Edinburgh, Spiritual Affirmations, and Untying Proverbial Knots | SL 1.5 (Feb 2020)
In this newsletter
- Six Hours in Edinburgh
- Neurology, Spiritual Affirmations, and Believing What’s True
- A Poem by Wendell Berry
- How Does Proverbs Work? Part I
- Pray With Us
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Six Hours in Edinburgh
We made a dash to Edinburgh the week before last. We had to go to the US Consulate to “report a birth abroad” for little Willa Eve. She’s now officially recognized as a US citizen and—after all the paperwork processed through the various chambers and bureaus—her passport and certificate of birth abroad arrived in the mail. It is a bit of a haul to get there and back with the little ones in a day—about an hour and forty-five by train—but it turned out to be a gorgeous, fifty-degrees-and-sunny winter day. We even made it to the top of Arthur’s Seat before lunch. Edinburgh is truly an arresting city.
Atop Arthur’s Seat, overlooking Edinburgh
Work & Ministry Happenings
- Epiphany term is underway in Durham. I’ve been grading undergraduate essays on Genesis 22—wowzers.
- Finishing up my commentary on Prov 30:1—I think I wrote 20,000 words trying to sort it out… ugh.
- Working on planning courses I’ll teach in the Fall for William Tennent’s Old Testament and Hebrew track.
The Rabbie Burns memorial, across the street from the US Consulate
Neurology, Spiritual Affirmations, and Believing What’s True
Last month, I encouraged you to create some spiritual breathing room by limiting your use of digital connections and entertainment. Now that you have all this beautiful head space, what might you do with it?
Well, what if it was possible to wash your own brain? Is there a process or a mechanism for reprogramming your feelings and actions through your thinking? The answer to this question would appear to be, yes.
Perhaps you’ve come across this kind of thing in the pop-psychology fad related to “positive thinking” or “daily affirmations.” The concept is simple—positive affirmations are regularly repeated words or statements used to combat negative emotions. Meghan was recently listening to a how-to podcast on small-business skills where the guest on the show touted the magic of simply repeating mantras that would “hard-wire your mind for success” and optimize “your performance and productivity for the rest of your workday” by conditioning “your inner mind to work for you instead of against you.” That sounds wonderful. To tap into this you might repeat aloud sayings such as these for a minute or two at the beginning and end of each day:
- I am beautiful and everybody loves me.
- Life brings me only good experiences. I am open to new and wonderful changes.
- I feel glorious, dynamic energy. I am active and alive.
I feel transformed already.
But! Before you roll your eyes out the back of your head, there actually is some legitimate science behind this.
>One of the key psychological theories behind positive affirmations is self-affirmation theory (Steele, 1988)… there are empirical studies based on the idea that we can maintain our sense of self-integrity by telling ourselves (or affirming) what we believe in positive ways. (Moore, positivepsychology.com)
This theory—as I understand it—is about maintaining a robust sense of your own self through aspirations and actions that are rooted in your values. So, I might say to myself something like, “I am a sacrificial husband and father,” because that is who I hope and intend to be. I don’t need to be a perfectly sacrificial husband and father, but I do need to make sacrifices toward that aim. As I tell myself I am sacrificial and then make choices to act sacrificially it shapes my image of myself and creates a mutually reinforcing upward spiral. Further research has even produced MRI evidence that shows certain neural pathways are enlarged and experience increased activity when people practice this kind of positive self-affirmation (Cascio et al., 2016). Positive affirmations have proven helpful in reducing stress, improving performance at school, increasing buy-in for diets and exercise routines, and changing your perception of threats (Critcher and Dunning 2015). Affirmations are not magic—they won’t cure anxiety, depression, or insomnia all on their own—but they have been show to be a helpful technique, one tool in your toolbox. So there is indeed some evidence that you can wash your own brain.
But, here’s the catch, although rooted in legitimate neurology, positive affirmations have serious limitations. These limitations boil down to the fact that some of these affirmations are actually lies and if you know they are lies as you repeat them to yourself they will not work. In fact, such lies may rob you of the little motivation and hope that you had.
