Spiritual Balance – Page 25 – Andrea Arthur Owan

Pre-Surgery Preparation: Prayer and Meditation

I’m having surgery tomorrow morning. Early. Check in time is 6:45 AM, with surgery scheduled for 7:00. I’m not looking forward to it, but who ever really looks forward to having surgery. I’m worried. Okay, more than a little anxious about the pain, since the type of surgery I’m having is rumored to be excruciating.

In an effort to keep my teeth decay-free during this horrid two and a half years of wearing braces, I’ve overzealously brushed and flossed and managed to severely damage the gums around my bottom four front teeth. Because of the gum recession, the bone density of the roots on two of the teeth has already decreased to such a dangerously low point that I am at risk of losing the teeth. Ugh!

Surgery preparations—

Of course there is a mile-long list of things I must do and must not do prior to the procedure. Like: stop all anti-inflammatory meds (like Advil, ibuprofen, etc.) four days prior to surgery so my blood clotting capability isn’t affected; and no concentrated caffeine drinks, like Red Bull. (No problem there.) No strenuous exercise 24 hours before surgery (I should have asked him to define “strenuous.”) And stop food and water intake six hours before.

The process—

He’ll be carving out tissue from the roof of my mouth and making new gum out of it to cover up the exposed roots. To enhance healing, he’ll be drawing my blood and mixing the platelets and stem cells with tissue and applying that to the wound. I won’t be able to apply ice packs anywhere near the surgery site (ice is always my pain treatment go-to) because any pressure to the surgical site can undo the delicate tissue. So much for the hoped-for ice.

Recovery time is six weeks, with the first several days off-limits to chewing, sucking liquids through a straw, (the vacuum can undo the sutures and tissue), or tooth brushing in that area. (I don’t think I’m going to attempt to brush any tooth in my mouth those first several days!) Room temperature liquids and swishing with water will be the norm.

Along with a lot of pain.

And that’s what I’m preparing the most for.

Meditating for mental (and physical) success—

The last thing I want to do is go into the morning exhausted and mentally overwhelmed. So I needed to spend today (the day before surgery) in mental and spiritual preparation for this three-hour, anesthesia-blessed procedure. I’m laying low, resting, doing some last-minute tidying up around the house so I can recover in a clean, dust-free environment.

And I’m spending a lot of time praying.

I’m asking God to prepare my body and mind for this, and to respond well, and joyfully. After all, my concern led to questioning the condition of my teeth, and two dentists recommending the best oral surgeon in town, a guy who uses the latest and greatest procedures to maximize success. And I managed to get this done before being surprised—like when my two front teeth might have ended up in a crisp apple I had just ripped into.

I’m thanking God for going ahead of me to prepare the procedure room, every last bit of equipment and the doctor and his assistant for the surgery. I’m requesting that God guides the doctor’s hands, and the assistant’s. I’m praying the procedure will go better than expected, and faster, with accelerated healing.

I’m also doing a lot of deep breathing exercise because that has the potential to decrease my stress and agitation and improve my immune system. (It’s the breathing in yoga exercises that makes that activity so successful health-wise.) Adding some light stretching will help, since I’ll be stuck in that chair for so long.

And I’m playing some of my favorite praise and worship songs, both high energy and low, to remind myself of God’s presence and promises and to increase my sense of awareness and presence—the state of mind and body posture one assumes when facing intimidating or stressful circumstances.

Overall goal—

In a nutshell, I’m focusing. And I’ll be leaning into the recovery. Resting as much as I need, or my body dictates. Setting aside other distractions. Maintaining a sense of peace and quiet amidst lots (or as much as possible) of smiles and laughter, even if they have to be internal. Doing a lot of general reading, which is a favorite activity I never have enough time for. I’m really looking forward to that!

And I’ll be spending a lot of time with my dogs, gazing into their eyes. Studies have shown that people holding gazes with their dogs showed increases in different hormones, like oxytocin, which is a feel-good hormone. Letting them give you pooch smooches also helps, but I won’t be able to allow them to do that. Too much risk to the graft.

It’s not going to be easy, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to describe it as fun. But if everything goes according to plan, it won’t have to be as scary or painful or disrupting emotionally, physically or spiritually as it could be.

Reader request—

I would appreciate your prayers. At this point, I’m planning to be away from the blog for two weeks, so please check back around July 9 for the next Mediation Mondays installment.

Until then, thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers, and be thinking about how you can lighten your mental and physical load through planned and structured meditation!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo Copyright Desiring God

Cows, God and a Great Story

Stories change us. And mysterious or miraculous events make for great stories. Sometimes even cows get involved, with God.

