of students preparing for a pass/fail test, sitting the assessment on a particular day at a pre-set time, for a limited number of minutes - and then passing or failing.

There is plenty to learn about ourselves and our gifts from passing or failing, and what we learn is much more important than what we studied. The lessons last a lifetime - and they are often more potent life-lessons than we learn from internal assessment which teaches us more about teamwork, following instructions and perseverance. Nothing wrong with that - but there is something special about an important timed exam with no second chance. 

We will practice that in an academic environment next term, and do it for real in term 4 - but this week we also see it happening with individual students fronting up to an audience and putting their work and talent on the line. Succeeding, but risking failure and ridicule.

Jesus (and I) believe in high-stakes pass/fail assessment - but his truly was life and death. He presented us with only one test.

Jesus' only high stakes assessment, his only pass/fail test for us (with more than feeling ridiculous at stake!) is outlined in Matthew 25, 42-46 where he clearly sets out the criteria for passing and failing.

I was hungry but you would not feed me, thirsty but you would not give me a drink; I was a stranger but you would not welcome me in your homes, naked but you would not clothe me; I was sick and in prison but you would not take care of me.’ 

Then they will answer him, ‘When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and we would not help you?’ 

The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you refused to help one of these least important ones, you refused to help me.’ 

These, then, will be sent off to eternal punishment, but the righteous will go to eternal life.

Fail or pass.

He sets no other assessment that allows failure. That passage is why we keep providing opportunities for us all to grow in awareness of social justice  - and opportunities to make a difference. It is a more important test than any school can offer. It is an assessment we must allow no-one to fail. All that schools can do is create awareness of social justice issues - and build our individual confidence of success when we test ourselves.