my day

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My Brain Has A Mind of its Own

My last blog got me thinking more about how my brain works. I’m not professing to know much about the brain (like a neurosurgeon, psychiatrist or some other scientist who has studied the brain), but I do have one, and over time I’ve kind of noticed how mine works.

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What got me thinking about this was composing my last blog about how distracted I was writing my sermon (check out my blog, “So . . . I’m easily Distracted”).

I started thinking about how hard it was for me to focus on my work, or what I wanted or needed to be concentrating on.

It dawned on me that my brain wants to take the easiest path possible.

So whatever stimulates my brain, that’s where my brain wants to go. If I see something, my brain goes there. If I hear something, my brain is attracted to that. It works the same with smell and touch but not with as much tensity (for me, anyway).

I can be in the middle of a conversation with someone and then see something out of the corner of my eye. My attention is drawn to that thing, and I’ve lost my focus on what I was talking about.

I can be thinking or doing something, but if I hear music, immediately the lyrics to the song flood my mind and I start singing. For me, someone can just say a word and that will trigger a song in my head!

On good days, when I’m well-rested and determined, I can discipline my brain to stay on task for a while. But the longer I have to intently concentrate, the harder it is.

Over the years, I’ve learned to do a few things to help. I study in the mornings – the earlier the better for me. I focus better at that time because I’m less stimulated by other things, my mind is more alert, and there are less distractions.

Another thing I do is write while I think. For instance, when I pray I often write (type) what I am praying because then my eyes are drawn to the same thing that I’m thinking about and I stay focussed.

I’ve even used the “pomodoros” to set short, 25 minute focussed bursts to work, and then take a short break. I know most of you are looking up the word “pomodoro” to see if a tomato sauce has some time management qualities to it. Just google “pomodoro technique”; it’s named after a kitchen timer.

The bottom line for me is that I have a poorly disciplined brain. If my brain was a child I would discipline it, like have it sit in the corner for a time out. But my brain is over 50 years old; it’s been freewheeling for a long time!

I guess I’ve just gotten used to how it works and made some adjustments to coerce it to do what I want it to do. But still, it’s an unruly little fella.

Here’s the thing: Following Christ is not natural for us. What’s natural is to follow what feels good to us. Unfortunately, that will often cause us to go in the opposite direction that Christ would have us go. If we are going to follow Christ, we need to employ methods and discipline to coerce our nature to go in the direction Christ is leading.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you do to stay focussed? Leave your comment below.

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Late Again!

Estimating one’s time of arrival to a pre-planned destination is not always easy. It takes great skill, insight and determination … and I’m not talking about being on time to pick up wings from your favourite take-out place.

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I know that my wing joint is five minutes from my house; they tell me my order will be ready in ten minutes. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I better get myself together right away and leave the house in five minutes to get my wings on time.

No, what I’m talking about is figuring out when I will arrive to a place that’s out-of-town  with packing involved … like the other day, when I left our cottage and planned on stopping by our daughter’s place in Richmond Hill on the way home.

My wife is a very poor time estimator and I found out that I’m not much better. I texted my daughter that I would be at her place by noon on Saturday – that gave me all Friday evening to pack up and be ready to go in the morning.

I knew what time I needed to leave – the trouble was actually leaving when I knew I needed to!

I packed most of my things the night before. I even got everything lined up at the door so I wouldn’t have any problems. Well . . . in the morning, I did have problems.

I got up on time, but I kind of lost track of the time as I did my devotions. They ran a little long. I wasn’t worried though. I was packed and still had lots of time. But I also needed to post a blog and write a new one.

Posting the blog was easy; I was all ready for it and got it off in record time. Writing a new one was a different story. Maybe I felt under pressure, but it took way too long to write.

About half way through writing the blog I realized if I didn’t get moving I’d miss my 9 am departure to be on time. I started to think of ways I could beat the time. I reasoned that I could leave at 9:30 and still get there on time. After all, I had given myself a little extra time in my first estimation.

So I kept writing. By the time I was finished, I realized I wasn’t even going to make my 9:30 exit from the cottage. Now I had to go into “hurry” mode.

