Hope you all saw David Brooks’ most recent column in May 13th’s New York Times. I was pleased to see him recommend the work of Dr. Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania, who I had the pleasure of interviewing once for a story I wrote for USA Today about speaking in tongues. In his research, Newberg had shown that the frontal lobe – the area associated with language skills and voluntary bodily control – goes dim when people speak in tongues. It seems we humans are in some way hardwired for mystical experiences (I am not about to touch the does-God-exist debate).
Anyway, the column reminded me of Newberg and made me think that perhaps this is what happens in our brains when we pray with prayer beads – that we shut down the part of ourselves that is keeping score, if you will – taking our emotional temperature, worrying about what to have for dinner and wondering where these last 5 pounds came from. The trick, though, is getting there, and after practicing almost daily sessions with my prayer beads I still have time reaching that pure, focused state. But I am encouraged to be reminded by the column that the path there exists – embedded in my brain.
Yes, the most interesting part of this research is thinking how it relates to individual practices. It’s easy to see how something tactile and repetitive and meditative like using prayer beads would make changes in the brain, and how that would lead to an openness to the presence of God.
[...] the brain differently. Religion reporter-and-blogger Kimberly Winston, for example, reflected on the effect of prayer beads on the brain — a great question. In one part of the Key West discussion, Rebecca Sinderbrand of CNN asked [...]