A little health update:
- in a check-up with Gerard, my nutritionist, two months ago my bodyfat had crept back up to nearly 19%
- I’ve been travelling a bit in the last few weeks, including a trip to the USA, but I worked on my diet and went back to eating Ful for breakfast instead of porridge, tried to keep starches out of most meals, upped my vegetable intake
- I haven’t been exercising much over that time
- I had a check-up last week and my bodyfat was a bit over 18%
- Gerard let me know he’s leaving the practice to become a schoolteacher – apparently that’s fun!
- this morning I got my own Tanita bodyfat scale so I can monitor my bodyfat daily or weekly if I want to
- Niche and I are kicking up our workout consistency this week and I’m planning to fit in more high intensity cardio.
So, on balance, things are good 
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Long time readers may sigh knowingly, but I’ve started a another blog at which I’m intending to lay out some of my theological thinking and general spiritual stuff, both theory and praxis.
I’ve called it That Our Hearts May Burn With Fire.
I’d be honoured if you’d join me. This blog here will continue for software, integral theory, organisational rants and miscellaneous stuff.
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Last night I had the great pleasure of presenting some ideas to The Sydney Psychology and Social Sciences Meetup as a talk entitled “Religion Without Belief“. It was my first attempt to talk to a general audience about some of the ideas from integral spirituality, which meant that I had to find a way to discuss the post-metaphysical stance without too much background. I’m not certain I succeeded and it certainly took me quite a while to get to anything resembling a point.
Fortunately, the group was very welcoming and gentle with me. Several people who felt their needs weren’t being met very kindly asserted their needs without being critical, and I was able to adjust my course a little. I had an absolutely lovely time and some delightful conversation before, during and after.
Some folks made a recording of the talk, which I gather will appear on the web in due course, so I’ll update this entry with a link to that. In the meantime, I’m posting my Prezi, a gallery of the images I used and a brief bibliography for anyone who’d like to read further.
Images from "Religion Without Belief"
Bibliography
Wilber, K. “Integral Spirituality”, Integral Books, Boston, MA, 2006 – A lot of the ideas in the talk come from this book. If the idea of post-metaphysical spirituality appeals to you. Go look here.
Macarius the Egyptian, Spiritual Homilies – the vision of Ezekiel I read out came from the opening of this. Macarius goes on to discuss the symbolism of the vision.
Wallace, B. A. “The Attention Revolution”, Wisdom Publications, 2006 – Wallace is the neuro-scientist and Buddhist I mentioned briefly who is studying the effects of Buddhist meditation. Here is his web page, the page for his research institute and a description of the research project. He comes to Sydney once or twice a year to offer retreats.
Fowler, W. J. “Stages of faith: the psychology of human development and the quest for meaning”, Harper, 1995 – I mentioned Fowler’s developmental model of spirituality in passing. This is the book where he lays out his research. There are summaries on Wikipedia and here.
Bourgeault, C. “Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening”, Cowley, 2004 – The style of meditation in the Christian tradition that I’m most fond of is called Centering Prayer. This book is an excellent introduction to it.
Finally, I promised a few people a reference to my own church and what we’re up to. The main church website for the Apostolic Johannite Church is here, our local parish in Sydney is here and you can sign up to the regular newsletter via the form on the front page. I’m running a Centering Prayer workshop later this month, so if you’re interested in exploring the Christian tradition in terms of what you can do, rather than what you need to believe, come along!
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Practice.
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I’m not telling you anything you haven’t already heard. I’m writing to you because I’m conscious of my own tendency to get a kind of fatigue about humanitarian disasters in other countries and because I want to shake myself, I’m also going to try to shake you.
The news programs tell us of the scale of the earthquake in Haiti. They talk about how much suffering there is. One important part of that is how rickety civil society in Haiti was prior to the disaster. Haiti was the target of a lot of international relief in any case so they’re in an awful situation to cope with what’s just happened.
The results of a desperately exploitative colonial past, economic boycotts and successive dictatorships have left the island barely able to sustain itself in the best of times. And now this. So there’s a desperate, practical, humanitarian need for immediate, large-scale help.
The spiritual context for taking action is, to me, founded in the understanding that we are one human people, not separate. My devotion must be to my neighbour, as dear to me as my own soul. This isn’t a logical argument about why you should act, it is simply the spiritual fact of the matter – one we work hard to remain blind to because it is so terribly inconvenient, unwelcome and expensive.
I believe that choosing to act on behalf of another, especially another I do not know and will never meet, is a way of asserting to myself, to my logical mind, this eternal truth of non-separateness. A decision to give in a situation like this, or even to give to someone on the street who asks, made consciously, resonates through my being beyond my rational capacities and tells all of Me the truth. I am not helping “them” I am helping “us“.
So, with that as context, please consider doing something to help those who are already on the ground in Haiti. If you already support a charity which has a Haiti appeal, consider giving a little more. If you don’t here’s some suggestions.