>The most important thing, according to self-affirmation theory, is that your affirmations reflect your core personal values (Cohen & Sherman, 2014). There is little point in repeating something arbitrary to yourself if it doesn’t gel with your own sense of what you believe to be good, moral, and worthwhile. (Moore, positivepsychology.com)
Our LORD, who created us, knows all this. Scripture got here way before the neurologists and self-help gurus:
Psalm 1:1–2 (ESV)
>1 Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
or
Deut 6:4–9 (ESV)
>4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Jews know Deut 6:4–5 as The Shema. It is the most central creed and affirmation of Jewish identity. Devout Jews pray the Shema twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. This practice—along with many others—cements their calling as a unique people set apart to serve the one true God. Moreover, Jews have generally taken this passage quite literally—binding God’s law on their body and keeping it front and center in all they do. Over thousands of years now, as countless Jews have been martyred, they often die proclaiming the Shema in the face of their murderers.
One striking example of the principle of positive affirmations comes from the French Foreign Legion. La Legion is one of the most elite and illustrious branches of the French military, but it is a mercenary force. It is open to anyone of any nationality and it offers a chance at a path to French citizenship, a new life, even a new name for people fleeing their past. So, the Legion encounters a unique problem: how do you take potential soldiers from over 140 nations, potential soldiers who have different cultural backgrounds, who don’t even speak a common language, and turn them into a cohesive, elite, military unit? The answer involves singing. I recently listened to a fascinating long-form interview with a Canadian who served in the Legion, and the thing that he found most culturally distinctive, the most challenging even, was how much singing there was. He said they sang constantly—while they drilled, while they did chores, on long marches—singing, singing, singing. And what do you think they sang? Hymns to the Legion. They sang songs that recounted the glory of the Legion’s history, famous battles the Legion had fought in Algeria and Indochina, songs about the prestige, honor, discipline, bravery, and glory of the unit. As they drilled and drilled and sang about how brave and disciplined they were they became La Legion together. The Legion’s disarmingly slow march and famous battle hymns cement their identity and form a point of pride. Historically, the legion has actually marched into battle at full song. These songs are nothing if not positive affirmations.
A slightly less martial example comes from The Calm Birth Method. When Meghan was pregnant with Rue, she was terrified of the actual process of giving birth—as I think many expectant moms are. It didn’t help that other women often enthusiastically volunteered their personal horror stories. When Meghan discovered the The Calm Birth Method, her thinking started to change. Now she had stories of moms who said they enjoyed their births and testimonies that birth can be beautiful despite the pain. This helped Meghan to transform how she thought about birth from a clinical, hospitalized procedure, to a natural process that God designed (even if the curse butts in). This change of perspective helped Meghan calm down and “lean in” to the process rather than fighting it. Positive affirmations are a major part of the approach. In the months leading up to your birth, they encourage you to repeat to yourself several times daily a personalized set of affirmations about birth, such as: “I am a strong and confident mother,” or “All is calm, all is well, I am safe,” or “My contractions are not stronger than me because they are me.” I realize these sound a bit cheesy, but Meghan would tell you that this perspective and these techniques allowed her to go into labor with confidence and peace rather than anxiety and fear. This confidence and peace certainly contributes (complications aside!) to a quicker, smoother, delivery. Meghan would actually tell you that she enjoyed both births—that she would happily do it again. Positive affirmations played a role in that.
If simply telling yourself you’re successful can have an impact on your moods and performance, how much more might daily meditation on your identity before God change your spiritual life? If speaking your own values and affirmations to yourself can help you rise to them, how much more will meditating on the LORD’s words about himself, about yourself, and about the world change your spiritual life?
So here’s my spiritual challenge for you:
Take that headspace you won back during your commute, your lunch break, your menial tasks, your morning and evening routine and fill it with scriptural affirmations. What if you selected 2–3 affirmations to repeat to yourself for the next 60 days morning and night? Ideally, these could be scripture verses or your own paraphrase of a scripture verse. Something short, powerful, and applicable. You could even try to memorize a Psalm and use the whole Psalm as an imagination-shaping broad-brush affirmation each day.
Imagine how it might shape your view of yourself and the world if you mediated on verses like these morning and evening:
Col 2:13–14 (paraphrase)
>God has given me a new lease on life by canceling my debts and nailing my sins to the cross.
Rom 8:1 (ESV)
>There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
1 John 5:3 (ESV)
>For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
Phil 4:6–7 (NIV)
>Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Psalms like 23 or 46 or 121 or 130 would also be powerfully re-orienting.
Bind them on your hands, inscribe them on your gates, write them on cards—stick them on your bathroom mirror, prop them up on the dashboard of your car, shove them in your pocket—and repeat the life-giving affirmations of Scripture to yourself several times each day. It’s not magic, but as you speak and hear the LORD speak these affirmations over you day in and day out it will shape your sense of self. You will begin to think of yourself as the LORD thinks of you, to position yourself in light of God. And so shall you be.
>Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed…
– Simon Peter (John 6:68–69)
Exploring a graveyard, top left on the horizon is Arthur’s Seat.
A Poem by Wendell Berry
A couple of things in the last few weeks have steered me back towards Wendell Berry. Here’s one of his more famous poems. I find it deeply moving, a noble quotidian resistance in which all should take part:
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
>Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
This poem was originally collected in The Country of Marriage (1973), but it’s also in a beautiful new “best of” poetry collection, The Peace of Wild Things (2018).
Here’s a thought-provoking interview from last summer: “Going Home with Wendell Berry” by Amanda Petrusich.
Berry’s most recent book, which they are discussing, is The Art of Loading Brush (2017).
Young Wendell Berry in his writing studio on the Kentucky River
“It’s a very crude little camp house. Sixteen by twelve, probably. And it’s a mess. I’ve been working there since 1963. There are a lot of expectations dwelling there. It’s a funny thing, but when I go there, I don’t delay much, I just sit right down and go to work. It doesn’t have an electric line going into it. I’m not much distracted, once I’m there” (Wendell Berry, from the above interview). This is Deep Work in action, Berry has something like eighty books of poetry, fiction, and essays behind him.
How Does Proverbs Work? Part I
If you’ve ever tried to read straight through Proverbs—honestly—it was probably a dull experience. Verse after verse of sayings, alternately obvious and obscure, infuriating and intriguing, without clear context or application. If you get the sense that you’re not getting full value out of Proverbs by reading this way, you’re not wrong. In the last few newsletters, I have been framing some of the broad concepts that support Proverbs, now, in conclusion, I’d like to offer some practical reading strategies. In the next two issues we’ll look at three. You need to (1) weigh the lines, (2) tell a story, and (3) keep themes in perspective.
Remember that one of the goals of growing in wisdom is actually the ability to understand proverbs:
Prov 1:5–6
>Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
Proverbs are often like riddles, puzzles you have to sit with patiently until they unlock. They are poetry, but not the kind you’re used to. A proverb is like the bottled essence of biblical poetry—a pair of lines packed full of wordplays, images, false leads, and punch lines. Proverbs don’t give up their message easily. Like a tightly tangled knot, you might have to work on a proverb for a long time before you untangle it. But while you tug on it, it is tugging on you. The very form of the proverb is part of the strategy for making you wise.
Weigh the lines.
Biblical poetry is characterized by pairs of lines the echo each other in a variety of ways. This two-line nature of biblical poetry shapes the rhetoric of the book of Proverbs. The relationship between the lines and the way they interact often carries the moral. The two lines of the proverb must be “weighed” against each other. What unites them? What distinguishes them? Are the differences or the similarities more important?
Some proverbs build off of a striking comparison:
Prov 10:10 (ESV)
>Whoever winks the eye causes trouble,
and a babbling fool will come to ruin.
Other proverbs set up a clear contrast:
Prov 10:12 (ESV)
>Hatred stirs up strife,
but love covers all offenses.
Still others develop an idea across both lines:
Prov 10:22 (ESV)
>The blessing of the LORD makes rich,
and he adds no sorrow with it.
This kind of parallelism lends itself to dichotomies—righteous/wicked, wise/foolish, rich/poor, young/old (10:1–4). These dichotomies are often stereotyped, black and white, and action-oriented. In Proverbs peoples’ actions reveal their character. These lines draws parallels that truthfully separate people into camps for the sake of helping us see things more clearly and make wise choices. You might think of them as contextual illustrations of the “two paths” or “two ways to live” metaphor developed in Proverbs 1–9. A helpful strategy for weighing lines is to re-write a proverb in your own words so that it draws out the moral or the principle more clearly.
Finally, many proverbs play with these conventions of poetry, images, and stereotypes to drive your thinking deeper:
Prov 11:16 (ESV)
>A gracious woman gets honor,
and violent men get riches.
It is not immediately obvious whether this verse is setting up a comparison or a contrast. A gracious woman and violent men are clearly a contrast (female/male, singular/plural, gracious/violent), but honor and riches are both good things, right? Is this verse trying to challenge our positive view of wealth by associating it with violence and contrasting it with honor? Or is this verse trying show us something about the broken nature of our world—that both graciousness and violence have their rewards? Or is there a contrast implicit in the word “get”—it means something different to get honor than to get riches? One can be grasped but the other must be received? Does this mean that the proverb is suggesting a qualitative difference between types of rewards? If you think about the whole community, the gracious woman is receiving her reward from the community because she enriched it, but violent men are taking their reward from the community and impoverishing it.
