When you find the time to pray do you find that your brain starts working overtime and flooding your mind with all the things you’ve got to do and all the people you need to contact, etc.? This month at The Hub we were exploring why that happens, and trying a new practice for helping to calm the brain down, or more correctly, give it something else to do, so we could simply rest in the Lord’s presence.
We started by looking at what exactly is happening in the brain which causes it to spring to life when we sit down to pray. There was only time for a quick summary at The Hub, but if you’re interested in more details take a look at this New Scientist article entitled “The Secret Life of the Brain” – here are a couple of quick quotes:
People have long envisaged the brain as being like a computer on standby, lying dormant until called upon to do a task, such as solving a Sudoku, reading a newspaper, or looking for a face in a crowd. Sokoloff’s experiment provided the first glimpse of a different truth: that the brain enjoys a rich private life.
The brain areas in the network were known and previously studied by researchers. What they hadn’t known before was that they chattered non-stop to one another when the person was unoccupied but quietened down as soon as a task requiring focused attention came along. All of this poses the question – what exactly is the brain up to when we are not doing anything?
Introducing our discussions of the brain I showed some pictures of brains and related stuff, and made mention of a guy who photographically documented the surgery he underwent to remove a brain tumour. I exercised a bit of editorial authority and decided not to show the gruesome photos, but the majority of people seemed genuinely disappointed. You’re all responsible young people, so I’ll put the link here and you can make you’re own choice. Beware: they’re very graphic – only click if you’re not sensitive about such things – you have been warned!
At the end of the devotional time we had the opportunity to practice a technique known as Centring Prayer, which has been practiced by Christians for hundreds of years. Below are the slides which will act as a reminder about how to practice this for yourself:
Please leave a comment below to let me know how you got on with it and whether you’ve tried it again, and what you think of the current series of devotions.
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