The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Best Darn Nerve Fertilizer (BDNF)

Just finished reading "SPARK" by Dr. John Ratey. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316113506/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

It explains the neurology of exercise and the BDNF* (I call it the "Best Darn Nerve Fertilizer") He make a pretty compelling argument for how exercise is the magic Miracle Grow that helps the brain pay attention, learn and remember. BDNF acts on certain neurons of the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system, helping to support the survival of existing neurons, and encourage the growth and differentiation of new neurons and synapses. In the brain, it is active in the hippocampus (where you learn new things), cortex (where you process what you already know and connect the new), and basal forebrain (the part of the brain that produces a chemi...cal vital in transmiting information from neuron to neuron). These are all areas vital to learning, memory, and higher thinking. BDNF is important for anything you learn to turn into long-term memory. After reading the book, it got me seriously thinking:

WHY WOULD YOU EVER sit a kid at a table or desk to learn anything?

WHY WOULD YOU EVER have them cross their legs and sit quietly on the floor as you teach?

WHY WOULD YOU EVER have them listen to you talk for 5, 10, 15 minutes in a pew without doing ANYTHING physical with what they just learned?

This is a no-brainer because it's a whole brainer.

Solution: Treadmills instead of pews.

No. Really.

The Neuroscience of Time

Loved the time piece on MINDSCIENCE by Annalee Newitz.

Read it, then do some thinking/writing on how would you would suggest teachers leverage this knowledge to be more effective in the one-hour classroom with:

With little children? (3-5)
With elementary? (6-9)
With preadolescents and adolescents? (10-36)

Brains and Minds and Hearts and Arts

Download Brain

1.  There are 100 billion neurons in an adult brain. As many as all the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy - the night sky.
2.  There are a quadrillion connections in an adult brain. As many as all the phone calls made in the last 20 years.
3.  Every nerve cell is connected to at least 10,000 others in an amazing array of firings and wirings.
4.  You have a short term storage drive (hippocampus) and a long-term storage drive (neo-cortex), but that's not all.
5.  You store memories all over your body. Even in your feet!
6.  You also have an "exobrain" and store memories in your... Friends!
 7.  The "MIND" is bigger than the brain. It's the "brain meets the body meets the environment." - Dr. Angie Patel, Neuroscience Institute
 8.  Your eyes take up the most space in your brain. It's not the "mind's eye" but the "eye's mind."
9.  The brain is full of gate-keepers trying to keep information overload from happening. ("Too much information!")
10. The only sense you possess that has NO gate-keepers is the sense of smell. You can't NOT smell something!
11. Sleep isn't a time when your brain goes on break. It shifts into hyper-drive to make sense of all the stuff you experienced during the day (including everything you saw, smelled, tasted, felt, and heard that you didn't pay attention to at the time.)

12. If the mind is "the brain meets the body meets the environment" and you aren't engaging their bodies and environmnets (from the art on the walls to the temperature of the room to the interaction with friends), you are losing 2/3 of your mind before you start teaching.

Rocket Man and the Squid Kid

When I get dreaming out loud, I tend to scare people away.

My blessing and my curse is I see whole pictures. Instantly.

I hear whole symphonies... Literally. Things that aren’t even written.

When I was a kid in Dilworth we had an old blue Chevy. This was in the day before seat belts. We would go on vacation in this thing, and I’d get to ride up front with dad.

This was also in the days of John Glenn and the Mercury space programs. When we got on the road, I would crawl down on the floor  and lay my back where mom’s feet are and my feet up on the seat. Then I would look up into the wiring behind the glove compartment and pretend I was in a space ship. Half asleep, half day-dreaming in the gentle hum of the engine I could hear music. Real music. Not just music, but whole symphonies. Not symphonies that I had heard from mom’s classical records or the little radio sitting on top of the fridge next to the guppy tank playing classical music.

I would hear whole symphonies that didn’t exist. From start to end.

I see whole worlds within worlds. (A la Horton Hears a Who).

I hear whole songs within a chord.

I see whole camps filled with kids creating the next generation of worship for the post-television “I’m not going to sit here and watch your performance, pastor” generation and a reviving of the church when I look at an empty piece of land in them mountains and a yurt.
After reading Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf (Tufts University prof and researcher on dyslexia and other brain disorders) I came to see I didn’t have a disorder in my brain.

I had a different order.

And guess what? So do you. Every brain is similiar, but every brain is wired on its own completely unique path. You can't see what I see. Not even in the same painting. You can't hear what I hear. Not even in the same symphony. You can't tast what I taste. Not even in the same Big Mac. (Oh, that's right. I don't eat them any more.)