But don’t just send money, pray too. Pray for those of us in Haiti. Pray for those of us who have lost our parents. Pray for us who have lost our children, our sisters and brothers, husbands and wives. Pray for us in our need. Pray for our comfort and care and health and courage and will.
May the Unknown Father rain down loving-kindness and strength upon the people of Haiti and may the souls of all the faithful departed forever rest in peace.
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Dad, me and Mum around 1968 or 1969
Ten years ago today, John Arthur Mansfield, my Dad, died.
He was at home. Jenny, Tess and I had seen him that day and Mum was with him at the moment he breathed out for the last time.
Here’s something I wrote about him and me. Here’s the eulogy I said at his funeral.
He loved Stravinsky and Jazz music, Peter Sellers and Stan Freberg. He used to shout at the television when the football was on.
I still miss his bald head and his kind hands. I miss his constant support. I miss his sense of humour. I miss both his courage and his weakness.
We miss you, Dad.
Rest eternal grant to him, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon him.
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That's the way we like it.
I have nothing against Adobe’s Flash as a technology. We wouldn’t have YouTube without it and look how much good that’s done for civilization!
The thing is, I’m in a slightly annoying computing situation – entirely of my own making, I stress. I work on a MacBook Air that I insisted my job buy for me (Noo, I don’t want a MacBook Pro! It’s far too heavy!).
Indeed the Air is light and thin and gives me a lot of gadget kudos at airport security. It also has a common, completely disastrous bug. When the machine gets hot, as the processor temperature passes some critical threshold and for reasons I don’t understand, the kernel task goes nutso and starts eating the twin CPUs, using 150% all on its own (more typically it sits at around 1.5%) and all work grinds to a halt.
Not every Air does this, only the lucky ones. In hot weather, mine does it several times a day and all I can really do it put it to sleep and go catch up on reading while it cools down.
I tried using a very geeky application called CoolBook which helps you undervolt the CPU to manage the CPU temperature, but I’ll confess I don’t understand what I’m doing well enough to make that work.
Then I read a tip about installing a Safari plugin called ClickToFlash (there are similar programs for Firefox) which doesn’t load Flash programs embedded in web pages until you click on them. In the meantime they get replaced with a handsome gray rectangle. I was pretty skeptical this would make any difference to my CPU problems.
But three days later, and my processor load is so low the load graph on Activity Monitor barely shows a blip (see illustration above). Turns out most web pages have some Flash on them, often just to make small animated ads, but I guess a lot of it is fairly inefficient code and eats up a lot of processor. Many pages are littered with Flash ads, all running at the same time.
So, my advice? Seriously, get a Flash blocker for your browser. Also I guess I should recommend that you seriously consider if you really need a MacBook Air.
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Over the last two weeks, I’ve had a second round of blood tests and a follow-up ultrasound exam of my upper abdominal cavity.
The visible progress has all been good. Gerard (my naturopath-nutritionist) has been watching my bodyfat measure on his scale drop from my original 22% three months ago down to 15% and my waistline shows the difference, so he and Nick (my psychotherapist-GP) agreed that it was time to get a second round of tests.
Last week, Nick and I sat down to review the results. The liver numbers on the blood report were all in the middle of the normal range, way down from their elevated levels that sparked this whole project off. The golden moment, though, was the ultrasound report. Nick had request that the sonographer compare this exam with the film from the previous exam. Here’s the conclusion:
The findings previously of fatty infiltration of the liver have resolved.
So, in a very technical sense, I’m well.
Gerard and I spoke last week about adapting my diet out of “crisis mode”. We all understand that if I go back to the way I was living for the last few years I will wind up in the same spot or worse in a few years, so we talked about how to keep the current plan sustainable: another serve of wholegrains a day, lots of variety , sticking with regular exercise and finding fun ways to get it. The usual.
I think one of the many things I’ve got out of this is that to frame my former way of eating and exercising (or not) as “abuse”, now that I’ve adopted a new set of behaviours I’ve got all the indicators to show that I’m “normal”, but my aim is to weave them into a sustainable lifestyle that is recognisably “healthy”.
Wish me luck!
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For those interested in daily prayer and for whom the Divine Office is a bit too full on, here’s a little office that can be said once a day or morning and evening, as you wish.
Opening
Stand or kneel. Say the Name slowly.
In the name of the +Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
With devotion.
Open my lips O Lord : and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
O God make speed to save me : O Lord make haste to help me.
Psalmody
Chant the psalm for this office. If you don’t use a psalter, just start at Psalm 1 and read the next one at each subsequent prayertime. Just chant in a monotone, if you are worried about your singing, but chant.
Do your best to keep your mind harnessed to the words of the chant, returning your attention to the chant when it drifts.
Once you’ve chanted the psalm, you may move into Lectio Divina based on the text or simply move on to the reading.
