Nursing Homes, Drugs and Preschools

Why place a preschool and a nursing home near each other?

Here's the best neurology. When the wisdom of the elder and the wonder of the child collide in a joyful space, you dump in the pain-killing pleasure drugs (Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin, etc) and wash out the stress hormones (cortisol, cortisone, etc.) And you add the neurotransmitters Epinephrine (a.k.a. Adrenaline) and

Norepinephrine (a.k.a. Noradrenaline), with wake you up to even more joy, dilate the capillaries for more blood flow to the brain, and reduce the threat of strokes, cardiovascular disease, ulcers, blood clots). By reducing Cortisol, you also get better sleep, have less wrinkles, get rid of belly fat and have a better memory.

All in all, you reduce medical expenses, multiply joy, and create a world where people don’t lose all their marvels (sic!).

https://streetselfdefenseblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/15/pleasure-hormones-vs-stress-hormones/comment-page-1/

Eldest Saint Sunday Interview

How about having a 7-year-old, 17-year-old, 37-year-old and 57-year-old interviewing your oldest saint as part of a dialogue sermon on Sunday? Post a photo of when they were 7, 17, 37, 57 plus a recent photo. Have the interviewers each ask a question or two, maybe about their world, their highs and lows, and how faith met life (and politics, if you dare) when they were each age? Then throw a party in the fellowship hall for them and all your saints who died this year and their families.

Close by asking the elder saint to lay hands on and bless every person in the room.

Home Isn't Home Anymore

A new study by Ikea of 22,000 people in 22 countries suggests that many people no longer feel home at home. 45% go sit in their cars in order to get a break.

What does this say about society? What does it say about me being a person of hospitality and safety? What might it say about the church trying to make people feel at home?

Compassion and the True Meaning of Empathy

Can we learn to feel other’s pain?

The word compassion comes from the Latin “with” and “suffering.”

The Greek equivalent, “empathy” is “in” plus “pain.”

It means “I hurt when you hurt.”

How do we raise a child, a family, a society of true compassion and empathy? Joan Halifax has some marvelous thought on nurturing compassion in a oft-times cold and polarized world.

Great talk for Cross+Gen conversations.

https://www.ted.com/talks/joan_halifax

Gentle Nudging

This fall, how can you use hands - small and large, young and old - to bless the old saints before they go? What would the young hands give? What would the old hands receive? What would the old hands give? And what would the old hands receive?

Traces Across Faces

Fun to open Facebook this morning to see our friend Cecilia Javed in Pakistan marking a child with the cross of Christ. We've been pushing "traces across faces" for some time now in the Cross+Gen world and it's pretty dang powerful. Wonderful. Fun-fun-funderful to see it popping up more and more. Hands that are raised in blessing will rarely be raised in anger.

Mark someone with the cross of Christ today and see if it doesn't spread.