So the question for today, oh semiotician, is how can you communicate ANYTHING when everyone in your world isn't from your world?

The Picture

I happened to buy an interesting book "Brain Rules" by John Medina a while back while sitting the the Phillie airport. The author is a molecular biologist who has a lot to say about brains, learning, sleep, exercise and a lot of the points about active learning I taught on my 79 cities last year. His stuff clarifies how the brain works best, and his advise applies both to rethinking education and to rethinking the way businesses operate to get maximum productivity out of workers.

The Harvard Business Review says: "Few people are better qualified to help managers sift through all the hype than John."

One particularly interesting study he cites tells you why you want to be visual as you teach. In one room, a lecture was done without pictures. In another, the same lecture with pictures. 72 hours later, the lectured group remembered 10% of what was said.

The group with pictures?

65%.

What does that say to you, teacher?

What does that say to you, preacher?

One Molecular Biologist and the Bible

I happened to learn more about the author of yesterday's post after reading  "Brain Rules" by John Medina at the Phillie airport last week. The author is a molecular biologist who has a lot to say about brains, learning, sleep, exercise and all the points I've been teaching on my 79 cities. He's also into rebuilding models for early childhood education.

His stuff clarifies how the brain works best, and his advise applies both to rethinking education and to rethinking the way businesses operate to get maximum productivity out of workers.

The Harvard Business Review says: "Few people are better qualified to help managers sift through all the hype than John."

I found out John happens to teach at Seattle Pacific and the U of Wash, so since I'm there this week - on my last of the 79 city tour -  I contacted his office to see if he had time for a chat.

After doing a little research, I found out he's also a rather marvelous Christian teacher, Bible scholar, apologist and CS Lewis scholar. His staff sent me a link to a series of lectures he did recently at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle.

http://www.upc.org/audio/Midweek_Classes/trustthebooks/mwc20061108.mp3

I woke early this morning and listened to it as my devotions, and it's pretty marvelous. When it's time to resurrect and write the "Why God?" series we started a few years ago, John would be a great supplemental thinker.

If you don't have time to listen to the whole talk - it's an hour - here's my notes:

Rich


November 8, 2006
"Why One Scientist Decided to Trust the Old and New Testaments"
Taught by John Medina

Let's suppose you are not a materialist. Let's suppose you are instead a deist. Someone who makes room for an all-powerful God. If you believe there is an all powerful God... then the miracles of the Bible are child's play compared to someone who could create the entire universe in a single word. The miracles are child's play to an all-powerful God.

If you do not believe in a God powerful enough to do this, then it's all nonsense.

It all depends on your frame of reference. Your presuppositions. What you bring to the table before you ask the questions about whether something did or did not happen."

When I read CS Lewis's book on miracles, I ran into two quotes that made my heart race:

"Every event which might be claimed as a miracle is, as a last resort, something presented to our senses."

"What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience. It is therefore useless to appeal to experience before we settle the philosophical question: Is there an all-powerful Creator or isn't there."

It the legal world - testimonial and experiential evidence are both admitted.

Science doesn't like testimonial data, although testimony can quickly lead to truth.

Top 4 Objections to the Bible's Claims by those who come to the table believing there is no God:

1. Rule of Counter-Intuitivity: "The miracles are counter intuitive"
2. The Rule of Nonsense: "These miracles are nonsense!"
3. The Miracles are Arbitrary: "Why does God intervene for some, but not for others?"
4. The Rule of Inconsistency: "The rules are contrary to the rules of science"

These are also (rightly) the Top 4 Objections to the Science of Quantum Mechanics

1. These data counter-intuitive (take a look at some of the claims of QM!)
2. These data nonsense (QM often doesn't make sense or fall in line with what we think we know)
3. These data arbitrary (sometimes the "rules" go one way, sometimes another)
4. These data inconsistent (ditto)

The issue in science AND religion is always first the perspective that you bring to the table. QM and the miracles of the Bible are both counter-intuitive, nonsense, arbitrary and inconsistent if you only allow for the "facts" and can't allow for anything to be true outside of what we think we know.