Reading
Using either the lectionary reading for the day or a reading you choose – perhaps by simply working your way through a Gospel or other book of your choice – read the text aloud.
Optionally, move through the phases of Lectio Divina – lectio, ruminatio, oratio and contemplatio.
Contemplation
The preceding phases help to quiet the mind and settle the subtle body, which makes this an ideal moment for:
- Shamatha meditation
- Hesychastic prayer
- Centering prayer
Prayer
From your heart, pray as you will. You may choose to:
- intercede for those in need of prayer;
- offer gratitude for blessings you have experienced;
- offer praise to the Divine for the ongoing sacrament of life
- reflect on the ways you have not lived up to your aspirations and pray for release from the debts you’ve incurred.
If there are several prayer times in the day – consider focusing on a particular kind of prayer every day at that time.
Closing
Slowly, treasuring the meaning of each phrase, with devotion.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy Name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory
Forever, Amen.
Lord, bless me and bring me to wholeness, compassion and understanding. Amen
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Leaving aside whether it’s useful or sensible to give up coffee, I thought it might be interesting to post some thoughts about how to give up. Perhaps these thoughts might apply to other kinds of habit-forming substances. Your mileage may vary.
I’ve given up coffee several times, for several reasons. I’m not suggesting you do and if you do, I’m not suggesting you do it forever. You may have some short term reason for doing so, or you might want to do it for the long-term. My suggestions about getting off, because I’ve gone on and off, I don’t have much to offer about long-term strategies other than – if you end up with a habit again, just do all this again.
The main thing I want to point out is that most coffee habits actually have three distinct aspects woven together: addiction, psychological habit and social habit.
Addiction is a physical dependency. Your brain builds a dependency on having caffeine fed to it regularly, when you stop it goes into caffeine withdrawal causing headaches (and possibly other side-effects). I once went from about 7-8 espressos a day to none overnight – I’ve described the effect as “wearing the iron crown” for three days. Imagine a big crown cast from pig iron with spikes that dig into your head. As I recall it was also three days in which everyone hated me and I hated everyone: I really don’t recommend it.
Because addiction is a physical dependency based on chemical needs, I’d recommend treating it chemically – just make sure that you wean yourself off caffeine over a few days. You can do this by cutting down cups, slowly substituting decaf for caffeinated coffee or using caffeine pills (much like you’d use nicotine gum or lozenges when quitting smoking).
But, you’re also likely to have a psychological habit of drinking coffee – maybe you associate coffee as a reward drink, a drink marking a mid-point in the afternoon, a drink you have when you wake up. You have an individual pattern of associations between various times and actions and drinking coffee.
An approach to giving up that deals purely with the chemical addiction, but not with the habitual behaviour patterns is less likely to work. I’d recommend finding substitute behaviours – maybe other drinks to fill the gap: tea, decaf, herbal drinks – or in the case of rewards things like dark chocolate. However in the world of rewards you tend to drift to booze, candy and cigarettes and really, coffee’s the lesser of many evils, but if you can find a healthy substitute reward that works for you, go for it.
The final aspect is the social habit. You probably “go for coffee” with friends. I have always had a cup of coffee with my beloved as a way to start the day, coffee often comes after a shared meal and so on. In many cases, we hang out with other coffee drinkers whose social persona includes “coffee drinker” as a self-identifier, as does one’s own. This aspect is not about your personal habit, or your chemical dependency, it’s about social pressure.
Depending on how big a part coffee drinking plays in the group’s culture, this part can be easy or very, very hard. If it’s just a basic social habit to have a cup of coffee with friends, it’s fairly easy to substitute green tea or a herbal tea for your usual cup of coffee without much problem.
But if you hang out with people whose usual drink is a single shot of espresso, who know what a ristretto is and who laugh out loud when a friend orders a “decaf skim latte”, you may have some issues.
You’ve really got three options in my view:
- show up a little late and order a decaf so that no-one can hear
- order whatever you want and soldier through the derision
- find new friends and stop hanging out with the coffee pushers
My approach this time through has been aimed at minimising pain and taking it easy.
- I bought a really nice-tasting, organic, Fair Trade decaf coffee for our espresso machine
- I started substituting decaf espressos in place of my usual, without changing frequency
- after a couple of days, I tried only drinking decaf until I started to feel a headache or some withdrawal symptoms and then add a “medicinal dose” of caffeinated espresso
- over a week or so, those incidents naturally started to space out
- I started to substitute green tea and herbals in place of some of the decafs
… and that’s pretty much it. Now once or twice a week I have a cup of caffeinated coffee if I feel like it, and I rarely do. I start the day with a decaf with Anthony because we like to make coffee for each other. If my friends raise their eyebrows when I order decaf (and they mostly don’t) I laugh.
That’s my thoughts. Your mileage may, of course, vary. I hope some of that’s been of some value.
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