Flow

“So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” (Exodus 34:28)

This summer and fall, I dipped my toe into becoming a published author in my field, and was lucky to get an editor to bite and to publish my article in EdWeek magazine. The topic of my article was flow theory – a term and idea coined by notable psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly.

Flow is a state of consuming immersion, in the most positive sense of the phrase. People in flow are so engaged, motivated, and focused on their task that they lose track of time and their surroundings. Their attention is absorbed in whatever they are doing. You can imagine that flow is a state that is desirable in students, and it often results in academic gains, if maintained over time. Teachers stand on their proverbial heads to create the conditions for flow to occur in their classrooms. My article was about the flow that my students attained when writing, and how I fostered that engagement.

Since every thoughtful teacher is also a student, I have used flow to my advantage during my own professional life, and before that, as a student. When studying in graduate school, I learned about the famous psychologist who put a name to the state in which I often found myself (and also the state that our family witnessed my father exhibit, when he was “inventing.”)

As last year came to a close, I realized that the political scene in the US would be especially consuming. I knew that I would over-consume, and I am guessing many of us have found ourselves in that same situation since the election. Though I confess to still watching the daily updates and listening to podcasts that give a play-by-play of the machinations of those politicians wielding power currently, I did plan a few activities for the new year that I hoped would extend a skill that I wanted to develop, and that would put me in a state of flow.

One of these activities was a resolution to write at least 400 words per day of my own writing – this time, unrelated to my precessional activities or job. I decided to write in a genre that is a bit out of my comfort zone, so I would have to pay extra attention to the craft itself. I decided to write a novel.

While I often write model narratives while teaching my third graders, and while it is my task to assist students in learning how to write a narrative, I was afraid that my novel would turn out to be the best ever novel intended for an adult audience, but which sounded just like a juvenile or young-adult chapter book. I stuffed that concern deep down, and started to write in January.

While I didn’t always write 400 words a day – and sometimes I skipped a day or two – by the end of January, I had written 10,000 words of a novel. Maybe a bad novel, but definitely the start of a novel. One thing I hoped would happen during that month of writing, did happen. While writing, or planning for the next session of writing, or reading friends’ feedback about my draft, or reading books about how to write narratives, I found myself in a state of flow. I didn’t think about my surroundings, or politics.

I have continued to write through February and March, though not always every day, and not quite as many words as I had hoped. But steadily. The combination of creating, and doing something very new had helped me maintain my mental health, which itself has made the project a worthwhile resolution.

Since learning about flow, and especially since writing my article about it, I have recognized that there are many instances of flow in the Bible, and also in Christian worship. Prayer can be a state of flow. Singing in worship and in practice for worship can also create a focused engagement that pushes out all other thoughts. Moses himself likely entered the human state of flow on Mount Sinai, and Jesus when he was in the desert; and the state of flow may be in play, in many other situations described in scripture.

Spirituality and flow are overlapping ideas. They combine to help us to remember to focus our attention on God, and how to plan for action to help our neighbors. May we all experience God’s gift of flow during Lent, and beyond.

-Kristin Murphy