Sabbatical 2024

So, I tried my experiment in imagining joy. First, I found a background track on YouTube to listen to. I closed my eye while laying down and tried to picture a church service. I visualized walking into a main church auditorium. The chairs were arranged in a small square facing each other. I pictured taking a seat along with other people. As we sat there, I pictured a woman with a serene presence, glowing with light (an angel), walking around the room. She would bend down and whisper something in a person's ear. A beam of light, like a spotlight, would shine from the person up through the ceiling. The person would stand up and speak what the woman whispered. Smaller beams of light would arc from the person speaking to the other people listening and they would begin to glow.  As she walked around the room, whispering to people, more and more spotlights shown through ceiling. Then my view shifted to outside the building. I saw a giant beam of light shooting up from the building into ...

Today, I want to continue on the topic of negative emotions. I had a session with ChatGPT to brainstorm why negative emotions are so sticky and heavy. It suggested that our brains are evolved to seek out and deal with threats. Threats are signaled by fear, anger and anxiety. Our survival depended on paying attention to these signals, so it was actually a good thing to have the emotion come to forefront of our consciousness. This is called negativity bias. Today, the threats don't exist, but the signals still do. And because of our negativity bias, when triggered, negative emotion capture all of our attention. They are all-consuming. So how do we handle these emotions? First, I would say it's important to acknowledge them as a normal and important part of the human experience. My Pentecostal upbringing taught me to label these emotions as evil and thas it was my duty as a Christian is to pray them away. I now think this idea is very unhelpful and can lead to depression, anxiety ...

My cold is a little worse today. Last night was spent sneezing and blowing my nose, so a recovery nap is in order. I'm still thinking about yesterday's post on universalism. I'm more focused on the emotions it stirs and what to do with them. There's a saying: anger is good kindling, but poor fuel. I can be mad at biblical literalists and the harm I perceive they do to people, but if I stay stuck in that emotion, all I'm doing is making myself feel miserable. In short, being stuck in anger doesn't help anyone. What I'm looking for is what to do about it. I left the church institution and with it, the ability to bring reform from the inside. I'm not sure the institution is ready for reformation, though. If you recall your Bible stories, an entire generation of Israelites had to die before they entered the promised land. That seems to be the burden of making progress. Not everyone wants to grow, so it requires patience for the naysayers to be lose their pow...

I just watched a video by Sean McDowell (a Christian apologist) and near-death experiences. You can watch the video  here . In it, he attempts to debunk universalism, or the idea that everyone will be saved. Nothing frosts my Fritos more than this claim. For the life of me, I can't figure out why Christians are so quick to condemn people who don't think like them. Well, actually, I have a guess. They've been raised with the idea that the Bible is the primary source of truth about God. Not just the Bible itself, but their specific interpretation of the Bible. And in it, they think God sends most people to hell because they don't believe. Christians are very reluctant to think critically about their own beliefs because the stakes are so high. Churches teach that if you question their views, you'll end up outside the love of God. You'll question yourself right into hell. If you do any study about cults, you'll find this is the standard operation of high-control...

I had the start of a sore throat yesterday. Today, I have postnasal drip and my sore throat is worse. My mother-in-law and father-in-law caught colds at the end of our cruise and it appears I didn't escape it. I had a chat session with ChatGPT to understand more about why mucus irritates the throat. With a cold, mucus contains neutrophil, lymphocyte, macrophage and eosinophil cells, all a part of the immune system to eradicate the infection. When the body detects the presence of a pathogen, it triggers the release of immune cells through cytokine molecules. These molecules cause blood vessels to dilate and thin so more nutrients, oxygen and immune cells can reach the affected tissue. This increases liquid pressure, causing edema. The excess liquid help dilute the pathogen so it can be easily flushed out of the tissue. This makes me think of a few thing. First, the human body is a wonder of nature. How all these systems work together is fascinating. Honestly, for me, the presence of...

I'm on a quest for truth. I had a thought this morning: Can one apply the scientific method to the spiritual journey? I think in one sense, yes, but in another sense, no. When we have a goal in mind, say, the reduction of suffering, then we can apply experimentation and data collection techniques to see what practices lead to the reduction. But then there's the question, should the spiritual journey be free of suffering? There's a YouTube channel I occasionally watch by a woman named Kerry K. She recently posted that she likes being physically comfortable in her clothes and shoes. She also likes being uncomfortable in her emotions and feelings. To her, uncomfortable emotions are a sign there is still some healing that needs to occur. Rather than bury the wound, emotions point to it. So what should we do with painful emotions? For me, I've been doing breathwork. I find that it calms my nervous system down and reduces the pain. I don't change anything about my life or...

