Learning, memory and sabbath time

Getting enough sleep not only keeps our minds and bodies functioning--it also helps us learn.

Sleep--especially REM sleep, when rapid eye movements signal a unique stage of consciousness in which dreaming occurs--creates the conditions our brains need to store new information in long-term memory.

During REM sleep, the brain replenishes neurotransmitters that organize neural networks essential for remembering, learning, performance and problem solving, Cornell University's James Maas says.

This highlights yet another connection between our minds, bodies and spirits--a connection that the sabbath command in the Jewish and Christian traditions seeks to protect and nurture.

Yet millions of Americans are sleep deprived or suffer from sleep disorders that prevent normal functioning.

"We have a crisis in America," Maas told the Monitor on Psychology. "Most adults are moderately to severely sleep deprived, and it affects their productivity, their work and their relationships.

"If we treated machines like we treat the human body, we would be accused of reckless endangerment."

As a pastoral theologian, I can't help but wonder about the connections between our consumerist/consumptionist culture, our embodiment as created beings, and the need for sabbath time.

We know that rest and renewal are necessary for physical and spiritual vitality.

Yet how many pastoral caregivers attend to the stewardship of time and energy--let alone model good stewardship of time and energy--in their pastoral care encounters, in their sermons, and in their teaching and writing?

Our culture and our faith communities need a solid, contemporary pastoral theology of rest that draws on neuroscience, psychology, and the experience of contemporary Americans to make the religious concept of "Sabbath" more robust in our homes, offices, and schools.

.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Monday, July 26, 2004

Coming soon to a country near you

"Spreading peace across Eurasia serves U.S. interests, but it's best done by donning Armani pinstripes rather than U.S. Army fatigues."

And the Kerry/Edwards campaign thinks better hair can help?

Parag Khanna on "The Metrosexual Empire."

.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Sunday, July 25, 2004

Sorrow

Non-descript Vietnamese restaurant, empty except for John and me.

Twentysomething waiter, raven hair dyed blond on top, gold hoops in each ear. Four crudely formed letters march down the inside of his forearm, a row of numbers beneath.

"Tell me about your tattoos," I say.

"What do you mean? They're just letters."

"They mean something to you?" I take a sip of caphe sua da.

He looks at me for a long moment, not dropping his eyes. Gently, he offers his arm for my inspection.

"Translated?" he says. I nod. His forefinger moves from letter to letter. "It mean: sorrow for my life forever."

He points to the numbers, a date in a not-to-distant April. "For the day my baby die."

Our eyes meet. I don't say anything, bite back a prayer: May you be at peace, may you be free of suffering, may you be well and happy.

Unspoken words sent into unblinking eyes.

He smiles faintly, shrugs his shoulders, moves back behind the cash register near an altar to the Buddha.

The TV comes on, speakers wired to fill the two rooms with sound, a music video: rich, orchestrated synthesizer, Vietnamese rock derived from Blue Oyster Cult.

A baby wailing in the background.

.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Sunday, July 25, 2004

Disco, Barry White, and Starsky and Hutch

"Like the loop of Brady Bunch episodes ubiquitously playing across the 500-channel wasteland of cable TV, the decade of the 1970s is a specter haunting the American popular imagination. It is the specter of cheese culture, the jelly-headed amiability of smiley faces, white polyester three-piece suits, and the most recent return of the repressed, Starsky & Hutch, set to a mind-numbing soundtrack of Barry White, Kiss, and 'Stairway to Heaven.' Yet the arguably tackiest American decade is also when much of what is termed the postmodern condition began to emerge."

So writes Vince Carducci in "Dazed and Confused: The 70's and the Postmodern Turn" in Logos Journal online.

.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Monday, July 12, 2004

Loss, body image, and older women

The losses of midlife may be taking a physical toll on a growing number of women in their 30's, 40's, and 50's who suffer from anorexia and bulimia.

In a report posted by The New York Times Tuesday, Bonnie Rothman Morris writes:

"Older women with eating disorders, experts say, have much in common with teenagers who suffer from the illnesses. Isolation, loneliness, lack of self-esteem and a drive for perfection are present for older women, too. What differs are the triggers that set off the disorders."

Personal agency, body image, and personal meaning all seem implicated in the trend.

How can pastoral caregivers respond sensitively to such women? And what can the church do, locally and nationally, to advocate against a silent and secretive behavior?

.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Thursday, July 08, 2004

Modernism and marriage

"When you're really anxious to increase efficiency," says practical theologian Don Browning, "you reduce everything to means to an ends, including personal relationships, interpersonal relationships and even family relationships."

Is it any wonder, then, that marriages and families are suffering as we seek satisfaction in efficiency? Browning shares his thoughts on the Science and Theology website.

.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Thursday, July 08, 2004

Sound bites and scholarship

Institutions of higher learning are encouraging faculty to give press interviews as a way of raising the school's profile among consumers of education.

But when does "public scholarship"--and especially "public theology"--become more about marketing than molding opinions?

.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Leave me alone

Thomas Jefferson advised Americans to "love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself."

Nonetheless, America's love affair with rugged individualism continues, as Joannie Fischer's brief history of the concept attests.

.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Thursday, July 01, 2004

Financial hardship and mental health in children

Parenting and marriages suffer during severe and prolonged financial hardship--which in turn harms the mental health of children, a new study suggests.

Researchers say the findings are true even in wealthy families and those living in a country with generous welfare programs.

This study, published in the May issue of Developmental Psychology, points once again to the importance of attending to economic and class issues in the teaching and provision of pastoral care.

And while we're on the topic of economics and family health, take a look at Linda Kulman's article "Our Consuming Interest" in US News and World Report online.