Bananas, Muesli Bars & Cold Beef Stew

Grab the moment #5

Kia ora friends

Isn’t it curious how key events in our lives define periods in our minds. I don’t know about your but I tend to date my experiences ‘before’ or ‘after’ a key event. An example of a big key event shared the world over is the covid pandemic How often do we hear someone reflecting on something that happened in 2019 say, “oh that was before covid”. It’s as if an invisible line is drawn and everything before 2020 is just a little bit different to this side of the line. We feel this change in tangible ways. It impacts our thoughts, our emotions and our actions. We can never go back to ‘before’ even if we want to do so.

For most of our lives, we live in a continuum of gradual change. One day changes to the next. Sunday ends and Monday begins and the weekly cycle starts over. One week turns into another and before we know it we’re in the middle of November. The seasons shift us in a cycle of planting, growth, harvest and rest. When ordinary life moves us through these patterns with gentle regularity we can casually recall the memory of an event in the way time is seamless, “Was that last Christmas or the one before?” Time moves us forward in a way that makes us lose track of the days, months and years in a blurriness of regularity.

When we experience a key event, time becomes crisply defined. The delineation so obvious that that even years later we remember with clarity the before, the during and the after. Maybe the key event is a move we’ve made; a transition from school to university, from one house to a new house, from one country to another, from one job to a different one, from one vocation to something completely different. Maybe the key event is relational; the start of a new friendship, the birth of a child, the death of a parent, the end of a marriage. Maybe the key event is trauma related; a health diagnosis or an accident or incident.

What happens if we chart our own key life and faith events? Have there been times when we’ve been at dizzying heights and feeling like we’re on top of the world, standing on top of high mountains? Have there been times when we’ve been in the shadows of a deep, dark valley? Perhaps life has been more like a series of gently rolling hills, a little bit high and a little bit low, a few ups and downs but nothing too hard to handle? Perhaps it’s been more like a walk along a seemingly endless plain, the ground flat all the way to the horizon? What happens to us when a mountain appears out of nowhere? How do we navigate the deep ravine leading into the valley below?

Our nervous system maps our experience of the moments that make up these key events. Our heightened senses need no prompting to explore sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures and then this information is stored in our memory in ways that go beyond thoughts. Our whole body responds to the moment. When we recall these key events in future years, we may experience some of the same bodily responses; a tension across our shoulders, butterflies in our stomach, tears of joy or sadness seemingly coming out of nowhere. Key events invite big sensory responses.

God is our shelter and strength,
    always ready to help in times of trouble.
So we will not be afraid, even if the earth is shaken
    and mountains fall into the ocean depths;
even if the seas roar and rage,
    and the hills are shaken by the violence.

Psalm 46:1-3

Mt Aspiring National Park, New Zealaand

If I was to map out my own key events in the last ten years I think it would look like a seismograph with periods of intense activity. There have been so many big things going on that sometimes it feels like they merge together into a series of shocks, more like the earth’s protests in an earthquake than navigating a series of gently undulating hills and valleys. The ups and downs have been seismic at times and relentless. Throughout this time I’ve been grateful for the grounding power of sensory based prayer. My faith keeps me going. Leaning on my God gives me strength. I started this Virtual Prayer Room in the midst of enduring one of the toughest key events in my life.

When we’re confronted with big key events, often all the normal routines and practises that we’ve wired into our brains are up for grabs. Change means we can’t take anything for granted. Everything is different. Circumstances force us to let go and live fully in the moment. Our heightened senses take notice of all the small details, working overtime to collect and collate the new information. Our brains are bombarded. In some ways it can feel like everything slows down and we’re moving in slow motion because there’s just so much to experience in the intensity of whatever is going on, good or bad. In other ways it feels like things are going so fast that there’s not even enough time to breathe. We find ourselves responding in ways that surprise us, and we wonder where our reactions come from. Our thoughts are scattered and we’re at the mercy of an inner auto-pilot that we don’t always understand.

Thirty years ago, just before my first child was born, I read an editorial a writer friend of mine had written for a parenting magazine about what it was like being a new parent. She wrote of sitting in a darkened room, spooning mouthfuls of cold beef stew into her mouth, in between trying to feed and settle a baby that just didn’t want to to go sleep. My reaction at the time was to feel with absolute certainty that under no circumstances would I ever be in a position where I’d find myself eating cold beef stew in a darkened room. Surely, I reasoned I’d just wait until the baby was asleep and then heat up my dinner. This is where a microwave is at it’s best. Practically, how hard could this be? Now I think of my reaction as being such a pre-key event reaction of the kind that proves sometimes you have to live through an event to really understand it. Little did I know what was ahead in my life and how quickly I would find myself operating by auto-pilot doing things I would never have thought likely.

I often find myself thinking about that piece of writing and the imagery of eating spoonfuls of cold beef stew in a darkened room. Of course, a few weeks later after reading the piece, a big key event of occurred with my firstborn arriving and I was plunged into the journey of parenting… and onwards from that into a life and faith journey that has been rich, vibrant, interesting, fulfilling with many high mountains and deep valleys and a well-used auto-pilot function.