I woke up this morning with a phrase running through my head: Don't judge people for where they are. See them as they could be. I wonder about the idea of progress. For progress to exist, a few things are required. You need to know where you are. You need to know where you want to be in the future. And the future should be better than the present. The concept of "better" requires a value system. We must a judge or discern what is better, the present or the future. But where does this value system come from? And what happens when two different value systems come into conflict with each other? Do we impose a third value system to determine which of the two is better? One thing we can do is be humble. I think it's a wise person that can always hold onto the idea, "It's possible that I could be wrong." That keeps us open to growth. Shoot, I could be wrong about the idea of being open to possibly being wrong. Now that I think about, maybe the idea isn't o...

Well, I tried the aisle seat experiment. I sat with my eyes closed, counted from 100 to 1, pictured a movie screen in my mind and visualized an empty aisle seat. When we queued up to board the plane, we were the last four people to board. I knew the selections were sparse, so when I saw a middle seat in the second row, I took it. Melissa got a middle seat in the emergency row and both boys got window seats. So, the result was the one I mentioned yesterday and now I'm left with the question: Does manifesting reality not work or did it just not work in this situation? I grew up in a Pentecostal church, which practices varying shades of "word of faith." In essence, you can claim something, pray about it and receive it. I'm pretty sure this is nonsense as it's commonly presented, but I do think there's a certain kind of truth to it. First, do I think my thoughts can bend reality and retroactively cause someone to not pick an aisle seat? Probably not (though Meliss...

[Written on June 22] It is a long travel day. We disembarked at 9:30am, waited an hour for a shuttle from the ship terminal to the airport, and are now sitting for 6 hours to catch our 3-hour flight home. Our boarding group is towards the end, so it's very likely we'll be grabbing middle seats. Not the funnest way to fly. I'm listening to an audio book on The Silva Method. It's a meditation and positivity visualization technique. I'm open to certain forms of woo-woo, but others I'm a bit skeptical. I definitely agree with the idea that thinking positively increases positivity in your life. Whatever we focus on grows. So, to that regard, I think our thoughts can very much shape our lives. Where I lose it a little is when people talk about the idea of manifesting. Like in ways that violate the known laws of physics. I believe in the Divine, so technically I believe anything is possible. What I'm not so sure about is using our minds to spontaneously change phys...

[Written on June 21] Today I was able to do some breathwork on my balcony. I downloaded some shamanic drum tracks prior to the cruise, which happened to be more flutes that drums, so it wasn't very helpful in timing my breath rhythm. I ended up using some church worship music. It had words, but also had a beat. This got me thinking about Christianity and its lack of importance on the body. I think this may have roots in Neo-Platonic thought which places primary importance on the mental world. Some Gnostic traditions even go as far as to consider the physical world unholy. A big goal of my sabbatical is to resume my weight loss. Work kept me so focused on projects that I neglected body movement. My therapist says that a healthy body helps the nervous system. Short answer, the healthier you are, the better you feel under pressure. I hope to instill some habits that put more emphasis on the body. As a friend of mine says, "Keep the temple tight."

[Written on June 20] Today, we visited Cozamel and had a beach day. Unlimited food and drinks, though I didn’t go nuts. I'm learning I don’t like that gorged feeling. We got to talking about dementia and growing old. One thing I don’t want to experience is losing my mind as I age. I've been hospitalized twice for manic episodes and it's not fun. If it were my choice, I would just as soon not go through something like that again. The brain is fascinating. If you really stop and think about how much complex processing goes on in that organ, it's amazing. For all the advances we've made in silicon device technology and AI, we're nowhere close to the power and size efficiency of the human brain. There's an interesting theory surrounding consciousness and field theory. Rather than saying that consciousness arises as an emergent property of complexity, consciousness field theory speculates that consciousness is a field and our brains have sufficient complexity to ...

[Written on June 19] Today we visited the Mayan ruins at Chacchoben, which translates to "Place of the Red Rat." Our guide explained Mayan temple culture. They had a caste system and there were certain places where only the high caste could go. Royalty and priests. This reminds me that the concept of placing people into tiers is in all cultures. We have it everywhere. Airlines, hotel and cruise ship room, corporate roles. I don’t think you can find a truly egalitarian society anywhere, and if there was one, it wouldn't last long as people seem to gravitate to holding power. Growing up, I was told the church is different, but, as I've experienced firsthand, if you spend any time getting involved in church activities, you will encounter politics and privilege. That's a big part of why I'm not looking to join an institution again. I don't want to have any part with favoritism. That's one thing that gives me pause with the orthodox Christian message. The m...