This proverb creates a whole network of interpretation. Its meaning is wrapped up in the relationships between the lines, but it only becomes clear for us in a real life context.
Tell a story.
You see, proverbs are not really timeless truths, they are more like potentialities. There’s a famous quip that “a proverb in a collection is dead” (Wolfgang Mieder, quoted in Clifford 2009, 243). Lined up like trinkets on a shelf, these sayings can seem trite, even hollow. Proverbs don’t apply in the abstract. They only apply to particularities of real life situations.
The bible itself shows us that this is how proverbs work, because we occasionally find proverbs within stories. I think the story of David and Saul in 1 Sam 24 is the best example of this. In v. 13, David says, “As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness.’” David’s proverb is bland on the surface—a tautology—but in the context of the story it pierces soul and spirit.
Saul has dedicated himself to seeing David dead. You see, Saul forfeited his kingship through blatantly disobeying the word of the LORD and David has been anointed king over Israel in his place (1 Samuel 15). David’s very breathing is an existential threat to Saul. And Saul has taken things into his own hands. David, on the other hand, proves time and again that he takes the LORD’s anointing—both his and Saul’s—far more seriously than Saul does.
In 1 Samuel 24, David has been on the run for some time. With a band of committed followers he is living on the fringes, in the wilderness, hiding in caves, dodging Saul. While hunting David, Saul stops to relieve himself in the gloom of a cave. But deeper in the gloom of the cave David is sheltering with his men. As Saul sits with his pants down, David slides up and cuts a strip off the corner of his robe. When Saul and his troop mount up to ride off, David hails them from the mouth of the cave:
1 Sam 24:8, 11–13 (ESV)
>8 … “My lord the king!” … 11 See, my father, see the corner of your robe in my hand. For by the fact that I cut off the corner of your robe and did not kill you, you may know and see that there is no wrong or treason in my hands. I have not sinned against you, though you hunt my life to take it. 12 May the Lord judge between me and you, may the Lord avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you. 13 As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness.’ But my hand shall not be against you.
David’s proverb takes on significance as he makes a profound point about his own character in contrast to Saul’s. Saul, of course, is trying to kill David, but David, when he had what some might consider a God-given opportunity, did not kill Saul. With Saul’s robe in his hand David’s proverb proves his character. If he was indeed wicked, wouldn’t he have put a knife through Saul’s heart from behind without hesitation?
David’s message shatters Saul.
1 Sam 24:16–17 (ESV)
>And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. 17 He said to David, “You are more righteous than I, for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil.”
David’s obvious and uninspiring proverb lands here like a lighting bolt. Proverbs are like flashes of brilliance that help us to see the true nature of our world in the moment. Or, to use a slightly different metaphor, they are like lenses that bring the the character of the world into focus. Proverbs are not promises or even timeless truths, they are potentialities waiting to be brought to life to clarify the morals or truths hidden in a complex situation.
Without a story to bring them to life, it is not always clear what a proverb means. In order to get at the meaning of a proverb you have to reanimate them by telling a story or remembering a real-life situation where the proverb might apply. As you come across obvious or puzzling proverbs, ask yourself “Where have I seen this to be true? or “In what kind of situation would it be helpful to remember this?” Can you put flesh on the bones of the proverb and breath some life into it so it can walk around?
Next month, part II…
LORD, your word drives back the gloom in our lives and in our hearts. It helps us to see things as they really are. Help us to have a vision of this life that is illuminated by your word. Help us return always to you, for where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
On an Edinburgh tombstone: Mary Pitcathley died at sixty but outlived four children and her husband. This vale of tears.
Pray With Us
- Continue to pray for me as I work on my thesis, that I might make progress in planning the rest of the project.
- Pray that I am able to whip this paper into shape for the Society of Biblical Literature conference by the Mar 6 submission deadline—and that it’s accepted.
- Pray for all our relationships here—for Meghan and I as we navigate a new phase of marriage and parenting, for our relationships with our little girls as we hope to be steady, caring parents, for the fledgling friendship we’ve made with other PhD families and folks at church.
Overlooking Edinburgh toward the sea
Notes
Clifford, Richard J. 2009. “Reading Proverbs 10–22.” Interpretation 63.