THE I-Triple EEE-JOURNAL OF QUANTUM MECHANICS IS WEIRDER THAN THE BIBLE

Four Instances from Molecular Biology where the "facts" just don't add up

1. The Atom -
No doubt the atom is a weird place to be. Lots of space around it. Electrons exist in what is called a probabilistic cloud around the nucleus. Electrons can exist at various heights around a nucleus and can move into and out of certain orbits. When you try to get an electron to move from one orbit to the next, this is where you encounter a weird thing. You never really see an electron move from one level to the other. The reason you can't see them move, is because they do not move. The Electrons disappear from the top orbit and reappear in the lower orbit without actually transitioning to another space. The electron disappears from the outside of the house and reappear on the inside. Where do they go? That's the wrong question. They don't go anywhere. Quantum leap. The electron disappears from the top orbital and reappears in the bottom orbital. It's an attempt to account for the counter-intuition - it doesn't make sense.

2. Super-Position
Being two places at once. Max Reiger, German composer of 100 years ago. Nemesis wrote bad things: "Dear Dr. Lewis, I am sitting in the smallest room in the house and your review is before me. Soon it will be behind me."
Beam-splitter - once the real world of disappearing and reappearing electrons is accepted, they tried to make the electron go through hoops. One of these obstacle courses is called a beam splitter - two path. Could an indivisible particle like an electron gain entrance to the beam splitter and, if it does, which path would it take? Path A, Path B. Indivisible particle. To this day there is no explanation - it is impossible. The indivisible particle choose both paths and goes down both of them at the same time! The only way you could explain that, is to believe an indivisible particle can be in two distinct places at the exact same time. Also done with a barilium atom - much larger than an electron. In celebration of the fact that we do not know what's going on, we call it super-position. The particle is literally physically in two places at the same time. This is non-sense.

3. Arbitrary
If small things can do that, can larger things do that? Are there rules for small things, that aren't true for large things? If an electron can be in two places, why can't you?

4. Entanglement
Let us begin with the thought that you can't go past the speed of light. When information is entangled. If you have a quarter and a penny and give someone the quarter, you must still have the penny. I could go way over here and it will still be true. it doesn't matter the distance, because things are entangled. By knowing that one box has a penny and a quarter, they are linked. If you use atoms, not coins, you can take an atom that spins in a clockwise direction and the other goes counter-clockwise. If you spin Atom A clockwise, Atom B will be counter-clockwise if they are entangled. When you ask them what direction they are spinning and put the two atoms together they are entangled. As you go out further, you should take longer and longer for them to delay in their communication. Separate them by light years, and they still react just the same. Nicholas Geisen's team separated particles by light years, they ignore the distance and at 10M x the speed of light and still react instantly.

Change the properties of one in a tangled pair and they still operate the same way. In the strange published name of the event is called by today's scientists by the name -" SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE".

The score-card for science being "just the facts" has been turned at a head. Quantum mechanics violates many of the known and established laws of science. Yet, it's still called a science?

As scientists we are facing data that are just nonsense. What is the real quibble?

Likes Garrison Keillor - Likes jokes about Lutheran minister driving from MN to CT. State trooper sees empty bottle of wine. Just water, officer. Then why do I smell wine? Good lord, he's done it again!

The real quibble is the source of credibility - the reliable of testimonial evidence depends on the creditability of the witness.

So, why does John Medina think the Bible is a reliable witness? (He's got 25 reasons. Here's a few:

Reasons I Give Credibility to the Witness

1. The Bible took place in explicitly described in breathtaking prediction and white-hot argument. The Bible is very predictive of events and cultures that have been confirmed over time. In the records of antiquity, not a single record of the Hittites was found. In 1876 a series of monuments were found in Turkey, the ancient capital of Hittites. Sargon I was severly questioned. 1843 a tremendous royal palace of Sargon, king of Assyeria, was found. The House of David. Until 1994 no archiological representation existed outside the Bible. Documentary once said David was merely a symbol. 1994 basalt stellah, a king from the house of David. Non-biblical reference.

2. Not only is there scholarship, there is deep argument - not agreement. Consider laboratory of Don Johanson, university of washington, discovered Lucy. Relics of human remains. "In our years of collaboration... Don did personal and verbal assaults. The Bible so robustly describes events that an entire field of Bible study exists.... They argue because there is something to argue about.

3. Errors in the accounts. John corrects the Gospels. The accounts are primarily testimonial. If two people come up with identical things, they can be thrown out. No two people who witness the events describe the events in the exact same way. Gigi - "Ah yes, I remember it well."  The descripancy in the details is a sign that the event was actually real.

