-- Pythagoras
Meditation: by Unitarian poet e. e. cummings
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
Reading: by Mark Waldman and Andrew Newberg from “The Most Dangerous Word in the World” (Psychology Today, Jul 31 2012)
If I were to put you into an fMRI scanner—a huge donut-shaped magnet that can take a video of the neural changes happening in your brain—and flash the word “NO” for less than one second, you’d see a sudden release of dozens of stress-producing hormones and neurotransmitters. These chemicals immediately interrupt the normal functioning of your brain, impairing logic, reason, language processing, and communication.
In fact, just seeing a list of negative words for a few seconds will make a highly anxious or depressed person feel worse, and the more you ruminate on them, the more you can actually damage key structures that regulate your memory, feelings, and emotions. You’ll disrupt your sleep, your appetite, and your ability to experience long-term happiness and satisfaction.
If you vocalize your negativity, or even slightly frown when you say “no,” more stress chemicals will be released, not only in your brain, but in the listener’s brain as well. The listener will experience increased anxiety and irritability, thus undermining cooperation and trust. In fact, just hanging around negative people will make you more prejudiced toward others!
Any form of negative rumination—for example, worrying about your financial future or health— will stimulate the release of destructive neurochemicals. And the same holds true for children: the more negative thoughts they have, the more likely they are to experience emotional turmoil. But if you teach them to think positively, you can turn their lives around.
Reading: by Oliver Burkeman from “The Power of Negative Thinking” (New York Times, August 4, 2012)
Last month, in San Jose, Calif., 21 people were treated for burns after walking barefoot over hot coals as part of an event called Unleash the Power Within, starring the motivational speaker Tony Robbins. If you’re anything like me, a cynical retort might suggest itself: What, exactly, did they expect would happen? …
Consider the technique of positive visualization… According to research by the psychologist Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues, visualizing a successful outcome, under certain conditions, can make people less likely to achieve it. She rendered her experimental participants dehydrated, then asked some of them to picture a refreshing glass of water. The water-visualizers experienced a marked decline in energy levels, compared with those participants who engaged in negative or neutral fantasies. Imagining their goal seemed to deprive the water-visualizers of their get-up-and-go…
Or take affirmations, those cheery slogans intended to lift the user’s mood by repeating them: “I am a lovable person!” “My life is filled with joy!” Psychologists at the University of Waterloo concluded that such statements make people with low self-esteem feel worse — not least because telling yourself you’re lovable is liable to provoke the grouchy internal counterargument that, really, you’re not.
Reading: by Kaylin Haught a poem entitled “God Says Yes To Me”
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
The Power of Yes and No
A Sermon Delivered on January 13, 2013
By
The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann
Once upon a time there were two frogs happily hopping around a barn, when they accidentally jumped into a bucket of milk, and couldn’t get out. The sides of the bucket were too steep and slippery. They were trapped.
After swimming in circles for hours, one of the frogs said, “This is hopeless. We should just quit.” The other frog ignored the remark and kept paddling. Finally the first frog gave up and drowned. The second frog kept swimming and swimming and swimming. Until the milk turned to butter. Once he gained solid footing, the frog hopped out of the bucket, and lived happily ever after.
The first frog, the frog that gave up hope and drowned, was a pessimist. The moral of the story is that it is better to be an optimist. Assume a positive attitude and you, too, will live happily ever after.
This is the kind of message Norman Vincent Peale popularized in 1952 when he published his bestseller The Power of Positive Thinking.
Norman Vincent Peale said:
“You do not need to be defeated by anything, … you can have peace of mind, improved health, and a never-ceasing flow of energy… Your life can be full of joy and satisfaction… If you read this book thoughtfully, carefully absorbing its teachings, and if you… sincerely and persistently practice the principles and formulas set forth herein, you can experience an amazing improvement within yourself. … Your relations with other people will improve. You will become a more popular, esteemed, and will-liked individual. … You will enjoy a delightful new sense of well-being… You will become a person of greater usefulness and will wield an expanded influence… The system outlined [in this book] is a perfected and amazing method of successful living.” (p. vii)
Peale’s book was read by millions of people and translated into over a dozen languages. Clearly his message strikes a chord. And yet, what kind of a chord it strikes may vary from person to person.