I still had too many little things that had to be done. I was in a rush to shower, eat breakfast, wash dishes, clean out the fridge, vacuum, and complete the shut down routine of the cottage.

By the time I was in the car, and driving out, I was two hours later than my projected time of 9:00 am. So what else could I do? I had to speed . . .

And that’s the subject of another blog.

Here’s the thing: I know what I could have done to be ready on time. I needed a better assessment of what I actually had to do and the time it would take. When I promise the Lord I will do something, I need to take a thorough consideration of what that will involve and then plan for it accordingly, so that I keep my promise to Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you do to make sure you leave for your destination on time? Leave your comment below.

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All Work and No Play!

What a week – maybe the best week of the summer! What could be better than to experience it all at the cottage? The sun, the sand, the waves – what could be better than that?

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Well, not much if I hadn’t been stuck INSIDE that cottage all week doing my yearly planning. I take a week there every August to pray, plan and seek God’s direction for my church for the coming year.

So while every day was a picture of niceness, I was slaving away inside or on the porch, reading, praying or hunched over a computer.

It was so nice – even unseasonably warm at night. After our vacation of cool temperatures and rain, this week really made up for all that. But I didn’t even get down to the beach, let alone go in the water.

Since I never know how my week will go, I don’t plan anything fun throughout the week. I need to stay on task until I’m done. So, by the time Friday rolled around, I was hoping for a little fun.

Things had gone well and, by late Thursday night, I knew that I would finish in good time on Friday. In the back of my mind I had a plan. I would work until about 3 pm and then go golfing.

When I got up Friday, I pictured myself standing on the t-box at the Sauble Golf Club, smoking a drive down the fairway on the way to a great round. But I needed to work first, so I got to it.

It was the first day all week that I wasn’t sure about the weather. It was warm alright, but the sky was overcast. It did sprinkle in the morning, but it only lasted a few minutes and I thought, “That’s nothing. It won’t keep me from enjoying my round later.”

By noon I wasn’t as far as I hoped to be and the weather didn’t look any better. I decided I would get the grass cutting out of the way. I took about 20 minutes to do the lawn and then made my lunch. Still overcast, but warm, and still no wind at all … Oh, that is golfing weather!

I quickly got back to work, making good progress. It looked like I would finish in time; in fact, I thought I might be done by 2:30 pm. I disciplined my mind to keep those images of the golf course at bay while I worked.

Then at about 1:45 pm I heard a very distinctive sound. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like the sound of a squirrel scurrying across a shingled roof, or like the sound of a bug flying straight into a glass window. It’s quiet, it’s faint, but you hear it.

Only what I heard sounded like hundreds squirrels scurrying all over the roof. It was raining! My first reaction was, “Really? I’m almost finished here and now it rains?!”

This was no sprinkle either. There was thunder, and it started to come down hard. I couldn’t believe it. All week the weather had been great. All week I kept myself focussed on my task. And now, now that I was done, the clouds couldn’t contain their moisture any longer.

I can’t tell you how disappointed I was. It’s not right for a pastor to express those thoughts and words … Oh well, I did get to see my daughter for a few hours on my way home from the cottage.

Here’s the thing: I have a tendency to delay gratification until the end, to get the work done first, then have fun. But we don’t know what the future holds and sometimes in doing that we find that the gratification we were hoping for vanishes. When life is busy, it’s easy to think, “I will spend time with God later when my work is done, when I can slow down and take a break, at the end of the day”, only to get there and find something unexpected or that you’re too tired to spend time with God. Day after day we have good intentions, but they don’t materialize. Start your day with God – the work isn’t going to vanish.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How has waiting until the end to get what you want left you with nothing?  Leave your comment below.

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Getting Out of a Bad Cycle

Have you ever noticed how one bad thing sometimes seems to be a catalyst for other bad things? Some people say bad things happen in three’s, but that’s just superstitious – “touch wood” (just kidding!).

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Seriously though, since I’ve come back from my vacation, I’ve been engulfed in this phenomenon of experiencing one bad thing after another. Enough already! And with each bad thing that’s happened, my mood has darkened a little more.

