Shower with your eyes closed. Take a different route to work. Learn the Braille numbers in the elevator for the floors. Hold your nose as you try different foods to explore how the taste changes.

You'll be surprised at what you experience.

These are "neurobic" exercises, recommended by a noted neurobiologist. Not to be confused with "aerobic" workouts, these neurobic drills involve one or more of your senses in a novel way. They engage your attention, break routine activities in unexpected fashions, and result in what can best be described as "brain-training."

It's true. You can retrain your brain. Try using your nondominant hand to go through your morning routine of combing your hair and brushing your teeth. Or sharing a meal in silence and seeing how it affects your sensory experience of the food. Or taking a whiff of cloves when you dial a certain phone number, and seeing if it helps you remember the number. Or closing your eyes as you get into your car, and keeping them closed as you find the keys and start the car.

Remember to OPEN your eyes before driving!

These are among 83 neurobic exercises advocated by Duke Medical Center neurobiologist Lawrence Katz and his co-author Manning Rubin in a new book called Keep Your Brain Alive.

This book contains the latest insights into how the brain can reorganize itself at every stage of life, and rewire itself to adjust to new experience. The way that brain cells learn, it seems, is by making new connections with one another -- growing tendril-like connections called dendrites, which connect with neighboring cells through linkages called synapses. While a lot of these basic circuits are set up early in life, the long-held idea that adult brain connections are frozen in place is probably a myth.

In other words, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks. Which makes sense, given the number of seniors in this congregation who are suddenly surfing the Internet!

Of course, it's true that brains do age, and in time these dendritic connections may thin out. But authors Katz and Rubin recommend mental exercise as a way to enrich those connections, exercise that uses not only the five usual senses -- vision, taste, smell, touch, and hearing -- but also what they call the "sixth sense" of emotion. This use of the full range of the senses has potential to forge new connections among different sensory structures, and in the process retrain the human brain ("Cross-Train Your Brain," Duke Magazine, May-June 1999, 50-51).

In our lesson from First Kings, Elijah is clearly suffering a brain cramp. He's been scared to death by Queen Jezebel, and forced to flee for his life into the wilderness. "It is enough," he laments, sitting alone under a solitary broom tree; "now, O LORD, take away my life" (19:4). His senses are dulled, his emotions are frazzled, he is feeling depressed. He needs some brain-training and soul-shaping -- a workout that starts rolling with some rather unexpected divine intervention.

All of a sudden, Elijah is touched by an angel. "Get up and eat," the messenger commands. Elijah looks, and there at his head is a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. His sense of smell is stimulated, and he eats and drinks. Then a second time the angel touches him and insists, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you." His sense of taste is tripped as he eats and drinks some more, and then in the strength of that food he travels a great distance to Horeb -- the mount of God (vv. 5-8).

More stimulation comes after he spends the night in a cave. His hearing is hit hard when the word of the LORD erupts and asks, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" The prophet's emotions kick in with the answer, "I have been very zealous for the LORD .... I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away!" Then a great wind blows up -- exciting sight, sound, and touch -- so strong that it splits mountains and breaks rocks into pieces. After the wind comes a body-shaking earthquake, and after the earthquake a sight-searing fire, but the Bible tells us that God is not in any of these sensational stimuli.

Instead, the demanding voice of God is heard only after what follows: The sound of sheer silence. This is what finally connects the prophet fully with the LORD. When Elijah hears it, he wraps his face in his mantle and goes out and stands at the entrance of the cave, ready to receive his marching orders (vv. 12-13).

Could he have perceived the full presence of God any earlier? Probably not. He needed the "neurobic" exercises of smelling and tasting divine food, listening to God's voice, responding with emotion, feeling an earthquake, and seeing a fire. First, Elijah had to strengthen his senses in a variety of ways -- ways that would engage his attention, break his routine, and reshape his mind and soul.

Before he connected fully with God, he needed some brain-training and some soul-shaping.

Like so many of us, Elijah was in a rut, and he didn't use all the pathways available to him. He sought to escape his problems by fleeing Jezebel, wandering in the wilderness, and curling up in the fetal position at the base of a broom tree. The poor soul was dejected, disheartened, dispirited and depressed.

He needed stimulation. God KNEW he needed some stimulation. That's why the LORD sent food, drink, word, wind, earthquake, and fire. God knew -- like neurobiologist Lawrence Katz -- that Elijah's senses had been starved, and that such starvation so often led to loss of brain function, not to mention soul function.

So the LORD shocked him. Told him to get up and eat, listen to the word and the wind, watch the mountains and the fire, and feel the earthquake. Then -- and only then -- would Elijah be able to sense the full presence of the Lord after the sound of sheer silence.

It took some stimulation to get Elijah's soul in shape.

The same is true for us. We need internal rewiring, which is why we're challenged to shower with our eyes closed, feel the Braille numbers on an elevator, or sniff a sack of sage while dialing the phone. All these activities can bring certain sensory channels back on line, and increase the number of brain pathways that are active and alive.

But what about antidotes to spiritual starvation? What soul-shaping exercises can we do to retrain our spirits and develop a strong and healthy life with God? What workouts can we undertake to avoid becoming 21st-century Pharisees -- believers who are stuck in a preconceived notion of what God's will is, lacking the flexibility to learn and adapt and adjust? Every day, we encounter moments in which we can taste the goodness of the Lord, listen to the voice of God, and take a stand in the wind, earthquake, and fire of spiritual struggle. Every fourth Sunday of the month here at Fairfax, we have a Jubilee worship service which stimulates our souls in new and creative ways. It is only when we use ALL our senses -- including the sixth sense called "emotion" -- that we embrace such occasions and find new ways to rewire our souls and strengthen our faith in God.

Let's begin where Elijah did -- with eating. In worship we have a chance to taste and see that the Lord is good every time we celebrate Holy Communion, that sacrament which unites body and spirit, as well as heaven and earth. But Communion is not our only sacred supper, for Christ is present whenever and wherever we gather to share a meal -- this includes potluck lunches in the fellowship hall, as well as family dinners around the dining room table. Remember that on the road to Emmaus, two disciples recognized the risen Jesus in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:30-31).

We also get our souls in shape by listening ... listening to a summer breeze in the trees, to the laughter of children, to the laments of an elderly neighbor, to the praises being sung in a service of worship. By exercising our sense of hearing -- instead of turning a deaf ear -- we can develop a fresh sensitivity to the world around us, and a new ability to hear the still, small voice of God.

But that's not all. Rewiring also results from taking a stand in the earthquake, wind, and fire of spiritual struggle. Our brains are trained and our souls are shaped by a willingness to take an unpopular stand for the sake of the gospel, and to endure the emotional abuse that is bound to follow. There's nothing enjoyable about the sensory stimulation that comes from intense opposition, but such an experience is the only way to penetrate the perplexing words of Jesus: "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:10).

Persecutions and blessings don't seem to go together. Especially at first. But through brain-training, soul-shaping, and the subtle stimulation of God, we come to see our destiny in a whole new light.

We discover new pathways. New perceptions. New powers. New purposes.

Elijah did. And so can we.
We just need to train ourselves to hear the voice of God ... after the sound of sheer silence. Amen.