Somersaults

Man oh man, I thought I had it bad with my ADD little brother as a kid – these children were something else, a circus of activity, color, laughter, subjects, ideas, and energy all swirled together so that I felt something like Captain Hook captured by the Lost Boys who were only eager and happy to interrogate me on my knowledge of all things to do with martial arts. Which is little, despite my admiration and enjoyment of tai chi. I tell you what, I know the group was concerned that the kids wouldn’t be able to get anything meaningful out of only having five minutes set aside for each specific activity but I promise, had we tried to dedicate a minute more to any one activity, the kids probably would’ve had us all walking the plank. Don’t get me wrong, their enthusiasm and excitement (especially after we mentioned the food – their eyes lit up so bright and fast it was like watching so many pairs of suns rise all at once in some kind of celestial race for afternoon) was surprising and wonderful, I loved how happy they were with us despite any initial first-time-around-the-block disorganization, but given the slightest, teeny-tiniest lull of any kind and they just went wild with things. We had girls who, during the simple thirty second down time of explaining the next exercise that would be trying to show off for us all the gymnastics they already knew, boys who were trying to demonstrate all the “martial arts” they knew by attacking each other in a wild flurry of smacks and laughter, and some of the really young ones trying to explain their entire back story from family troubles to ballet class to homework assignments.

I really feel like we were successful so far as giving the kids something constructive, fun, non-competitive, and yet still group interactive to do for an afternoon where they might have otherwise simply been playing video games or watching older kids play basketball with sighs in their eyes. It was, at times, difficult to keep control and attentions focused enough to complete our planned exercises and routines, but their interest – though perhaps flying off on tangents almost constantly – remained keen and deep throughout the entire session so that those who had to leave early made sure to know when we were coming back, what they’d miss, and whether or not we’d be bringing the snacks back. :] I know I had a lot more fun than I’d anticipated (and I really had anticipated enjoying myself), I know I certainly got a fine workout out of the deal, and I have to mention – even though I’m not the gymnastics guru – there was an older girl in our group, maybe twelve or thirteen, who, when faced with the task of performing a somersault, caught my eye, shook her head, and murmured: no way, I can do that.

Even though it was the lovely Miss Shannon that demonstrated and helped her perform the somersault – I’ve seldom felt so good about life in general as I did when I saw her face after she’d successfully completed her first somersault. Maybe she’s too old to have gone home and excitedly asked her parents to watch what she’d learned to do that day, but I felt as though a difference had been made in her day for the better, let her know she was capable of new things always, always, always. And what a nice sentiment to walk away with at the end of a day. Not a bad day, not bad at all.

A bit of the BS

I’m not a big lecture-goer myself because although I do love to learn and I enjoy stepping out of my major for some refresher-knowledge, I just don’t learn well via lecture. I took notes to help me stay on track during the couple of lectures that I went to yesterday: “How God Changes Your Brain” by Andrew Newberg and “Darwin’s Compass” by Simon Morris, but even then I either found myself uncomfortable, tired, distracted, or rambling so much into my notes that I’d miss pieces of the lecture. I’ve always learned best in group discussion situations but despite all of this I did enjoy myself. I’d actually just been to listen in to a lecture on romance in literature and its evolution through time and cultures, so that was a nice segue for me – especially since I think I learn and retain new information best when it’s presented to me as a piece of a larger puzzle rather than a single, complete entity within itself. (If that made any sense at all :p)

At any rate, I thoroughly enjoyed both speakers – Dr. Newberg reminding me of Bill Nye and Dr. Morris just rockin’ the crazy tie and surprisingly non-annoying British accent – but even though I found Dr. Morris to be exceedingly more entertaining and creative with his presentation, I have to say I was more taken by Dr. Newberg’s study as I am very interested by the relationship between science and religion and the various ways that people are affected (both differently and similarly) by religion. A few snippets I jotted down that really caught my attention were:

• An atheist focusing on God may suffer “cognitive dissidence”
• That the “Abstract Perspective” is located in the Language Center of the brain
• The bringing into question of what realness and reality actually are
• Thalamus : part of brain that allows us to interpret reality
• The fact that 50% of atheists asked to draw God left the page blank because they didn’t believe in God – so what happened to the other 50%?
• The idea of our language restricting the concept of God
• The two wolves story (I really dug that)

I just really appreciated all of the questions he raised because, not only are they fascinating within themselves, but they can also rather easily lead into more questions interconnecting with many different subjects – as he spoke, books kept leaping to mind for me: Robinson Crusoe’s religious beliefs growing stronger even as his language and ability to communicate began to wane; Ishmael of Moby-Dick works into the whole question of realness and reality, the Existential part of the brain and thalamus, etc, etc.

But something that really struck me and stuck with me was a little blip he mentioned briefly at the very beginning of his lecture: the idea that someone can define God.

I don’t know what it was exactly, but something about this concept hit me good and hard; it just felt like by attempting to pin God down under one definition was to discount the allness of Him and thus give some sort of odd physicality to the bars we already place upon our understanding of Him in our employment of language – the metaphoric existence we are unable to escape. (That’s the way Dr. Kilfoyle sort of explained it – our language exists as true and constant metaphor: leg of a table, cup of coffee, arm of a chair, etc.)

I apologize for the rambling; I know I haven’t exactly answered much or accomplished much in this entry but, to be honest, many of these questions I’d already come up with and continue to wrestle with on a day-to-day basis. You can’t really escape God or science when you live in a constant state of Literature – and who would want to?