Today’s prayers are for these spaces we find ourselves in when our bodies go into auto-pilot. These are for times when we’re experiencing those big emotions or encountering big key events. I haven’t included a prayer on cold beef-stew, but I couldn’t tell you the amount of times I’ve eaten my evening meal in mouthfuls over a couple of hours. As for the times I’ve been rushing out the door and grabbed a banana or a muesli bar with one hand and my phone with my other hand as I’ve left in a hurry. Grabbing some sustenance in a hurry speaks to a time of being under pressure whether through our disorganisation, over committments or big key events events outside of our control. In the same way, prayer provides sustenance when we’re navigating big things.

There are some problems with the prayers on offer today. Firstly, when we’re in auto-pilot we are hardly likely to think about looking up a prayer, even less likely to recall this particular post and have little chance of thinking to pause long enough to grab a banana and then pray. Secondly, while I reach for a banana or a muesli bar these may not be what you grab to eat in those moments that you’re not anticipating. I hope the prayers today offer is an opportunity to appreciate and understatnd why sensory prayers can be so beautiful and powerful and to provide clues and tips to unlocking your own grab the moment prayers.

Our sensory experiences rewire our brains all the time through what’s known as neuroplasticity or brain plasticity. Scientists used to think that the brain only changed through the developmental stages of childhood, but contemporary research has proven that brains are always able to change. This happens every day with the sensory information our brain receives. It’s part of living and we don’t need to think about it for it to happen. However, if we want to deliberately work on rewiring our brains, it’s possible to do the mahi to prepare ourselves for when we hit those mountains and valleys.

To prepare ourselves for sensory based prayer in circumstances that create big key moments, we can work out what are trends we typically exhibit in our auto-pilot actions and behaviours when we hit the mountains and valleys. Maybe we don’t eat bananas. Maybe we forget to eat, so it might not be a food prompt that works for us. Identifying what our own auto-pilot mode looks like is how we can work on linking those activities and behaviours to prayers based around these sensory experiences.

How we can make this work in real life is to focus on the same behavours or actions we repeat time and again when our journey is a gentle stroll on even ground. If in ordinary times we always pause and say a prayer when we eat a banana, our brain eventually rewires this information as an auto-response when eating a banana at any time. When we experience those big sensory key events, and our auto-piloted brain kicks in, it recalls the sensory imprint and serves us a sensory prompt. We don’t need to rely on our thoughts. Our nervous system is auto-piloting us through the situation we’re in and when we grab that banana we receive the prompt to pause and pray. This is good stuff for our life and our faith journey. It grounds us when we pause and take notice of our surroundings. It grounds us when we pray. Prayer reminds us to be present, to breathe, to lean into God and to find strength.

I’ve included both of the prayers for today above the paywall. There are no prayers below the paywall. I’ve included an additional personal message for paid subscribers. However I wanted to let all my subscribers both paid and free, that I’m going to pause our Virtual Prayer Room until mid-February. I’ll be taking a break for three months. It has been a difficult decision. You may have noticed I have not kept to the weekly schedule for some time, due to some of the complexities of my family responsibilities and the impact of past and present big key events. Paid subscriptions will be paused during this time and resume again in mid-February. If you’ve paid for a year, your renewal date will move by three months or if you pay monthly there will not be any payments for the next three months. You can still find me writing for The Seed Disperser and the upcoming Counting Down to Christmas. Our Counting Down to Christmas Advent journey is free this year so please come and sign up to get daily emails between 1st - 25 December. If you have any questions please send me an email or message me.

Lets get on with the prayers!

May our God be with you in your journey

Caroline

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Grab a Banana Prayer

In a hurry to get somewhere? Feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders? Don’t have time to prepare lunch or sit down to eat? When you next find yourself grabbing a banana as a quick snack take a few moments to pause and pray. Hold the banana and feel the weight of it in your hand. As you peel back the skin, think of all the layers of feelings, thoughts and responsibilities you are carrying right now. Offer these to God in a one sentence prayer, inviting God for support in carrying your burdens in the minutes, hours and day ahead. Smell the banana before you take a bite. Breathe in the fragrance. Shut your eyes and appreciate the smell. Savour the moment and invite God’s presence to be with you. Notice your breathing and try to slow it down and make it even. Deliberately take a minute or two to pause and grab the moment. Bite off a piece of banana. Be present in the moment as you eat the banana. Focus your attention on chewing and swallowing.When you’ve finished eating your banana respond to God in a prayer of thanks.

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Muesli Bar Prayer

They might be a bit on the dry side unless they’re homemade, but a muesli bar, granola bar, energy bar or other snack bar provides a quick and easy way of getting sustenance. When we have a lot on our plate it can be hard to find time to stop and look after ourselves. If we’re busy caring for others our need to look after ourselves is vital and yet often overlooked. Grab a muesli bar. Invite God’s presence with you as you eat your muesli bar. With each bite that you take, contemplate the many ingredients that have come together to make this snack. Contemplate your own daily life and the many responsibilities contributing to the busyness. Offer the complexity of everything that is on your mind to God in a one sentence prayer. As you dispose of your muesli bar wrapper give thanks to God for being with you on your journey.