Praying for Scientists and the Science of Prayer

The methods of science are not well-equipped to study prayer, but that doesn't mean that scientists don't pray or that prayer doesn't work. Ciara Reyes-Ton offers a short reflection on the challenges of studying prayer scientifically, followed by Dr. David Anderson's invitation to pray for scientists, healthcare workers, and researchers.
Prayer is a vital part of a Christian's life. It's one of the ways we communicate with God. Sometimes it might be saying a simple prayer of thanks before a meal, or praying with a friend. Other times it can be a more guttural and cathartic experience one on one with God, where we release our deepest pains and heaviest burdens. There's something about prayer that gives me peace when I'm anxious, and comfort when I'm troubled. Even when everything seems the same after I finish praying, I often feel relief after verbalizing my thoughts to a God who already knows them.
I admit that prayer is not always easy. It can take courage to buckle down and pray, especially when we feel disconnected from God, or feel like God isn't listening to us, because things aren't changing fast enough, or unfolding exactly the way we think they should. I think the words of Andrew Peterson's song, The Silence of God, captures these feelings best.
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The paradox of choice

Barry Schwartz the economic Psychologist found that having the freedom to choose between a variety of choices in the modern world was actually causing people to be less happy with their decisions. 

Consequently, instead of increasing decision satisfaction, having too many options made people less likely 
to be satisfied that they had  made the best decision. In the face of too many options, 
you may be paralyzed  making you feel worse. 
He used the words " MAXIMIZER" and "SATISFICER" to  explain these.

https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en

The absurdity and necessity of rules during war

 

During the invasion of Ukraine, we have heard frequently terms like ‘war crime’ and ‘just war’. In a fight to the death, when your aim is the taking of the life of another human being, the idea of there even being such a thing as a ‘crime’ or ‘justice’ in that context is seemingly absurd. Furthermore, institutions like NATO are endlessly discussing the ‘rules of conflict’, while in the UN Security Council Russia absurdly has a veto ruling out action against its own aggression. Seeming absurdity on top of seeming absurdity. But the rules of war are necessary. Defining terms like ‘war crime’ and ‘just war’ do have a clear and important role to play, even in the face of the chaos, the heartache and the bloody killing of war.

Ukraine’s heroic struggle against Russia’s wanton aggression has elicited a lot of talk about the possibility of a ‘morally just’ war. At first, the very idea of such a war might seem absurd. After all, wars are horrific. They represent humanity at its worst, in which all our ingenuity, our energies, our capacities, are aimed at killing one another. “War is cruelty,” William Tecumseh Sherman famously said, “and you cannot refine it”. Any attempt to unearth moral principles for war seems not just foredoomed to failure but also morally perverse. On this view, there can no more be rules for war than there can be rules for murder or rape. Worse still, it might seem that ethicists and legal theorists, in discussing the very possibility of a just or legal war, or wars fought justly, serve only to lend a veneer of legitimacy to the politicians and plutocrats who, in their vaulting ambition, drive the machine of war at the expense of countless innocents ground up underneath. 

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Why Do We Argue?

 

From Eve’s exchange with the serpent, to Martin Luther King Jr.’s soaring ultimatums, and the throes of Twitter, the desire to prevail with words has been not just a moral, but an existential compulsion. In Why Argument Matters, Professor Lee Siegel, who teaches in the writing program at the School of the Arts, says that the art of argument is the supreme expression of humanity’s longing for a better life, full of empathy and care for the world and those who inhabit it. 

Siegel plumbs the emotional and psychological sources of clashing words, weaving through his exploration the story of the role argument has played in societies throughout history. Each life, he believes, is an argument for that particular way of living. Argument is at the core of human existence, and language, at its most expressive, bends toward argument.

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What is walking meditation?

For Thich Nhat Hanh, the late Vietnamese monk who popularized mindfulness in the West, walking was not simply a way to get from one place to another, or an activity to be reserved for a perfect forest path. It could be a profound contemplative practice putting people in touch with their breath, their bodies, the Earth – and an awareness of what he called "interbeing."

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