dopamine – becoming flame

Faith is a way of waiting – never quite knowing, never quite hearing or seeing, because in the darkness we are all but a little lost.

There is doubt hard on the heels of every belief, fear hard on the heels of every hope, and many holy things lie in ruins because the world has ruined them and we have ruined them.

But faith waits even so, delivered at least from that final despair which gives up waiting altogether because it sees nothing left worth waiting for.

Faith waits – for the opening of a door, the sound of footsteps in the hall, that beloved voice delayed, delayed so long that there are times when you all but give up hope of ever hearing it.

And when at moments you think you do hear it (if only faintly, from far away) the question is:

Can it possibly be, impossibly be, that one voice of all voices?
Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “Delay”

False choices
The next following hard on the heels of the last
Made by a desperate imposter self
Desperate for anything to distract
From its emptiness, its nakedness

False choices
Exchanging dopamine poofs
For the overwhelming reality
There is a real soul in there
Dying to be known and loved

Dying to hear the One Voice
Calling softly, tenderly
Come home, come home
I’m waiting for you
I will wait

Grace and peace to you…

Photo by dw

We too easily assume that we are our real selves, and that our choices are really the ones we want to make…

Our choices are too often dictated by our false selves.

Hence I do not find in myself the power to be happy merely by doing what I like.

On the contrary, if I do nothing except what pleases my own fancy I will be miserable almost all the time.
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, “Conscience, Freedom, and Prayer”

I don’t know enough about brain chemistry to say anything much about it. But I understand that we can easily become like trapped rats poking whatever button we can find that results in a little dopamine poof. And then another. And then another, bigger poof. Each poof producing in our brains what we associate with pleasure. Followed by a lack of pleasure. Followed by looking for that button again. And, can we poke it a little harder and get a little bigger poof this time?

I have been that trapped rat. I have family members who were those trapped rats who I hope and pray found mercy and relief when they left the earth that had become to them a maze with no way out and all the buttons no longer sufficient.

We have thriving industries that depend on our false selves making the choices for us. Until we no longer have any power to choose anything but what we have become addicted to, perfect consumers.

God in heaven, be merciful to us, guide us to our true selves, to choices that don’t go poof.

Jesus, you came that we might have joy, abundantly, not dependent on dopamine and the pleasure pulses it gives. Inclusive of pleasure, yes; thank you. Requiring pleasure, no; thank you. Joy no one can take from us, not ‘like the world gives’. Thank you.

Grace and peace to you…
dw

Photo by dw