[Written on June 18] Today we went to see and hold sloths. I think the sloth is my spirit animal. Did you know they are mostly blind and only poop once every 7 days? That's not entirely why I appreciate them, but it's still neat. To hold them, we had to put our arms up and let them hang onto us like we were tree trunks. Once they grabbed on, they just chilled. No freaking out or anxiety. Just there. I like that. I wonder if there's a correlation between how quickly something is done and the anxiety it creates. I'm not saying everything fast causes anxiety, but, in general, I think our hustle culture isn't the greatest for our mental health. I find myself at work often needing to do things faster than I would prefer to do. It would be nice if we took a play from the sloths, learned to hug trees and slow down a bit.

[Written on June 17] We're having some choppy weather. I could feel the rocking of the boat all night, a very interrsting feeling of wondering if one will roll out of bed. When we went down for breakfast, it was amusing to watch people trying to walk a straight line. I suppose the terms "sea legs" is a real thing. After ordering my meal, I noticed I was feeling a bit queasy. Our waitress saw this and ordered me some green apples, which actually helped. Thanks again, Sheila. The whole apple thing got me thinking about the conversation I had with my father-in-law yesterday. We were talking about the Garden of Eden and the eating from the forbidden tree. I used to hold the view that the eating of the apple symbolized disobedience, the moral of the story being if you disobey God, you die. The faith journey of my 30's and 40's has been questioning narratives I have been taught growing up. Having a traumatic experience with clergy caused me to lose trust with the office...

[Written on June 16] I meditated for an hour on my balcony. Just the waves, some background music and my breathing. It was a nice break from the crowds on the other decks. I'm very thankful Melissa and the boys are willing to give me this time. I'm still learning how to ask for and receive the gift of silence.  For most of my life, I've seen introversion as a weakness, something to overcome so I can fit into society. I'm realizing that I do fit in just by being human. Sure, I have quirks, but we all do. So maybe quirks aren't as quirky as we think. I think what I probably fear most is standing out in a crowd. I don't like eyes and attention. Ironic that I'm writing my thoughts down in a public forum for others to read. One of the interesting thing about us introverts is our mind is always going. For every word spoken there's probably a hundred left unspoken. I don't know why they're left unspoken. Maybe they're disorganized. Maybe there's...

We had an early day yesterday traveling to Texas. After a nice hibachi dinner we turned in early. Unfortunately for my boys, I was the first one to fall asleep. I say unfortunate because I have a pretty bad snoring problem. During the night, I heard Melissa and my oldest talking about it, him commenting that he didn't understand how she got used to the noise. I had a brief thought flash across my mind. Just the briefest thought that, "You know, I could end their suffering by jumping off the ship tomorrow." I don't follow these thoughts too deeply. You see, I have bipolar disorder and can cycle between depression and mania on a regular basis. Thankfully, medication and therapy have helped me take an observer role and just watch the thoughts come and go. When I see this kind of internal dialog, I say to myself, "Ah, there he is. My old friend. What secrets do you want to share today?" I noticed two things from this brief event. First, it's interesting how ...

 It's 2:40am. We have a 7:45 flight to Houston. My alarm is set for 3:50am but I can't sleep. Call it nerves. Any time we travel somewhere for vacation, I get a little nervous. Especially with flying. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe it's the idea of leaving a normal routine for something different. Maybe it's the thought of a giant metal tube hurling me 30,000 feet above the ground. That's probably it. Insomnia is a funny thing. I get it a lot when I have deadlines to meet. My mind can't find a place of rest. And the more I tell myself to try and fall asleep, the more elusive it becomes. I've learned to just go with it. Accept the fact that I had planned on getting more sleep, but it's just not going to happen. Rather than get frustrated, make the most of the situation. Acceptance is something I often think about. My church upbringing taught me that the world is not what it's supposed to be and needs saving. My work tells me i need to operate wit...

I work for Intel and today is the start of my 8-week sabbatical. This is one of the unique perks my employer provides and I want to make the most of it. I think we Americans can get stuck in the daily rat race and lose sight of the bigger picture. For 8 weeks, I have the opportunity to reflect on what it means to be a person living in the 21st century. Why do we live the way we do? What does it mean to be human? Is there a goal to our existence? How can we bring about the best in ourselves and in those around us? Should we even use terms like "better" and "best" when referring to ourselves? So many questions. I picked up my copy of A Course in Miracles this morning. One sentence jumped out at me: "You are free to believe what you choose and what you do attests to what you believe." What this appears to tell me is there are different ways to believe. One way is through the words we speak and think. The story we tell ourselves about the world. And then there...