Ever felt that way? You want it all to stop, but like they say in social media circles, “it’s trending”. What adds to the discouragement is how difficult it is to change the trend. It seems like you need some kind of emotional pick-me-up to snap you out of the downward spiral.

I remember watching volleyball in college – that was a prime example of how one bad thing is a catalyst for another. I don’t want to pick on volleyball players as being more moody that other athletes (well, maybe I do), but that sport seems to exemplify it more than most.

When a team would hit a great spike for a point, its players would roar with enthusiasm and give each other high fives, even hugs. That would pump them up and they seemed to play better.

While that was happening, the other team would make more mistakes and seemed to have a hard time doing anything right. Then, at some point, they would manage to block a spike and get the serve back. Their players would get all charged up about it, congratulating each other.

Then the momentum would change, the trailing team would play better, and the first team would start making mistakes. It wasn’t because they lost their ability or skill; it was all in their minds or emotions.

When we get down or discouraged, when one bad thing happens after another, we tend to make mental errors in judgement, or emotional reactions, which lead to more bad things.

We can react to something bad rather than respond to that bad thing. When you react, you let your emotions lead the way or you make an error in judgement. But when you respond, you look at the desired outcome and follow through with that goal in mind.

I would like to say that I am really good at responding rather than reacting, but let me tell you, I’ve done my fair share of reacting over the years.

This past week there have been about six bad things that I could have easily reacted to and probably, as a result, caused several more bad things to happen.

… On second thought, I have done some reacting … but only to myself in the car by getting all upset with the drivers on the road. What I need is a great block or spike to turn things around!

Here’s the thing: To break the “bad” cycle, you can mope around until something good happens, but that might take a long time. A better choice is to turn to God, make a list of all the good things God had done and is doing in your life, and begin to praise and worship Him for it. You will find your mood brightens and you can let go of the bad and rejoice in God’s goodness. It worked for King David in the Psalms; it’ll work for you.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you gotten yourself out of a “bad” cycle? Leave your comment below.

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Forty Years and Forty Pounds

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen some of my high school buddies. I’ve known most of them for over 40 years. We got together a few weeks ago because one of the guys was visiting Toronto from out west.

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He moved out there 30 years ago and says he’ll never move back. I know you’re probably thinking he moved out to Vancouver or some other west coast city. If you’re thinking that, though, you’re wrong, because this guy is never coming back from Ded Reer, I mean Red Deer, Alberta.

Nothing wrong with Red Deer; I passed by it lots when I lived in Edmonton. You always felt good as you made that one slight bend in the road between Calgary and Edmonton. Red Deer was the indicator you were half way to your destination or half way home.

I was looking forward to seeing the guys, but I happened to look in a mirror a few minutes beforehand and realized I didn’t really look the same as I did in high school.

And though I knew all the guys very well, when a few of them showed up, it was like seeing them for the first time.

I found the two biggest factors in recognizing my old friends were weight and hair. If they didn’t have hair, that made it difficult, because 40 years ago we all had hair (lots of it, too).  If they had gained weight, that also made it difficult because it altered their facial features (along with some other features). If they lost hair and gained weight, well, then it was like being introduced to a brand new friend.

One guy I didn’t recognize the entire night! It took my brain until the next morning to run him through my internal facial recognition files, but there he was … although now he is a little slimmer, a little better dressed, and his hair is way more under control.

There were 15 of us who descended on Wendel Clark’s Classic Grill and Sports Lounge that evening. And it took most of us about 4 hours or so to undo 40 years of history. But believe me, the old jokes, nicknames, stories and fables all surfaced during the night.

It’s hard to imagine that you can have little or no contact with people for years and years, but once you get them all back together in the same room, it’s like you never were apart. It was still as comfortable and easy to be with these guys as it was back when our hair was shoulder length and we were listening to Steely Dan and Elton John.

Here’s the thing: Lots can happen in life. Things can change us, and make us look a lot different than we once did, both inside and out. But God knows us so well that if we decide to meet with Him again, it will be like we were never apart. It’ll still be comfortable and easy. Let me encourage you to meet with God and refresh your relationship. He is eager to get together with you.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Who have you found it easy to reconnect with after a long time apart?  Leave your comment below.

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She Wished She Had Lived When?