4. Flaw comes in the description of the heroes - biblical heros are often deeply flawed and sometimes becomes the enemy. In other cultures, they never mention the failures. The habit of antiquity is to gloss over all failures. Autobiography of Kim Jung Il: "At the time of his birth there were flashes of lightening and thunder. As the age of 4 he smeared a map of Japan with black ink. By a touch of Kim Jun Il's hand, the sea turns into dry land and a valley into paradise.

Yet, the heroes in the Bible aren't white-washed. They're real - flaws and all.

King David - "A heart after God... is a murderer and adulterer."
Paul - Thorn in flesh that he can't get rid of
Elijah- kills kids with she bear
Rahab - prostitute
Ruth - sleeps with an old guy
Peter - big mouth, makes claims "I'll never deny you" then deserts Jesus

5. How the Bible treat's time: Keillor- "God?" "Yes" "What is a million years to you?" "As one second." "What's a million dollars?" "As a penny" "Can I have a penny." "Sure... just a second."

Time is the entity that keeps everything from happening all at once. We appear to be stuck in the here and now. God isn't. IF you take away the concept of time... then the Bible - and the God of the Bible - appears to be one giant, impossibly cohesive, amazing story that God had planned from the beginning.   There are multiple authors stretched over hundred of years and yet  the message is still completely clear. Isaiah's scrolls (dead sea verified) show Jesus. David's Psalms 2 and 22 - show Jesus. It's eery, as if the whole thing was designed by one author to make a beautiful, cohesive point.

John Medin'a favorite "out of time" story is Jesus praying for Jerusalem: The account almost reads as if we are eaves-dropping on something Jesus said. It's almost as if he's talking and summing up all of time, saying something not meant for the human ears or those around him" "Jerusalem.... how I have longed to hug you.... gather you... but you would not let me."

He's not talking about his own time here. He's talking about a relationship with that city that stretched into antiquity. It's a timeless statement of love and longing and repeated disappointment." Then he says, "Now no stone will be left unturned until you say "blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord...."

That's not any human (caught in time) talking.

The Bible is a whole. A timeless whole. A reliable testamony. And it shows me a God who is everything I could hope for.

He (Jesus) still died for me. He still loves me.

Amazing.

Pillow Fights & Kick Boxing

"No children allowed to have fun tonight...
No children allowed for a pill-ow fight..."
- Melheimian Nightly Bedtime Liturgy

I've had a few questions regarding how pillow fights and kick boxing fit into the FAITH 5.

Although pillow fights and kick boxing are not part of the FAITH 5, they do set it up rather nicely.

When my kids were little, we did a nightly "oxygen/glucose" fix... just to make sure they had the right chemicals floating around in their brains before we'd do the FAITH 5.

Exercise gives you oxygen, which makes you attentive. Glucose is like the "glue" that helps fix a memory by promoting the growth of Glial Cells... which feed the neurons, clean the neurons, and send out little markers telling the neurons where to grow and what to connect.

Aspen Get-Away

Here's what it looks like when 16 writers lock themselves up in our Faith Inkubators Foundation Mountain Valley Retreat Center for 5 days and write 200 songs.

Yup, 200 songs.

I'm thinking the first photo should go to Steve Jobs.

Digital Natives vs Digital Immigrants

Care to know why one-dimensional lectures don't work from a generational perspective?

Because you're preaching to an audience that doesn't exist.

It's really hard to talk to people who aren't there.

Don't click this link unless you have at least 15 minutes to invest in Understanding Digital Children.

The Brain and the Church

This just in from Angie Witmer, Super-FINK in Des Moines and just back from Dr. Eric Jensen's brain based learning school in California:

Big take home messages: hope has to run in and through everything we do; we need to work with parents so that they are working with kids every night at home (sound familiar?); transformation is possible with almost any brain--the only ones that are seemingly beyond repair are those who have been abused with drugs for years and years; there are really very few people who have healthy brains (long story--but amazing stats).

There are a lot of 'little' take homes, too: learned helplessness can be unlearned (and let's face it, aren't many folks in our congregation acting helpless: "It's your job, pastor--I'm just a lay person!"); what we do with our kids between the ages of 0-5 is critical--absolutely, positively critical; optimal skill building has to include repetition, buy-in, regular feedback and practice, practice, practice (again...sound familiar?).

Relationship. Relationship. Relationship. We need to belong to a social fabric--the neurobiological set of capabilities that makes us feel that we belong to something beyond ourselves.

We used to say "it's the quality, not the quantity". We were wrong. It's both.

Angie's thinking about writing a book on the brain and the church. Drop her a line if you've got ideas she should cover.