No dial-tone on the hot line

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1879016,00.html

I read this yesterday on Time.com. And I just keep thinking about it. It's about how there is a biological mechanism that becomes active when human beings are accessing their spiritual selves. No matter what your line to the infinite is, it fires up your parietal lobe. Whether you pray, chant, meditate or spin, that's the part of your brain that becomes active. And whether you think it's a biological mechanism or a divinely installed pre-paid phone that allows you to reach out and touch the Almighty, it's there.

I think I must have the world's most under-developed parietal lobe. When I was a kid, and other people would pray, and really seem to be getting into it, I'd know that they were really getting into it, because I'd be sneaking looks out the corners of my eye to see if we were done praying yet. I never had that sense of doing something or talking to someone when I was praying. Then later, I tried that whole meditation thing. Both the plain old "clearing your mind" kind of meditation. And also in conjunction with yoga, and even tai chi. Nothing. Tai chi is active enough that I just enjoy the exercise, but the sitting there or doing yoga is just excruciating for me. Bored. Bored. Bored. Because whatever that spiritual, subsumed feeling is, I never get there. I never get that sense of being outside myself, or in tune with the universe, or one with the infinite, or whatever that is that people who truly get it feel. I always know I'm me, feel a little silly, and really would just like to get up and go get a cup of coffee. Transcendence. I think that's the word for it. I've never really felt transcendence.

Which, I think, kind of sucks. There have been times in my life when that spiritual, in touch with something greater than myself feeling would have been very comforting. I've watched other people make it through hard times, and feel very exhilarated by that connection they get from prayer or meditation or whatever. But I seem to be on my own in this way. But it's kind of like being blind. I can feel a little envious of people who have this sense, because, in theory, it sounds wonderful. But I doubt I'll ever really know what it is that I'm missing.