You can know someone for so long, but not really know them at all. Have you ever experienced that? I did this past weekend when my wife and I went to Upper Canada Village (an authentic 19th century park along the St. Lawrence River).

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I can thank our friends for that. We had been talking with them about what they had been doing over the summer and they mentioned they had just been to UCV. That seed got planted in Lily’s brain, fertilized, grew and blossomed in only two days, just as we were deciding on what to do for our anniversary. Before I knew it, we were on our way.

At the end of our day there, I discovered that Lily would have liked to live back in those times. She said they were “simpler.”

It was right then that I realized I didn’t even know this person I’d been married to for 28 years. Simpler times, were they?

During our visit, we watched a blacksmith heat up and hammer a piece of iron into a coat hook. With one hand, he worked the bellows to fan the flame, with the other, he held the metal in the fire. He was hot, sweaty, then with great force, hammered the iron into shape. It took effort. … I could drive to Home Depot and buy one for about $1.50. Which is simpler?

We milked a cow, which I actually proved to be pretty good at. But still, I could tell it would take a long time to get a bucket of milk … and that’s assuming your aim was good and you got all the milk in the bucket and not down your leg.

I think reaching into the fridge and pulling out a container of milk is simpler – even if we use bags instead of cartons! How could she think living in the 1860’s would be simpler?

I saw a few kitchens in this village and there were no microwave ovens, no electric stoves, no fridges. Food preparation looked pretty onerous and time consuming. A combo meal from McDonald’s, now that’s simple!

The processes they had to go through to make cheese, print a paper or cut a large log were painstakingly long. We watched a horse walking in a circle, hooked up to a contraption, that sawed through a 24” diameter log.

I was impressed with the ingenuity of the people who thought this up. But a Husqvarna 440 chainsaw would have cut through that log in about 15 seconds!

Factoring in that we experienced all this in the middle of the summer in 25 C (77 F) weather, you can multiply the complexity of living back then exponentially during the winter months.

I don’t understand why Lily thinks it would be nice to live back then. This from a woman who packs her bag so full for an over night, that she asks me to put the hairdryer in my bag … because that 19th century technology is coming with us, for sure!

She hadn’t been to Upper Canada Village since she was a kid, and she was very excited about going. I just hope it was the excitement that was doing the talking. If not, I don’t have a clue who this person is.

Here’s the thing: You can think you know God, but do you really? As you peel back the pages of the Bible, and experience Him in life, over a great amount of time you will discover more of Him … But you’re still only scratching the surface.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What new thing have you discovered about God in the last year? Leave your comment below.

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Who, Me? A Calorie Counter?

Three times in one day I heard the same message and, no, it wasn’t from my wife. I heard it on TV, on the radio and at the movies. The message was, “If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight.”

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The next morning I decided to check it out. For me, everything is better if there is an app for it … and you better believe there are apps for calorie counting! As I started checking it out, both Lily and my daughter, Karlie, got into it as well.

Karlie had used one before, it was free, and seemed like a good one. I downloaded it onto my phone and couldn’t wait to start eating for the day. The great thing about the app is that it gives you a sense of how much you should be eating in a day so you have some kind of a gauge.

What I don’t like is having to enter all the food I eat and, worse, the amounts I eat (like I can tell what 4 oz of meat looks like on a plate?!) … I started to vaguely remember a nutrition seminar from my cardiac rehab clinic.

I remember the nutritionist had everyone grab some food labels and read the nutrition information on them. As she explained what the information meant, I was looking at the pictures on the labels and thinking I’d like to eat those items right then.

Needless to say, I didn’t get much from the seminar. But now I need that information. Thankfully, my app can scan bar codes, adding the nutritional info right into the app for me.

I’m getting the hang of it. It’s like playing monopoly every day. You start with a bunch of cash (calories), and as you eat, it costs you, like landing on a chance square or that dreaded income tax spot. But, like in monopoly when you pass “Go” and get more cash, in the nutrition game, you get more calories to use up when you exercise.

Now this is where it gets a little fun: I had a breakfast that cost me 391 calories, but then I went on a bike ride that bought me 432 calories. So before lunch, I had more calories to spend than I started the day with. It was great!