For some of us the message of positive psychology conveys a compelling truth – we have the power to shape our destiny, to remain undefeated, and to improve ourselves, no matter what the circumstances of our lives might be.
For others, this message seems too good to be true. The skeptics among us are more likely to see Norman Vincent Peale’s message as little more than wishful thinking, merely a feel-good formula for the gullible. Positive thinking, for them, is just another incarnation of the snake-oil sold by charlatans, who claim their treatments and therapies will yield miraculous results.
Positive thinking is no more a miracle solution to all life’s problems, than it is a protection against the serious burns suffered by those 21 Californians who thought they could safely walk barefoot over burning coals, thanks to the power of their positive thoughts.
In a book entitled Bright-Sided – How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, Barbara Ehrenreich makes the case that the American infatuation with a glib cheerfulness, and an obligatory optimism has done more harm than good. Prior to 9/11, we were optimistic about our national security, which allowed the administration to discount reports of immanent danger. Then we launched into the war in Iraq optimistic about the prospects of a quick resolution, and the hope that we would surely find weapons of mass destruction hidden there. In fact we found neither. In the months prior to Hurricane Katrina, we assumed an optimistic attitude, despite the evidence provided by engineers, that the levees wouldn’t hold. But the wary engineers were right, and thousands lost their homes. And the housing bubble that preceded the financial crisis of 2008 was sustained by a spirit of optimism about the wisdom of financial speculation, which, in hindsight, turned out to be anything but wise.
Positive thinking is not the solution to all life’s problems. And yet, there does seem to be something to it.
* * *
Here is another story: Once upon a time there was a scientist who conducted an experiment with the rats in his laboratory. He divided them into two groups. The rats from the first group were placed, one by one, in a big tank of water. The water was mixed with milk, so you couldn’t see beneath the surface. The rats had to swim for a set amount of time.
The rats in the first group, were the lucky ones, because their tank had a tiny island hidden under the water. Once they located the little island, they could perch on it, and get a break from the exertion of swimming. The rats in the second group were placed in an identical tank, with the same kind of milky water, and left to swim for exactly the same amount of time. The only difference was that their tank didn’t have a tiny island.
After their swim, the rats from both groups were plucked from the water, wet and weary. Both groups had time to rest and recuperate. And then they were introduced to the real Rat Race of the study.
The researcher, once again, put each of the rats, one after the other, into the milky water. But this time, all the rats swam in a tank that didn’t have an island. This time, none of the rats got a break. This time, all the rats were left to swim for as long as they were able. And then, just when their little noses slipped beneath the surface, just when they were about to drown, they were rescued by the researcher. And the researcher carefully kept track of the length of time each rat was willing and able to swim, before returning it to its cage.
What the study showed is that the rats from the first group, the group that had had an island to rest on in the earlier experiment, these rats swam twice as long as the second group of rats. It was as if the memory of finding the island in the past, and the hope of finding it again, provided these rats with twice the stamina, compared to their less fortunate fellows. It seems the rats that were able to maintain a positive attitude displayed a much higher level of endurance and resilience.
In a book entitled Half Empty, Half Full, on the psychological roots of optimism, the psychiatrist Susan Vaughan takes this experiment as evidence of a profound power associated with positive thinking. It is difficult to overemphasize the importance and positive effects of optimism, she says. “Optimists persevere, with continued activity rather than inertia in the face of adversity. Optimism is also to some extent a self-fulfilling prophesy.” Optimists don’t merely interpret reality, they create their own reality. In a way, optimists believe in illusions. And while these illusions are merely figments of their imagination, they have the power to change the course of our lives.