What?

This amazing, entertaining and true story by David Armstrong is just an example.

“My mind jumped into overdrive. I couldn’t swerve—the highway had no shoulders. I couldn’t honk—that would do nothing. I couldn’t slow down—I was going too fast. If I made any sudden movement on the slippery road, we’d crash into the trees framing the old highway. It was an impossible situation. Not sure what else to do, I yelled, ‘Jesus, help!’

“Instantly, the cows stopped moving. And I heard it. A firm but quiet voice. Deep from within. ‘Don’t hit the brakes. Grab the wheel tight.’

“I grabbed the wheel, kept the same speed and headed straight for the line of cows. ‘Oh God, I said. ‘Oh God!’”

Want to know the ending, and how David got to this point? Go to Guideposts.org/FourCows to enjoy the entire short story.

You’ll also find the full story in Guideposts magazine June/July 2018 issue of Mysterious Ways: More Than Coincidence. If you can, get your hands on the issue. It’s full of impactful stories and articles, like how listening to stories impacts our brain chemistry.

Until next week,

Keep enjoying (and telling) stories of how God cares for you.

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo Courtesy of Time.com on Google Images

Celebrating Milestones—Becoming a Thinker of Great Thoughts

My older son, who is my first-born child, emerged from the womb with bright, wide-open eyes taking in his new surroundings. “Are they always this alert?” I asked the doctor who’d just delivered him.

“No. That one’s going to require extra stimulation.”

Oh, how right that doctor was!

My son was busy, and a innovative, master Lego builder. He thought big thoughts and dreamed big dreams. He disrupted his first-grade class with too much socializing and talking after finishing all of his seatwork early and having nothing else to do. When I brought him home to home school, I worked hard to stay ten steps ahead of him. I wasn’t always successful.

One day in college he called me to have a philosophical chat, something we still enjoy doing. “I’m thinking about going into artificial intelligence,” he said. “But I’m worried about it. The moral implications. In the wrong hands, AI could be dangerous and disastrous. I just don’t know if I should do it.”

We chatted, and I gave him some things to think about. But mostly I just listened to him . I think he needed to hear himself talk, to lay out all of his pros and cons. And then make a decision.

Here he is, seven years later, wearing a Doctor of Philosophy robe and cap and holding a PhD in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Specifically Mechatronics—a technology that combines electronics and mechanical engineering.

And I think it’s ironic that I now have a Doctor of Philosophy in the family at a time when we’ve been studying philosophy and the great thinkers here on Meditation Mondays.

Now my son has a “great thinker” degree. And that’s what they encouraged him to do when he arrived on campus for his M.S. and PhD combined program.

At first, he thought it was pretty swell, being encouraged to stroll around campus, sit and think and take notes about his thinkings. He still does things like that, especially when he’s out hiking the Cascades or Snoqualmie with his trusty hiking buddy Nox, (my adorable Maltipoo granddog). But now he mostly thinks great, useful thoughts. Practical thoughts that produce designs and devices to help mankind. He knows the process of thinking and putting to the test great thoughts, but he’s more focused on the moral issues and ramifications.

For that, I’m grateful.

I hope his B-HAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) dreams come true!

Thanks for letting me indulge in family news the last two posts and let my pride ooze over a little more than it should.

See you back here on the 18th for some practical meditation!

Until then,

Make it a great week of (moral and ethical) thinking!

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo courtesy of Andrea A Owan

Are You Mostly Body or Mostly Spirit? Part 1

I am not a human being on a spiritual journey,

I am a spiritual being on a human journey.

While studying my Camino de Santiago guidebook by John Brierly (the one I’m using as my primary guide for the pilgrimage the engineer and I will soon embark on), I came upon the above quote, about not being a human being on a spiritual journey but a spiritual being on a human journey.

Profound?

It sure sounded deep, spiritual, enlightening, and inspirational when I read it. But then I really started thinking about it, and I came to the conclusion that I don’t fully agree with it.

The quote is a paraphrased and personalized spiritual maxim based on a quote attributed to both Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and G. I. Gurdeiff. Well-known author Wayne Dyer popularized it and evidently uses it in his presentations. It can be considered a paraphrase of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s dictum that matter is spirit fallen into a state of self-otherness.

True, or false?

You can find a lot of psychoanalytic assessment and articles online on the idea of “otherness,” but a rough definition would be to say that it is a state of being different and alien to the self.

And that’s what hangs me up about this saying and causes me to ask myself the following questions:

Am I mostly human, or mostly spirit?
Is my human form less important than my spirit?
Does my soul feel alien to my physical self, and vice versa?
What’s God’s opinion about this view?