It bugged the girls though. They couldn’t get over the fact that I got to eat so much and could buy calories so easily.

After we figured out what dinner cost us, I decided to go for a bike tour around the area. Oh, and I purchased a $2 app that calculates my calories when biking or walking and syncs with my calorie counter.

That little trip bought me another 380 calories. By 8:30 pm I still had over 1100 calories to spend! I decided to have just a few chips, and some licorice, because just like in monopoly, I felt like I had some calories stashed under the board for when times get tough.

Here’s the thing: When you have worked at saving calories during the day, you somehow gain strength to fight the temptation of eating all kinds of junk food. You have a desire to keep what you fought for. When you fight against sin, a similar thing happens that gives you strength to stand up to temptation the next time.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What success have you had that has given you more power over temptation? Leave your comment below.

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Vacation Pain

“Back to the salt mines.” One of my buddies used to say that after noon hockey. He didn’t actually work in a salt mine, but he did have to go back to work. I guess after playing shinny, the idea of work seemed unpleasant.

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If you are someone who works in a salt mine, I’m not saying your work is hard and undesirable; it’s just an expression.

So, if a guy feels that way after an hour or so of hockey, how is one supposed to feel going back to work after a month of vacation? It’s not like my church has a secret tunnel in the basement that leads to large rooms of white crystal rock that I have to break apart all day.

But I do have some apprehensions going back after vacation. In any line of work, there are things you look forward to and things you don’t, things you enjoy doing and things you don’t.

Your work can be 90% enjoyable, invigorating, motivating and a few other desirable “atings”, but it’s that smaller percentage that weighs you down and has you wishing the vacation isn’t coming to an end.

So, at the end of vacation, you develop a little schizophrenia: part of you can’t wait to get back and another part of you wants to put on the brakes and stay where you are.

What happens is you start to act differently. You don’t have the same relaxed, carefree attitude you had a few days earlier. You go to the beach, but you don’t chill at the beach; you begin to strategize.

The water becomes your goals that are so hard to take hold of, the sand is like time that slips through your fingers and the people lying on the beach become the steps to how you will get to the water before the sand runs out.

You try to savour your last days of vacation, but your wife looks at you while you stare off in the distance and says, “See, he’s already back at work.”

There is no way to get back to the “chilaxed” zone you were in only a matter of days before. A switch has been turned on and it doesn’t matter how hot the sun is and how good it feels to sit under your beach umbrella sipping a Dr. Pepper, digging your feet in the sand, as you read or catch a few winks. You are there, but not really there.

Instead, you are sitting in your office sorting the mail that piled up, trying to make headway on hundreds of emails, all while getting back into the rhythm of your work.

Then you wake up, take a sip of your pop, wipe the drool from the corner of your mouth, glance at the people walking along the beach, and get back to reading your book. It was all a dream, a big scary dream. You still have 3 days of vacation left to enjoy.

Here’s the thing: Like the burden of work that overcomes us at the end of vacation, the burdens of sin, shame or self doubt can weigh us down even after we’ve confessed them. But God wants to take those burdens from us. We have to figure out how we can off-load those burdens to Him and not take them back.

That’s life!

Paul

Question: What is the hardest thing to come back to after your vacation?  Leave your comment below.

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Sunday Morning Blues

There is something about a rainy day that makes us lazy. I wonder if there is some kind of chemical that reacts with the air and then is released in an invisible form. We then breath it in and get lethargic.

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It’s Sunday morning, I’m on vacation, but it’s raining. You know, one of those days where the clouds aren’t going anywhere, and if the rain stops falling from the sky, it’s only for a short twenty minute coffee break before it’s back to that constant dripping from the heavens.

Before I was really awake, I’m sure I was breathing in that invisible mist that got me thinking negatively about the day. I started thinking that maybe I wouldn’t bother going to church. Ya, maybe just take it easy and sit around the cottage doing nothing. That seemed attractive for a while.

… Until I started thinking of what that would entail. It would mean I could stay in my sweats a little longer, look out the window at the rain and complain about what a crappy day it was.

