Pastors' Blog

Scientists think they’ve found the secret to our good and bad habits. It has to do with the pleasure-sensing chemical dopamine, coursing up and down our body’s internal highways. Dopamine “conditions the brain to want that reward again and again—reinforcing the connection each time—especially when it gets the right cue from your environment” (South Bend Tribune 1-4-11). For example, you enjoy munching on chips (no doubt a healthful kind). You usually do it before supper, while you’re watching the evening news. (I know the routine well!) Dopamine links your desire for those chips to the environmental stimulus of watching the evening news, and pretty soon your brain’s dopamine-rich striatum region links both activities to a desired reward—pleasurable taste and relaxation. Turn on the news, get hungry for chips—munch some chips, turn on the television. The more repetitions, the stronger the dopamine tie that binds. “‘Why are bad habits stronger? You’re fighting against the power of an immediate reward,’ says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and an authority on the brain’s pleasure pathway. It’s the fudge vs. broccoli choice: Chocolate’s yum factor tends to beat out the knowledge that sticking with veggies brings an eventual reward of lost pounds. ‘We all as creatures are hard-wired that way, to give greater value to an immediate reward as opposed to something that’s delayed,’ Volkow says” (ibid). And the problem is that we tend to overestimate our ability to resist temptations around us, “thus undermining attempts to shed bad habits, says experimental psychologist Loran Nordgren, an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. ‘People have this self-control hubris, this belief they can handle more than they can,’ says Nordgren, who studies the tug-of-war between willpower and temptation” (ibid). All of which means that establishing good habits and ridding bad habits requires more than simply composing another list of New Year’s resolutions. “Been there—done that.” Based on this AP report of their studies, here are five new routines researchers recommend adding to your good-habits strategy: “Repeat, repeat, repeat the new behavior—the same routine at the same time of day.” Pick a time of day, select an activity, and stick to it. Personal prayer and Bible study first thing the morning. Walking, jogging, working out at the same time each day. The striatum will eventually recognize the new habit and will “reward” you for faithfulness to the new routine, or “disturb” you when you neglect it. “Exercise itself raises dopamine levels,” which means adding this good habit to your routine will raise your feel-good sense of vitality. “Reward yourself with something you really desire.” A new book or a CD or an outfit you’ve been needing reinforces your own intentions to stick to good habit routine. “Stress can reactivate the bad-habit circuitry.” So “chilling out” isn’t such a bad idea when your circuits are on overload. “Cut out the rituals linked to your bad habits.” As the report puts it, “No eating in front of the TV, ever.” But there’s one more strategy science can never measure. It’s your faith-factor. Repeat this dynamite promise from God daily and your striatum will quickly get the message: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). Too simple? Hardly! Begin each day in quiet conversation with Him through a story-a-day reading through the Gospels, and you will unite yourself with Christ himself, as you discover for yourself his omnipotent friendship—a power even stronger than dopamine.

Twin holiday tragedies this past weekend have preoccupied both the news media and the nation. We’ve all seen the pictures. The Metro-North Railroad train, its locomotive and seven cars upended, splayed and flung beyond the tracks and nearly into the Harlem River. Four dead, 60 injured.  Just as tragic was the fiery crash of  actor Paul Walker, star of the “Fast and Furious” movie franchise. A security camera captured the Porsche Carrera GT’s explosion after slamming into a tree and concrete pole, killing both the actor and his friend and driver Roger Rodas. Investigations are ongoing, but preliminary evidence suggests that excessive speed was the cause of both accidents. The Metro-North train was traveling 82 mph in a 30 mph zone around that sharp bend in the Bronx. Whether either accident was the result of human error or mechanical trouble is yet to be determined. Definition of speeding—the accelerating velocity of an object. Even a society, a culture, a civilization can speed with acceleration toward an unintended end, can’t it? The speed with which poverty is overtaking the human race is breath-taking. The speed that natural disasters now spread carnage across communities and countries is stunning. (BTW, Paul Walker, a practicing Mormon, formed the Reach Out Worldwide relief organization with his friend Roger Rodas to provide aid to global catastrophes—they were returning from a fund-raising event for the Philippines typhoon recovery when both were killed on Sunday.) Speed. Given the velocity of national and global change—economic and social, technological and ecological—not to mention personal change, consider these two admonitions. First, slow down. Real life is both fast and furious. Which means it takes will power to intentionally slow down your pace. Slow it down at times even to a crawl—locking the door to your room or your office—and crawling into the corner of your chair, your bed, your private space and closing your eyes, catching a nap, or simply savoring the quiet. Fifteen to 20 minutes—that’s all it takes, as research shows, to revive your spirit, energize your mind and boost your productivity. During this frenetic but joyful holiday season, slowing down can be a life-saving strategy. Second, stay alert. Reports indicate that the train engineer may have fallen asleep at the controls early Sunday morning. Spiritually speaking, falling asleep at the wheel is a disaster. “Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping” (1 Peter 5:8 Message). Naps work in the physical realm, but in the spiritual realm, Peter is clear—you snooze, you lose. The stakes are exponentially higher. So stay alert. Especially in this season of good food, great friends and lots of fun—it’s easy to drop your guard and lose your spiritual edge. That’s why I recommend for the holidays adding some time to your daily conversation with Christ. Another fifteen minutes beyond your usual—just you and Jesus alone in the Gospels—one story a day to relive with Him (click onto the “New Way to Prayer” banner here at this website). So go ahead—slow your pace, catch your breath, calm your heart. “Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest” (Matthew 11:28 Message). What better Gift this Christmas than Him?

