Brain Power

I have never been a big student of science. I stumbled through high school biology and physics. As a communications major in college, my science choices consisted of Our Amazing Universe, Earthquakes and Other Natural Disasters, and AIDS and Other Sexually Transmitted Diseases. (It was the early 90s, I was in L.A., and Magic Johnson had just made his stunning announcement. Pretty much everyone took this one.)

Still, it’s a little surprising that I’m learning more about brain anatomy in preschool than I ever learned through higher education. During our preschool’s parenting classes, we’re doing a series on brain development. At the same time, I’m reading Nicholas Carr’s book, The Shallows, which is a quick study in neurons, axons, dendrites, and all the other things I’m fairly certain I never learned anyplace else. Rather than summarize what I’m learning (because wouldn’t it be amusing to hear someone like me attempt a science lesson?), I though I’d just share a few of the conclusions I’ve come to as a result of my preschool education:

1. My 3-year-old’s brain is enviable. Her brain activity runs circles around mine. She has spent the past three years wiring the connections in her brain, and now she’s in the “sluffing off” process. Her brain is shutting down the wiring she’s not using and ramping up what she does use. Use it or lose it, baby, which is why for Christmas she received a bunch of puzzles and spatial toys. I pray she’ll not end up like her mother, who lives in fear of the words “some assembly required” and can’t for the life of her figure out which Tupperware the leftovers will fit into.

2. Every mental exercise leaves something behind. A quote from an article titled “How the Brain Rewires Itself” in Time magazine says this: “Like sand on a beach, the brain bears the footprints of the decisions we have made, the skills we have learned, the actions we have taken.” This happens every day, whether we’re living life with great intention and purpose or just “killing time.” This makes me more aware of how my children and I spend those “killing time” hours and the impression they’re leaving behind on our minds. It also helps me rein in wayward thoughts that I don’t want trampling through my pretty sand.

3. Studies show that 40 percent of variation in people’s memory skills in genetic. That means 60 percent isn’t! Memory is shaped by use and experience. If I stand firm and refuse to use a smartphone as my calendar, my phone book, or my shopping list, my brain will have to keep working to store and recall information. I spend a lot of time working my muscles. Why wouldn’t I put that same kind of effort into keeping my brain in shape?

4. Human memory and computer memory are very different. My memories are not nicely stored in some file that looks the same every time it’s opened. They’re scattered, triggered by different things, and they look different every time I open them. This discovery affects me at a very personal level. For years, my memories associated with my dad, who died when I was 17, have been negative. I mostly remember the yelling. But if I go deeper into my memory, I can find some really positive things, too. And if I focus on these, my brain is trainable enough to rewire itself to go to these thoughts first. (I’m already trying to figure out how I can use this to my advantage with my own children.)

5. I have a Creator. He made me in His image. I am not a machine. My brain is flexible, trainable, perceptive, feeling, and powerful beyond any machine. He gave me the mind I need—not only to keep my heart beating and my blood pumping—but to know Him and have relationship with Him.

“…be made new in the attitude of your minds; and . . . put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:23-24)

One More House Entry, Then I Promise I'm Done

The house is sold. It is finished. And in the end, after all the other emotions had done their work, what I am left with is gratitude. I am grateful God gave me such a beautiful house in which to spend my 30s, raise my young children, and grow into more of the person He wants me to be. I’m grateful for every time that He met with me there—during peaceful early-morning quiet times, over frantic, middle-of-the-night pleas to please make this baby stop crying or coughing or throwing up, on long runs on the neighborhood trails.

No matter how many fingerprints covered the windows, how many dandelions grew in the yard, how many piles accumulated upon every horizontal surface, how nasty the baseboards got, or how much the basement wall slipped from the foundation—no matter how achingly long it took to find someone else who wanted to live there—I am grateful for each moment spent in that house.

We live in America where we have houses far beyond what we need or deserve. No matter what your house looks like tonight, please just be grateful.

Bittersweet

If you have no patience for sappy nostalgia, read no further. I understand.

It’s just that I’m in a sappy, nostalgic place. We close on our house on Friday. Yes, I know, YIPPEEE! This is the day we’ve been waiting for for the better part of two years. And it is a day we will celebrate big time.