When I thought about it, it didn’t sound all that fun. I guess if I drank coffee and never got a chance to read, I might look forward to a dull, overcast, drizzly kind of day. I could sip a big mug of coffee and curl up in a big sweater or afghan and read some fluffy novel.

But then I would not only have to love coffee, I would also have to be female! Most guys would just mope or find something in the basement to fix or tinker with, all the while complaining at how crummy the day was.

I’m not sure what it was … it could have been that my pillow acted like a gas mask and prevented the air-born, mood-altering drug from entering my system … but I actually started to think rationally.

It was then that I thought I needed to make this day count for something.  I should go to church. I should go to church because it’s an opportunity to praise God and hear something from the Bible that I could apply to my life.

Hey, on a day like this, all gloomy and damp, I should go to church because I’m doing nothing else anyway. Why would I stay home and do nothing when I have a standing invitation to show up with other people and be challenged in my relationship with God?

At the very least, if the rest of the day would be spent watching someone else drink coffee and read a novel, at least for an hour or so I could get some relief from that.

I might later be able to go to the beach, or play golf, or go on some kind of excursion, but now I could recoup a small portion of the day and get some positive spiritual input for my weary soul.

Here’s the thing: It really doesn’t take all that much to get us to excuse ourselves from doing something, just to do nothing. We don’t feel any better doing it, it doesn’t make the day more enjoyable, but it does prevent us from gaining something spiritual that we might not get otherwise. … I’m getting my crew going this morning and we’re off to church.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What tempts you, more than anything else, to excuse yourself from church? Leave your comment below.

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Just Blame the Weatherperson

This week the temperature has soared, and already people are complaining. We humans are pretty hard to please. At one time, I thought it was just the farmers who complained about the weather. But honestly, we all do it

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It’s either too hot or cold or rainy or snowy or a combination of them all. I think we could just blame the weatherman for all this, or should I say “meteorologist”? They are the ones that tell us it’s hotter than it really is and colder than it really is.

When I was a kid, 80 degrees was hot. It didn’t matter if you were in the shade or in the sun. It was hot and you knew it and everyone else did, too. Today, however, it’s worse than that: 80 degrees is 27 Celsius, but we are told that it really feels like 35 (95 Fahrenheit).

In the winter, they do the same thing. It might be -20C (-4F) but they add their little jab by saying that with the windchill, it feels like its -29.

And we buy right into this fake weather! We complain about how bad we have it when it’s hot and how unfair it is when it’s cold. These weather people are controlling our emotions and, most of the time, they aren’t even correct.

There was a time when the weatherman was a guy training to be the anchorman at the radio or TV station. All he would do is lick his finger, stick it outside and make a guess.

We accepted that. We knew the guy was guessing at the weather. It was forgivable. After all, the guy didn’t want to be doing the weather; he just had to put in his time before he could give us real news.

Now they go to school to learn weather patterns and cloud formations. They sound all fancy and technical when the give the weather and they are just as wrong as they ever were. Can we really blame that on global warming?

They have all their maps with bright colours and animation showing the clouds. … I still think the guy that would write backwards on a piece of glass had more talent.  At least it was entertaining.

Let’s not give in to their hype and drama. Let’s accept the weather for what it is.

I’m not complaining about the weather. Maybe it’s because I’m on vacation and can dip into the semi-frigid waters of Lake Huron any time I want. Or, maybe it’s because I can walk down to the strip any time of the day and enjoy a cone at DQ or Scoopers, or get a cup of raspberry gelato.

Sure, maybe I’d sing a different tune if I had to go to work everyday. But every time you start to whine about how hot it is, remember it could be a windy-cloudy-snowy-rainy day instead.

I don’t want to hear any more comments on Facebook or twitter that “Satan called and wants his weather back.” I like this 30-degree-feels-like-37-with-a-humidex-of-60, sunny hot weather. . .  I’m going to the beach. See ya!

Here’s the thing: We so quickly complain and criticize God when things are not perfect: when our prayer isn’t answered at the exact moment we’d like, when it’s not what we want, when we don’t get the justice we think we deserve, or when our circumstances seem more difficult that others’. Like the weather, enjoy, and rejoice in what you do have.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What are you quick to complain about when it’s not perfect? Leave your comment below.