Can you believe it? Earth may boast (according to wiki.answers.com) 23,259,475,120 dialects, but researchers have discovered in a new study that when it comes to confusion, we all speak the same language! No kidding. It turns out that our English word, “Huh?”, is about as universal as it gets. The so-called “Huh-hunters” (linguistic anthropologists) headed to remote villages on five continents and examined ten very different languages. After weeks of trust-building and observation, these scientists discovered the startlingly similar sounding “Huh?” in all the languages and dialects. In English when we interject the word “Huh?” into our conversations we are inserting a word that “plays a crucial role in conversations, according to Herbert Clark, a Stanford University psychologist who studies languages. When one person misses a bit of information and the line of communication breaks, there needs to be a quick and effective way to fix it, he said” (South Bend Tribune 11-11-13). And so we interrupt with a “Huh?” to ask for clarification or to offer our incredulity, our disbelief. Guess what—we’re not alone. These researchers found a tonally equivalent and remarkably similar word in all ten languages. “All the words had a single syllable, and they were typically limited to a low-front vowel, something akin to ‘ah’ or ‘eh.’” And “every version of ‘Huh?’ was clearly a word because it passed two key tests . . . : Each ‘Huh?’ had to be learned by speakers and [had to] follow the rules of its language” (ibid.). For example, when we English speakers ask a question, our voices rise at the end of a sentence—and that’s exactly how we speak the word “Huh?” But when Icelanders ask a question, their voices drop at the end—which is precisely how they treat “Ha?” (their equivalent of “Huh?). Confused yet? As Amina Khan put it in the Los Angeles Times, “Humans speak many languages but we may be united in our confusion” (ibid.). Indeed! So does Heaven have a “Huh?” Does God ever listen to you or me praying and find Himself having to interject a “Huh?” into our monologue? In this season of thanksgiving and gratitude, I suppose it could be a head-scratcher to be the Creator and Sustainer of the universe—who provides for our deepest needs 24/7—but who listens in on prayers that are utterly unmindful of all His blessings and are totally preoccupied with all my wants. “Huh?” “The soul may ascend nearer heaven on the wings of praise.” “We should keep in our thoughts every blessing we receive from God, and when we realize His great love, we should be willing to trust everything to the hand that was nailed to the cross for us” (Steps to Christ 104). This Thanksgiving why not take that hand in gratitude and turn our “Huh?” into “Amen.”

You could certainly draw that conclusion, given the findings released this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Astronomers with data from NASA have for the first time calculated that our Milky Way galaxy “is teeming with billions of planets that are about the size of Earth, [that] orbit stars just like our sun, and exist in the Goldilocks zone—not too hot and not too cold for life” (South Bend Tribune 11-5-13). They have calculated that out of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way, 40-50 billion of them are like our sun. Of those sun-like stars, scientists estimate there are at least 8.8 billion of them with at least one Earth-size planet in orbit. Thus astronomers conclude there may be up to 11 billion planets able to sustain life like ours in this single galaxy! “Geoffrey Marcy, a professor of astronomy at Berkeley, extrapolated the findings across the open void of space, adding: ‘With tens of billions of Earth-like planets in each galaxy [i.e., not just in our own galaxy], our entire universe must contain billions of billions of Earth-like planets” (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/04/kepler_earth_like_planets_habitable/). Billions of billions? Please note, however, that while there may indeed by eleven billion other planets able to sustain life in the Milky Way, astronomers are not yet suggesting they have found life on any of these potential cousins of Earth. And yet it would no longer be so farfetched to suggest that we are not alone in our galaxy—there may very well be other intelligent (more intelligent?) life forms out there. In fact the nearest sun-like star with an earth-size planet is only about 12 light years away and can be seen with the naked eye at night—leading one British commentator to quip—they’re probably getting our TV programming from 2001 (perish the thought)! The ancient book of Job opens with a scene from the divine headquarters of the universe: “Now there was a day when the sons of God [“heavenly beings” NRSV] came to present themselves before the LORD” (Job 1:6). Is it so implausible to find in this ancient line the suggestion that there are other inhabited planets in God’s vast universe, and that here Job describes representatives of these Earth-like planets assembling in the throne room of the Creator? Such a notion is not quite as farfetched as it would have been a few weeks ago, is it? No wonder The Great Controversy observes: “God’s government included not only the inhabitants of heaven, but of all the worlds that He had created” (497). Thus, if we’re not alone and there are intelligent beings sharing our home galaxy with us, can you imagine the vested interest they have in the cosmic struggle between Light (Christ) and darkness (Satan) for the allegiance of this planet? If only one of the Shepherd’s sheep is lost, imagine the intense concern of the ninety-nine others. No wonder the story of Calvary—the glorious narrative of the Creator Himself incarnating into our human family to rescue Earth from the savage dominion of the fallen rebel Satan—will become “the science and song” of the universe one day when the enemy of all life is eradicated. “Tens of billions” of other planets? Can you imagine the Hallelujah chorus when the Family is reunited at His nail-scarred feet!