I’ve heard that Easterners (like people who live east of Europe, not east of the Mississippi) are able to hold two dichotomous thoughts or feelings at the exact same time. We Westerners are more uncomfortable with that, thinking that if one is accurate, then the other must not be. Like you can’t be hot and cold at the same time. Pick one. Well, I guess I’m feeling pretty Eastern right now, because I am equal parts euphoric and heartbroken as this house-selling day approaches.

Blame it on this cursed historical personality of mine. Today I had to haul the kids over to the old house and walk around with a videocamera, forcing them to recall some of their favorite memories as we strolled through the empty house. Won’t it be fun in 20 years to watch them all twirling and doing somersaults and telling jokes while their mother holds the camera with a shaky hand and chokes on her own words? Oh, I can’t wait.

But it’s not just the memories—the nights I spent rocking my tiny little newborns in this house, the birthday parties, the first steps, the bears in our garage—that I’m mourning. The memories aren’t going away; I can take them with me anywhere. I think what I’m most sad about is the loss of home. Not to take anything away from the place we live now, but it’s a Shome. It’s a completely fine place to live and I’m very grateful for it, but a Shome does not feel like a home, no matter how many pictures you hang on the wall.

I think there’s some deep-down female gene that craves that abstract feeling of “home.” Maybe everyone has it. Maybe it’s the gene God gave us that makes us long for our true Home. All I know is that it doesn’t matter how many times I say to myself, “It’s just a house. It’s just a house,” I can’t help but mourn the loss of my home. While I rejoice. And praise God for selling it. At last.

Call me Eastern, I guess.

Who's rich?

The most interesting thing I’ve heard so far in 2011 is a definition of “rich.” (And I apologize if you go to my church and heard this already from our guest pastor, Jimmy Dodd. I am flagrantly stealing this from his message.) If you meet these three criteria, then you can assume you are among the world’s richest inhabitants:

Do you have choices? Do you shop at a grocery store and have to choose what to buy there? Do you have to choose which socks to wear? Which car to drive today? Which presents to buy for your children’s birthdays? If so, you are rich.

Do you have opportunities? Can you learn to play a new sport? Take up a new instrument? Do you have opportunities to learn, to read, to write, to get an education? Are you able to focus on making yourself better or improving your life? (Not do you, but can you?) If so, then you are rich.

Do you have privacy? (This is the one that’s most eye-opening to me.) Do you have a place where you can get alone by yourself? Can you find a quiet place? Do you have a place in your house that’s just yours? If so, you are rich.

This means that my friends on food stamps are rich. The poorest Americans—those who sleep in homeless shelters and wonder where their next meal will come from—even they are rich. They have opportunities and choices. If nothing else, they can go to a public park or a library and sit alone for a bit. And me? I must be crazy rich.

Sobering.

My 2010 Reading List

So my goal was to read 15 books last year, and by including the books I read aloud to the kids, I made it!

First, the “kid” books, which I ended up loving as much as they did:

Three Chronicles of Narnia books: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; The Magician’s Nephew; and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. If you haven’t read Magician’s Nephew, the first in the series, I highly recommend it. We’ve started The Horse and His Boy, and I plan to finish up the series in 2011. I also want to check out some of C.S. Lewis’s grown-up books. Recommendations, anyone?

The first three Harry Potter books, which have my older two kids wide-eyed and begging to spend time with me. So far no Harry-induced nightmares, which I was afraid of. I know a lot of Christians take issue with the wizardry of it all, but I am sure that when my kids look back on their childhoods some day, reading these books together will stand out as a major highlight. That can’t be a bad thing. And we’re reading C.S. Lewis, too, so there.

Fun pop fiction: The Help. Completely engrossed, I read it in a couple days and cried at the end, the marks of a good book.

Memoirs:

Love Song Journey written by my college friend Mike Wolffe—actually a fiction book, and the only book in which I make an appearance.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years—another great Don Miller book that got me thinking about how to live a better life story.

Look Me in the Eye—John Elder Robison’s story of living with Asperger’s Syndrome. Droned on in places (as Aspergians tend to do), but his insights about assimilating into “normal” culture were fascinating. I read this book as a result of the next entry on my list:

Okay, Then—In 2009 I edited Linda Richardson’s book about living with cancer, Don’t Waste the Pain. In 2010, I edited this yet-to-be-published book, which describes her life as a mother to a son with Asperger’s. Her style is so readable and her story so engaging that I feel like I’ve known her family forever. It also made me a whole lot more informed about autism and more sensitive to those who are living with it.

