Many pastors I know are subject to the mental cruelty of their own rumination.  Oh, it’s the bane of pastoral ministry! Rumination, like a cow chewing her cud, swallowing, regurgitating to chew some more, ad nauseum, pun intended.  It’s as unpleasant as it sounds when it happens in your head: going over and over the same thought, the same problem solving inner dialogue, the same rehearsed conversation for extended periods, ad nauseum, no fun intended.

Jesus had rumination in mind (I think) when he told his disciples not to worry beforehand what they were to say when dragged before councils and kings.  He knew, perhaps by personal experience with his own brain, that the neurological alarm system is powerful and it can stimulate the frontal lobe to think in circles, like a dog chasing its tail, to no end.

Overthinking, a counselor called it when I was driven by a mild depression to get some help with my brain.   Overthinking!  As soon as he uttered the word it was as if a disease had been named.  Oh, what a relief!  Maybe it’s not just me.  Maybe something’s wrong that can be fixed!

The diagnosis helped my praying brain, that’s for sure.  I began to recognize the symptoms of overthinking and realized that much of what I took for prayer was rumination.  No wonder I had to use all my willpower to pray!  I was occupying the mental landscape of pious anxiety much of the time, thinking this was the “labor” of prayer.  No, it was the curse of rumination.

Silence was the cure for my ruminating brain.  Be still, and know that I am God.

It took me a while, but in time, I learned to value silence inside the cranial cavity.  It begins by teaching yourself to ignore the swirling thoughts rather than egg them on.  To let them run ahead rather than chase after them.

It proceeds by meditating on Scripture, not just reading it.   Taking a word or a phrase and returning your focus to that world or phrase as your jittery brain bounces from thought to thought.  In time, the thoughts do slow down.  They become less persistent and insistent, like voices from the side of the swimming pool when your head is under water.

“For God alone my soul in silence waits.”  (Ps. 62:6)   Silence.  As if there’s something out there more valuable than my thoughts.  Oh, freedom! Let me listen for that silence!

Young pastor teach your soul to wait in silence.  Begin by craving a little silence.  In the din of your thoughts, seek it out, behind them, beneath them, beyond them.

Practice this daily. Begin with a minute. Build up to ten minutes.  Take months if necessary.  Be satisfied with a whiff of silence heard, a moment of stillness in the brain between thoughts.  Renee Descartes was wrong.  I think, therefore I am, he said.  Close, but no cigar.  I am, because He is.  I am, because You are.  I am more than my thoughts. There’s a me beyond them, as important as they are. There’s a You, beyond them to be known with and without them, so wonderful is He.  There is an irreducible Us, within which I am embedded.

I’m waxing philosophical, I know.  But I’m not kidding.

Are you ruminating often, such that when you place a moist finger on your forehead you hear a little sizzle sound?  Maybe you too are over-thinking.

Get some help.  Talk to someone who understands how to lead the ruminating brain out of it’s bovine existence.  Unless you enjoy the misery.