Meditation Metaphor: Weed and Word

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Ephesians 5:18-20

Lots of people "get religion" when they get sent to prison. While some of them devote themselves to the "fake it to make it" religion, most are sincere in their seeking.

For many of them, their new found faith is tied mostly to the feeling they get when they're singing songs of praise and getting all excited about forgiveness and glory.  They're even told by some chapel groups that Ephesians 5 tells them the best way to get past their addiction is to "get all excited" by the Holy Spirit and jump around and sing in the Spirit.

I often tell the ladies in our weekly prison chapel services that if all they get from jailhouse religion is a spiritual high, then all they've done is exchange the addiction that landed them in prison with a different addiction.  When they're released and are back out on the streets, there will be plenty of other things available to make them high.  If they've done nothing to change their habits and focus, they'll likely go right back to the drugs or booze or adrenaline fix to get their high.

So we try to teach them how to fill themselves with a deep and lasting hunger for righteousness and to keep in step with the Spirit.

One of the keys to going deep in faith is to seek both the instant uplift of reading the Word and the long-term psychological and spiritual changes that results from prolonged and sustained meditation on the Word.

These dual effects are surprisingly similar to the short and long term effects of cannabis usage.  For the uninformed, that's marijuana.  Weed.  Mary Jane.

The immediate effects of smoking marijuana include relaxation and a mild pleasurable feeling- getting high or being "stoned".

Few who haven't been a part of the drug culture would describe it as such, but there's no denying that focusing on the scriptures can give you a "buzz" of good feeling. To put it in more biblical terms, mediating on God's Word can produce feelings of peace and joy.

The immediate pleasurable effects of marijuana are even more intense when the cannabis is eaten rather than smoked and inhaled.

This reminds me of several places in scripture where prophets talk about eating a scroll or the words given to them by God or angels (Ezekiel 3:1, Jeremiah 15:16).  They describe it as a pleasurable and motivating act, but it can also have less than pleasant results, just like orally consuming cannabis:

I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. (Revelation 10:10)

Through long-term meditation on the Bible, a residual of God's Word settles deeply into our minds and hearts and souls, producing lasting joy and peace.  This is the deep-seated "addiction" to following God's heart that that I think Paul was encouraging in Ephesians 5.

Much as an habitual user of marijuana takes on the characteristics and personality of the stereotypical "pot-head", so the person who is a habitual meditator upon the Word takes on the characteristics and personality of the Divine Author.

And I have to add, though some may say I'm stretching the metaphor to far, that there is another side effect of marijuana that has a spiritual parallel.

I'm talking about the "munchies".  Both colloquial wisdom and scientific research agree that use of cannabinoids makes people hungry.  Scientifically, the drug enhances the taste receptors and actually activates certain other receptors in the body that increases the desire the food.

Likewise, meditating on the scriptures increases our desire for and enjoyment of the Word. The more we consume of what God has to offer, the more we hunger and thirst for righteousness. As a result, we'll hunger less for other things that used to give us a high.


Blogger's note: No cannabinoids were consumed during the research process for this blog post.

Meditation Metaphor: At the Gym

Since I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes on September 1, 2012, I've been very diligent about making a trip to the local gym four times a week: Wednesday & Thursday, Saturday & Sunday.  Mondays there's no time, since I leave work and have an hour to get everything thrown together to hit the road with my wife for the weekly trip to the prison.  Tuesdays are no good, because after getting in late the night before (after prison) I'm physically exhausted by the time I get off work.  Fridays my body needs a break between the two pair of workout days.

The first thing I do upon arriving at the gym is to step onto the scale and dutifully record my weight on the My Fitness Pal app (which I highly recommend).

I learned early on not to react too strongly to the daily weight measurement.  My weight can swing within a 5-7 pound range from one day to the next, depending on what I've eaten, how long it's been since my last workout, the alignment of the stars, and which socks I'm wearing.  (And don't forget to put down the iPhone when you step on the scale - it adds a good pound or two, more if you have a lot of Skillet songs downloaded)

The history graph on My Fitness Pal gives a better picture of how I'm doing. The graph leaps up and down like a cardiac monitor during a stretch on the stair climber, but by looking at the bast month or the past 3 months I can see the general direction of its movement (or lack of  movement).

Losing weight is a slow process.  It's hard to be motivated to stick to the plan when someone in the next office over brings in a bag of fresh bagels in the morning. After getting past the initial fear that eating half a bagel would put into some sort of diabetic coma, my only real motivation is to look at that slowly dropping chart.

Even slower is the upward change in my muscle tone and strength.  Not only am I eating less and doing more cardio exercises, I'm also working out regularly with weights. I do this because I've read that muscle mass burns calories faster than other tissues.

Who am I kidding?  I pump the iron because, like most guys, it's the weight machines and barbells that get my adrenaline pumping and make me feel like a true gym rat.  And that self indulgence helps motivate me to go to the gym.

But there's no simple app for measuring my muscle mass.  I suppose I could chart the increase in the weight settings for each machine or the bench press.  But those numbers move even more gradually than my weight.

The only way to see the gradual changes in my physique is to take a monthly selfie of myself with my shirt off, doing the classic Charles Atlas pose.  And I'm afraid my wife and son would laugh at me if they were to catch me in the bathroom doing that.

Actually, I notice the effects of my gym time the most when I discover myself doing something I haven't been able to do for years.  The most recent example would be when I climbed the stairs at the library, a habit I've worked on as opposed to taking the elevator.

Just the other day I was halfway up the staircase when I realized I had been taking the stairs two at a time. In my teens and twenties I would scale stairways in such a fashion and just shake my heads at the slow old people I left in my wake.

Now, at the age of 57, I surprised myself by behaving like a teenager again.

I should note, for the sake of honesty, that I noticed I was skipping steps because after the third such double-step My knee reminded me that I am not in fact 17, and what did I think I was doing.

For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.  This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance.  That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.  I Timothy 4:8-10

Meditating on the Word according to a scheduled and consistent routine can sometimes be difficult to sustain. Many days the verses and chapters just don't jump off the page and produce rapturous visions of glory.

It's difficult to chart the changes that training (from the Greek gumnasia, from which we get our gymnastics) in godliness are working on our spiritual fitness.

Just as physical fitness presents itself most often in an occasional, "wow I look/feel better" moment, godly fitness tends to show its face when we're actually walking by faith, keeping in step with the Spirit, laboring and striving to do the things God has called us to do.

Don't expect to enjoy the fruit of your meditations unless you're also bearing the fruit of exertion.