Cue the Scream
Psalm 100
One of my favorite television shows is “America’s Funniest Videos.” I particularly enjoy the Halloween edition each year where they show people being surprised by things that make them jump out of their skins. What do you think most people do when they are startled? They scream. They may also run, dance in place, wet themselves and hit somebody but almost everyone screams. Have you ever wondered why we do that? A scream is part of our fear response and begins in the core of our brains. It overrides any logical brain functions. This response is based in a part of the brain called the amygdala. The amygdala sprouts a profusion of connections to higher brain regions – neurons that carry one-way traffic from amygdala to neocortex. Few connections run from the cortex to the amygdala, however. That allows the amygdala to override the logical, thoughtful cortex, but not vice versa. So although it is sometimes possible to think yourself out of fear (“Those are not really footsteps behind me in the dark.”), it takes great effort and persistence. According to neurobiologist Michael Fanselow of UCLA this brain circuitry makes fear “far, far more powerful than reason. It evolved as a mechanism to protect us from life-threatening situations,” he notes, “and from an evolutionary standpoint there’s nothing more important than that.”
Screaming is such a universal experience that Hollywood has now made one scream into an iconoclastic sound. In fact, many of the screams you hear in movies are dubbed over with the scream originally heard in a 1953 film called “The Charge at Feather River.” Let me show you how they did this. See if the scream sounds familiar. [YouTube clip “The Wilhelm Scream Compilation” See Sources] This particular scream track is now called the Wilhelm Scream.
So speaking evolutionarily we are hotwired to respond with fear and we have institutionalized fear into our cultural psyche. As a result we have to be careful how we internalize fear into our spiritual health.
The psalmist tells us to “shout to God”. Notice that this is different than screaming at God – although there are times when screaming is certainly appropriate! Shouting to God is an act of joy. Screaming is an act of fear or frustration or resignation. Shouting to God begins with faith and it emanates from our desire to connect to God’s presence. Screaming is a primordial response to danger. The psalmist understood that the more we find ways to connect to the presence of God, the less fear can trip our triggers. The more we experience how grace and love have healed us, the less power fear has over our lives. Perfect love doesn’t cast out your amygdala, but it does give you a way not to be controlled by your fears.
Did you know that is one of the reasons we sing so many praise songs? Singing that allows us to give full voice to our joy – to shout to God as an act of faith – helps actually create a few more of those neuron pathways that keep your amygdala from getting the best of you – at least every time. So if you are one of those timid singers or if you just watch the words while everyone else sings, I want to encourage you to try “making a joyful noise”. It doesn’t have to be pretty to us. It will be to God.
Sources:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/15-10/st_scream
www.homileticsonline.com Wilhelm Scream, September 2008.
Sharon Begley, “The roots of fear,” Newsweek, December 15, 2007. newsweek.com/id/78178.