The pace at which information becomes available to me has outstripped the speed with which I can process it. And the number of emails flagged as “high priority” that appear begging attention in my inbox seems to grow all of the time. All of this information and rapid communication feels like a kind of pressure, forcing me to do things differently than I did before I became inundated with input.

So one ironic consequence of swimming in this mighty flow of information, is that I find myself relying upon my intuition more and more often as I attempt to sort priorities. The things that I can know with my heart are helping me to navigate through the overpopulated landscape of my mind, and I revert to my spiritual practices to help create order in the puzzle-solving parts of my life as a scientist.

In the same way that I try to still myself to reflect theologically on a passage of Scripture or on current events, I now try to still myself to reflect on the map of my daily responsibilities.

My spiritual life and my biological life have found something in common these days, and maybe that means that there is an overflow valve that gets tripped, diverting the flow of data to my heart when my brain gets over full?  How cool would that feedback loop be?