Mustard Seed - Oh Me of Little Faith
I met with a fellow veteran yesterday and, during our conversation, he mentioned brain entropy, resulting from military experience; training, re-socialization and trauma, all contributing factors. This got me thinking about both; brain entropy and cerebral atrophy. Because these two words are so often misused or mixed up, it got me thinking about how they are both different and, how in some ways, the outcome of both, can be similar or even, the same.
Now understand, I don’t pretend to know anything about neuro-science, other than the limited education I got while taking Pharmacology in college, and the other courses I’ve taken on trauma and the brain. But, from very my limited knowledge, this is how I understand both. Brain entropy as being; a measure of irregularity and variability in brain activity, measuring neural states and the number of states it can access. States of consciousness, being effected by brain entropy. Whereas, cerebral, or brain atrophy is; the actual loss of brain cells, called neurons, as well as, the destruction of the connections that help cells communicate. While entropy and atrophy are very different, in how they work and, what the actual physical effect they have on the brain is, there is a parallel between the two. The actual message, these two words convey essentially being; the breakdown in brain function over time. A very simplistic look at the brain, itself. And, because there is so much to know about the brain, it’s impossible to explain the causes, effects and what each of these things look like; unless you’ve dedicated yourself to studying the brain, and this is your area of expertise. Either way, from my limited understanding, there are similarities in cause, effect and treatment for both; brain development, physical or psychological trauma, disease, injury, etc.
Thinking about this made me think of how both, manifest themselves and effect a person biologically and psychologically; body and mind. And, how through similar types of illness, injury or disorientation they could manifest themselves in the spiritual being, as well. How development, trauma and other existential crises affect our spiritual side, and vice versa. And, what that looks like for this facet of our being. How we are raised; what we are exposed to, what we are taught or not taught, whether or not we have a foundation built for us. Or, how our belief systems are built, and our perceptions’ influence on these belief system; and its effect on our faith. How we can have broken systems within our faith and what that looks like for our relationship with, and our idea of God. How broken we can be by these things, and how spiritual entropy can cause further confusion within our spiritual being. Also, how our spirits can atrophy if not ‘used’; how if we don’t ‘use it, we lose it’. And, how we often give up on that side of ourselves or, forget to nurture it. And, as I penned in an earlier post, what the looks like in our lives; the body, mind and spirit connection being disrupted.
I also got to thinking about, how like the brains ability to heal parts of itself, through rehabilitation exercises and re-training, we can actually do the same, spiritually; re-map and heal our spirit. Much like, how if you don’t work out regularly, your muscles begin to atrophy; weakening your body, and forcing you to work out again to build them back up. The weaker the foundation upon which the muscles you’ve built, the weaker the muscles, themselves. And, how the older you get, the quicker they atrophy; and take longer to rebuild muscle, when you begin working out again. It’s the same with spiritual atrophy.
As I said, the weaker the foundation your spiritual being is built upon, the weaker your spiritual muscles are. And, the longer you live without working out your spiritual muscles or nurturing your spiritual side, the more it can atrophy; the more time and work it takes to rebuild it. The more you go through, without the proper guidance and spiritual strength, the weaker you can become. The weaker you become, the more you neglect that facet of your life and your being, yourself. The weaker your spiritual side, the greater the effect of further trials and tribulations. It’s hard to be strong enough to take on these challenges, without being able to fight from all aspects of your being; body, mind and spirit. Sometimes, you’re just not strong enough; without help. I know this from personal experience.
I had a Christian foundation, upon which my spiritual side was built. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a solid foundation. There were cracks in the foundation, caused by hypocrisy within the religion my family (loosely) practiced. There were weakened support systems; preachers, Sunday school teachers, and other leaders, twisting scripture. Church leaders using scripture to make us, ‘live’ as they said, “God intended us to”. Teaching us that, in order to get to heaven, we had to do as they taught us. That, we needed to, “act like, good Christians, to please God”. The problem with that, was that too many only acted like good Christians on Sunday. The rest of the week; they lied, cheated, treated their family and friends poorly, didn’t love one another and didn’t seem to understand what a, “good Christian”, should act like, in the first place. They had the “appearance of Godliness” [2 Timothy 3:5], but not Godliness, itself. Many didn’t really believe. Many didn’t even practice the principles; which set a bad example for me and broke my foundation further.
With a broken foundation such as this, it’s no wonder I went looking for ways of repairing it. I had weak spiritual muscles that needed a good work out regime but didn’t know where to get this from. So, I went looking. In fact, I spent the bulk of my life trying to find a ‘Religion’, that my belief systems fit into. Not realizing that religion and faith were completely different things, and that I already had faith. Down to my last mustard seed, but faith, all the same. I finally hit rock bottom, after years of trying to manage my brokenness, alone; through body and mind, only. When this happened, I did what so many people do when they’re at the end of their proverbial rope; I prayed. I won’t get into what that looked like, or what happened afterward, as I’ve touched on this experience in earlier posts, anyway. Also, I respect other people’s spiritual journey’s and don’t want to use this forum to impose my beliefs on others; you either come to God or you don’t. And, you do so in your own time, and in your own way. It’s a very personal journey, and can be extremely painful getting there; it certainly was for me. But, I am going to say that, since I re-aligned myself and found the body, mind, spirit balance again, my life has been a whole lot less stressful.
Not that my problems went away, but that they’re suddenly less concerning; the weight of them is more manageable for me, now that I have help, and now that I am able to rebuild my spiritual muscles. I’ve stopped staring at the problems and started looking to that balance. I’ve stopped wallowing in the darkness, and can see, and have embraced the light in my life. I’ve stopped seeing religion and faith in the same light. I’ve discovered what it means to be that light; to “live like”, as opposed to, “act like” a good (in my case) Christian. I’ve discovered a cure for my spiritual entropy and atrophy, and have started building a new foundation, instead of trying to fix the old, broken one that was built for me, by others. I’ve embraced the balance and realized the true importance of working through illness, injury, disease and trauma; through body, mind, and spirt, together. And, it feels like a new beginning.