A few of my conclusions—

Being mostly spirit sounds Gnostic to me.

(We’ll be covering Gnosticism in a future Meditation Monday post.) Gnostics are heavy on spirit and having an “inward knowing.”

God created us to be both spirit and bodies.

And when He originally created humans, He intended for them to live forever, in perfect bodies that didn’t wear down, break down, get sick, or die. The ugly—sinful degradation part—came at the fall. So the original intent seemed to be a nice balance of both body and spirit.

Body and Spirit are equally important.

Since Scripture says we’ll eventually have new bodies in which to house our incorruptible spirits (after death and our resurrection), it seems as though both body and spirit are important to Him—now and later.

Do I have a healthy balance with both?

It seems to me that, in order to live the fullest and most fruitful life, you need to have a healthy opinion toward both your body and soul.

Food for thought—

Throughout the summer we’ll be exploring this body versus spirit idea more carefully. But for this weekend, I invite you to mediate on the following questions:

What is your opinion about this spiritual maxim, or philosophical view?
In your life, do you focus more on your physical body or your spirit?
Are your decisions driven more by your physical needs than your spiritual ones?
Which do you believe you need more work on—your body or your spirit? Or do you feel you are living a life in balance, so both the body and spirit are growing and bearing fruit?

Until next week,

Happy journeying, with both body and soul!

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo courtesy of Andrea A. Owan

Are You Growing the Right Direction?

Have you ever noticed how some trellising plants grow, like wisteria or delicate jasmine?

I’ve been watching my recently potted pink jasmine twining itself up the trellis I planted it in front of. And I noticed something fascinating. On just the second day, after it shot up overnight!

It naturally grows and loops counter-clockwise.

(For all of you master gardeners, who already know this fact, please don’t laugh!)

Every individual shoot twines that way, even when it runs out of supporting trellis and has no choice but to sag and then loop back down, it winds down the support in a counter-clockwise direction.

When I tried to get it to go the other direction, (I’m a scientist; I like to experiment!), it sagged or tried to unwind and rewind itself. Clearly, the growth genes in it weren’t happy, and resisted my efforts.

And then I started thinking that the same thing happens to me. When I’m not growing and developing and maturing the right direction, I sag and try to rewind. Even if I can’t put my finger on what’s happening, I can feel it.

I struggle emotionally, physically and spiritually. My life is unbalanced and chaotic. I’m not very fruitful, and I’m almost always frustrated. And oh, so tired.

Goad kicking—

In Jesus’ terms, I’m “kicking against the goad.” Which is hard. I’m resisting what the Holy Spirit wants me to do, resisting the life He has planned for me. The best life! I’m living life with one foot in my faith and the other on a spiritual (worldly) banana peel. Which isn’t a very stable, fruitful, (or pleasant) way to live.

If I try to rewind my jasmine and force it to grow another way or direction it isn’t designed to grow, I end up with a chaotic looking plant. And probably a stunted one. Lopsided. With ugly gaps.

If I give it the water, nutrients, and sunlight it needs, and maybe just help it get started in its tendril-support searching, I can stand back and watch it grow vigorously. It’s symmetrical and fascinating. It properly fills in the open spaces and is pleasing to observe. It brings me satisfaction and joy. I don’t really need to do much work to have it grow into a beautiful plant, because I’m allowing (and encouraging) it to do what it was designed to do.

How about you?

Are you growing the right direction, the way you were designed to grow? Allowing the Holy Spirit to nurture you and guide your growth? To provide the right support?

Or are you fighting your natural growth and His leading; and, in the process, wasting precious time, energy and resources.

For the weekend—

I know. It’s a holiday here in the U.S., but a three-day weekend is a perfect time to settle back and think about things in life.

Take some time this weekend to make some “field notes” on yourself. Like a biologist, environmentalist, or any other outdoor scientist does when assessing nature and what it tends to do naturally.

It won’t take long. Jot down the major areas of your life—physical, emotional and spiritual, and maybe work, family, personal relationships—and make some notes on how you’re growing in these areas. Don’t write down how you should be growing; just how you seem to be growing right now.

If you want, put happy, sad, or neutral faces next to each one. For now, just do the preliminary assessment without making any self-judgment calls.

Be a scientist researching yourself. Make it entertaining and fun.

NEXT WEEK: we’ll look more at how you should be growing. And what you might need to correct the direction you’re growing so you can be healthy, strong, and fruitful!

Until then, enjoy some plants and beautiful gardens!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).