How Pleasure Can Help Make You Brain-Dead

SCRIPTURE:  The heart of the wise [learns when it] is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is [senseless] in the house of pleasure. Ecclesiastes 7:4 AMP

THOUGHT: Ten years ago the Journal of Neuroscience published a study on marijuana that concluded its affect on the brain, even with casual use (once or twice a week), damaged the areas of the brain that regulate emotion, motivation, and some types of mental illness. The more you use it, the more damage – and, sadly, the damage doesn’t go away if you stop using. The current CDC page on marijuana use warns that the drug impacts memory, learning, attention, decision-making, coordination, emotions, and reaction time, and affects brain development permanently among users whose brains are still developing (up to age 30!), including babies in the womb whose mothers are using.

Yet, during the same decade, its use continued to explode; its legalization at the state level expanded to about half of all states, its power as a lobby grew (it is now a $20 billion industry and expected to triple over the next 10 years) – and in 2021 a Gallup poll revealed that 12 percent of adults in the U.S. use it. Let’s don’t even talk about the pandemic years and how that impacted drug use of all kinds. Let’s don’t talk about children showing up in the ER with marijuana poisoning. Let’s don’t talk about all the other ways we can become senseless (brain-dead) in the house of pleasure.

My point isn’t about marijuana, it’s about how people don’t like the house of mourning. It’s sad and sometimes lonely. It can be awkward and uncomfortable. However, there’s a house of pleasure on almost every corner and the “open” sign is usually on. There’s lots of company and they’re often having a great time, laughing it up, helping you forget your troubles. You can escape those until you wake up the next morning, a little more brain-dead than you were the day before. I’ve been there.

I’m not against pleasure, trust me, but we seek it at our peril when we don’t also go to the house of mourning to get perspective, sit and visit, sometimes cry and mourn and contemplate the brevity of life. I know I’ve heard stories there that changed my trajectory. I leave wanting to be different and better and more full of faith. I watch how others live and either want to imitate their strength of character or am warned by their lack thereof. I learn something in the house of mourning that I never learned in the house of pleasure: discipline is my friend and instructor if I want to finish well.

PRAYER: Oh God, you know I’ve been to the house of pleasure, and you’ve watched me wander off course because of it. Of course I want joy. Of course I want laughter, but not at the expense of my soul. So, help me learn to love the discipline I’ve seen in the house of mourning, and may the wisdom I get there lead to joy.