Based on my emerging interests, I added these two titles:

Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith by Shane Hipps (worth reading)

Preparing Your Daughter for Every Woman’s Battle: Creative Conversations about Sexual and Emotional Integrity by Shannon Ethridge. The first of my three daughters is nine, so I have a feeling this is a theme I’ll be on for a long time.

And finally, in the category I’ll call “Life-Changing Jesus Books”:

Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit by Francis Chan. Didn’t love this one as much as Crazy Love, but it’s a good read on a topic that’s probably fuzzy for most of us. Plus I’m just a huge fan of Francis’s style. Can I call him Francis? I think so.

Shattered Dreams: God’s Unexpected Pathways to Joy by Larry Crabb. Applicable to everyone and full of ah-ha moments. I have a journal full of notes from this one.

Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. For years, I’ve been silently pondering the incompatibility of the American dream with authentically following Jesus. David Platt has written the book I was craving, only it’s better. And his style? He makes Francis Chan seem passive and unopinionated. Just read it.

On my list for this year (and yes, some of these keep carrying over from year to year):

The History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer is a lively read, all 863 pages of it. This is my car book, read during car pool. I’m at about 1750 B.C., so perhaps I’ll see Rome fall by the time my kids are able to drive themselves.

Celebrations of Faith by Randy and Lisa Wilson (already working on this one)

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr

Stones Into Schools (the follow up to Three Cups of Tea) by Greg Mortenson

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society by Eugene Peterson

Raising a Modern-Day Princess by Pam Farrel and Doreen Hanna

The Work of Christmas

I’ve been trying to think of something inspiring or clever or fabulous to write on before the new year rolls in, and frankly, I’m just feeling a bit lazy. As I write this, we’re settling in to our first real snowstorm of the year, and it’s lulling me to the couch with a book, a blanket, and a pair of warm socks. I act like I hate snow, but if I don’t have to haul kids through it, I think it’s a beautiful thing.

So I end 2010 with someone else’s inspiring, clever, fabulous words, more profound than anything I could ever come up with.

“When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flock, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace.” —Howard Thurman, American author, civil rights leader, and theologian 1899-1981

Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Thurman.

An Elementary-School Christmas

The Grinch has competition. The one stealing my holiday joy these days is American elementary-school culture.

I remember when I loved the weeks leading up to Christmas. Sure there was a lot of hustle and bustle, but it was fun hustle and bustle, and I loved shopping for other people. Then I had four children. The hustle and bustle quadrupled, but, well, if I stopped long enough to recognize it, so did the Christmas magic. OK, magic is good. I can do this.

Then they all got into school. The magic died, the victim of overachieving room mothers.

Eight teachers to buy for. OK, I can do that. I love our teachers, and their salaries have all been frozen due to budget cuts. No complaints about treating them. One preschool Christmas program. Adorable. Logistically hard to pull off, but adorable. Then come the 35 e-mail messages about the third grade party. Seriously. 35. There’s a sock, hat, and mitten drive for the homeless (Does anyone have a tree to bring in to hang them on because wouldn’t that be so cute?), a book exchange (Please wrap the book 2–4 times, because that will make the game so much more fun!), a collection for the teacher (Wait, didn’t I just buy my own gift for the teacher?), a huge meal to prepare (It won't be a party without Lil Smokies!), and oh, did we mention it’s also the teacher’s birthday? So we’re all going to need to fill a bag, the week before Christmas, with things that begin with letters from the teacher’s name. And your letter, Mrs. Jones, is Z. Seriously, Z.

And there’s a party in first grade with a book exchange, and fifth grade is having a special Christmas brunch (because we all want the kids to feel special, don’t we?) and we’re taking a collection to provide school uniforms for kids in Rwanda.

Yes, I remember my transition generation soapbox, and I’m all for uniforms for Rwanda and mittens for the homeless. How about we just do that? And maybe slap ten bucks into the hands of all the frozen-salaried teachers and call it a Merry Christmas?

But that’s not how it works, so we all subject ourselves to the insanity and exhaustion of elementary school Christmas parties. They’re over now, and truly, they were all lovely. The room mothers amaze me. My kids feel special.

And I feel ready for a long winter’s nap.