Thinking about the rats swimming in the tank, Susan Vaughan asks,
“Since there was no island in the tank in which they took their second swim, isn’t it fair to say that what made the difference as to whether they sank or swam was the illusion of an island, their ability to conjure an inner image of an island to swim for when the going got rough, even if such an island existed only in their imagination.” (p. 3)
As Susan Vaughan sees it, optimism depends on our ability to construct and sustain the “illusion of an island.” For humans this ability is the result of a series of inner psychological processes that can be improved upon with practice, a set of psychological maneuvers through which we shift our perspective and refocus our vision.
She believes our relative degree of optimism is not absolutely determined by either nature or nurture. It is not inescapably shaped by our biology or our life experience. The internal gymnastics are not generally something optimists are just born knowing how to do. It is an active internal process, more like learning how to ride a bike, or learning how to swim.
Susan Vaughan asks, “Given the choice of viewing life through the rose-colored glasses of hope rather than the dark blinders of sadness, anger, and worry, wouldn’t it be far better to assume you’ll find a foothold amid the chaos?” (p. 10)
* * *
It is a fact: life presents us with an endless stream of challenges and opportunities. We are confronted with circumstances we can’t fully grasp. We are hurled into situations we can’t fully control.
Our health and happiness, our friends and family, our work and our wealth – any of these can be snatched away. An unanticipated illness, the loss of a loved one, a job that falls victim to downsizing or an economic slump – any of these can leave us struggling and disoriented.
Any of these can plunge us into a sea of uncertainty, into stormy waters of anger, or into the gray swamps of despair. And we will find ourselves struggling to keep our heads above the water. We don’t know how long the crisis will last. We don’t know how deep the waters run. We don’t know how and where we will regain solid footing. We don’t know when we will be granted a respite. We don’t know when we will be safe.
But we do have a choice. We always have a choice in terms of how we respond to the events life presents us. In the game of life we can’t control the cards fate deals us. But we can choose how we play the hand we have been dealt.
* * *
Barbara Ehrenreich doesn’t share Susan Vaughan’s enthusiasm for rose-colored glasses. As far as she is concerned, both positive thinking and negative thinking are equally problematic. Whether optimists project their hopefulness in the world, or pessimists project their misery, both are evidence that we cannot separate emotion from perception. Both are evidence that we are often willing to accept illusion for reality.
Ehrenreich says, rather than letting our emotions color our perceptions, we should try to “get out of ourselves and see things “as they are,” or as uncolored as possible by our own feelings and fantasies, to understand that the world is full of danger and opportunity – the chance of great happiness as well as the certainty of death.” (p. 196)
In order to see things as they are, we would do well to consider not only our own perceptions, but the perspectives of others, as well: people whose judgment we trust, who are wise and discerning, young people and old, people with whom we agree and disagree. We would do well to weigh the information we gather carefully and critically. We should be guided by a spirit of curiosity, and wonder, and awe.
Because we are human, we are limited. We are neither all-powerful, nor all-knowing. Our vision is invariably incomplete. We will always look through some sort of glasses that will cloud our perceptions one way or another. Because we are human, we will sometimes look at the world through rosy glasses, and sometimes through gray glasses, and sometimes through green glasses, or purple glasses… But by simply remembering that we are always wearing some kind of colored glasses, we will be better able to piece together a reliable image of the world that lies beyond them.
There is no need to settle for illusions. Life is real. This day is real. You and I are real.
To live well, we should try to pay attention to the real world. We should pay attention to everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes. We should pay attention to life and love, and the gay great happening – limitless – earth. We should let the ears of our ears awake, and the eyes of our eyes open.
We should say “yes yes yes” to everything, real or imagined, everything that leads us to more life and love.
In the days ahead,
may we be guided by a spirit of curiosity and wonder and awe,
a spirit of yes, so that we might envision and create a real world of life and love.
Amen.
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