The Heart of the Family - Introduction

I recently had the privilege of attending a workshop led by Andrew Pudewa, founder of the Institute for Excellence in Writing (www.excellenceinwriting.com). He was giving a talk on the profound influence of music on life and referenced some very interesting scientific experiments done on lab rats.

In one of these experiments, three sets of lab rats were placed in controlled environments where the only difference between each environment was exposure to specific music. The first set of rats, the control group, listened to nothing at all. The second set was subject to sophisticated classical music. The third set listened to repetitive ‘minimalist’ music (i.e. African ritualistic drum beats). The results blew me away.

Each set of rats was placed in a maze and timed. Essentially they were running a ‘rat-race’. All three groups showed similar abilities during the initial run. But this soon changed. The rats exposed to Mozart music from before birth to 60 days old were able to learn the mazes over twice as fast as those with no music, whereas rats exposed to repetitive ‘minimalist’ music not only stopped improving their run time, they actually got worse! Their run times increased to the point of doubling and even tripling their initial timed run. Worse yet, these very same rats brought a surprising halt to the entire experiment because they started killing each other!

What in the world was going on here? Mr. Pudewa continued presenting research data that explained. In a separate experiment, he showed how mice exposed to Strauss waltzes showed increased and orderly neuron development, while those exposed to ‘disharmonic’ non-synchronized drum beats showed erratic and pathological growth of neurons . What this means is that those mice that were exposed to sophisticated, orderly music developed a sophisticated, orderly brain. On the other hand, the mice that were exposed to disharmonic non-synchronized drum beats developed a disorderly, erratic brain. In short, the first group got smarter and the second group got dumber…even to the point of developing aggression and hostility towards themselves and others....

More to come. I'll ask for feedback after the conclusion of the intro. Thanks for taking the time to read.

The Heart of the Family

In early March, I mentioned a sermon about habits becoming loves, and loves becoming idols., etc. Well, I got it wrong. The real quote goes like this:

Sow a thought and you will reap word. Sow a word and you will reap an action. Sow an action and you will reap a habit...reap a character...reap a destiny...reap eternity (Desiderius Gerhard Erasmus).

Another take on this quote is that our thoughts reap words, our words reap actions, our actions reap habits and our habits REVEAL our addictions. From here our addictions REVEAL our loves and our loves REVEAL our idols.

My head spun around trying to make sense of these ideas for over a month, and the end result was a 7 page paper entitled, The Heart of the Family. I'd like to share it with you all, and get your feedback. Don't worry, I'll only post short excerpts at a time. :)

All of this writing came about because of my heartbreak. I cringe when I hear of situations where the family unit is not cherished or upheld, and is replaced by a shallow reflection of God's intention for the family. Unwed, teenage mothers are celebrating their 'new additions' while committed, stable couples are being criticized for 'irresponsibility' when they choose to be fruitful and multiply. A marriage covenant is binding only until one or another doesn't 'feel the love' anymore. And mothers everywhere, and in every walk of life, are pressured to 'do something' with their life instead of being supported to stay at home and raise the children they either 'celebrated' or 'irresponsibly' created.

I have come to the conclusion that the 'heart of the matter is a matter of the heart' (Pastor Jason, TPC). The heart of the family has been attacked, damaged, and trampled. Recovery is all a matter of the heart. It is my hope and prayer that we can somehow turn people's hearts back home. For as The Message puts it:

You're blessed when you get your inside world - your mind and heart - put right. Then you can see God in the outside world (Matthew 5:8).

Part 1 to come tomorrow...

Desires of the Heart

Delight yourself in the LORD ; And He will give you the desires of your heart. - Psalm 37:4

I have wanted to learn to play piano for years. We had one small problem: no piano. Well next week, Sam and I both will have our very first piano lesson...on our very own piano!! Yippeeeeee.