Article: Speaker to focus on the brain's role in faith
Faith Files By GARY SOULSMAN • January 22, 2011
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011101220305
Where people once dismissed Strupp's interest in the brain as silly, she's earned new respect in her home state of Arizona because of the assassination attempt of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson.
Giffords has a resilient brain that is healing rapidly, and it's given observers a new interest in the power of brain neurons to do remarkable things, says Strupp.
She hopes the public's interest in brain power extends to her appearance at Wilmington's First & Central Presbyterian Church on Market Street and Rodney Square Feb. 4 and 5, when she'll talk about "Faith & Nature: Our Amazing Brain."
"The brain is the ultimate faith tool," she says. "We use it to understand Jesus and science in new ways and it raises questions about how we mid-wife our own evolution."
Strupp, 53, says in moving to Carefree, Ariz., 14 years ago she awoke to the beauty of the desert surroundings after reading "Walden" and felt the brain's orchestration of her senses was key to how she engaged with nature.
"The brain has been hidden yet deeply a part of everything we do," Strupp says. "It's a presence we forget because we don't usually feel it.
"Unfortunately a lot of people are afraid of their brains because of dementia and Alzheimer's. I'm saying don't be afraid.'
She recommends that people give themselves a job that extends their experience of who they are -- anything from spending time in nature, to creating art, to singing in a choir, to learning a new language.
"The human brain contains about the same number of neurons as there are stars in our galaxy: 100 billion," she writes.
"So each of us is walking around with a mini Milky Way galaxy in our heads, full of neuronal 'stars' that get fired up by talking to each other."
A financial planner who's become a writer and spiritual educator, Strupp has a playful and infectious spirit that draws people to her, says the Rev. Doug Gerdts, senior pastor of First & Central, who met Strupp as a workshop leader on a clergy retreat.
She's written a curriculum called Faith in Nature, which is one reason the church and the Community for Integrative Learning invited her to Delaware. The curriculum is an eight-session intergenerational study, using scripture, tradition, reason and experience to grapple with the natural world.
"I found her not only to be stimulating and fun, but grounded in what she explores," says Gerdts.
Community for Integrative Learning, one of the sponsors. (www.cil-de.org)
Contact Gary Soulsman at 324-2893 or gsoulsman@delawareonline.com.
A Convergence of Stories, June 11, 2011
By Carlton B. Turner (San Luis Obispo, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Amazon review
Phyllis Strupp, The Richest of Fare: Seeking Spiritual Security in the Sonoran Desert, Sonoran Cross Press, 2004. A guided tour to the desert's life changing spiritual power. A spiritual explorer's essay about the big picture, who we are as a human species, where we've come from, where we're headed and spiritual resources available to point us along the way. The author takes as her frame of reference the newly understood Universe Story and speaks from the particular context of both her local geographical region and the stories of the biblical spiritual traditions. The engaging narrative is an encouragement to look deeper, wherever we are, into who we are and what we're about, to look deeper into the Book of Nature, look deeper into the Book of Scripture. Failing to do so we are left with truncated meanings that demean our relationships with ourselves, our world and with God. The beautifully crafted book (250 pages) paints a picture from the author's own journey of these stories converging, the Universe Story and the Biblical Story. It is a celebration of the transformations happening in both our spiritual and secular lives today. Beautiful photography set on high quality paper anchors the narrative to place, truly the "richest of fare."
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