What is it about slime?

The internet has been taken over by slime. Channels abound with experts who make, squeeeeeeeeze, and sell slime.

The joy of slime is how it stretches, folds, and squishes. Oh, and also the elusive “THWOCK”.

Overnight, kitchens have been transformed into slime labs. The two main ingredients are:

• Borax (sodium borate) - a negative ion that wants to grab molecules

• Glue - a polymer which forms long rubbery strings of molecules

The glue polymers want to slide (think of long, wet, slippery strands of Udon noodles). But the borax makes them want to stick together.

If you get the combination just right, then you have slime. Something that behaves as both a solid and a liquid. It sticks to you, but then it doesn’t. It stretches, but then it clumps together.

But what’s the attraction? It’s this.

Slime is a sensory bomb.

Slime bombards your senses—touch, sight, sound, smell and … ok you do also want to taste it, don’t you?

It is a super-sensory experience, that both stimulates and relaxes you at the same time.

It’s been hailed as a cure for anxiety, ADHD, PTSD, and depression.

Slime triggers your brain to flood your body with oxytocin, serotonin, and other happy hormones. Some people even report a tingling sensation that runs from the back of their head all the way down to their spine.

This response has a name. ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response). It’s a thing. And when this happens it’s the closest thing to what’s called a “brain orgasm”.

Come on. Just imagine it. You and slime. Fondling, folding, plunging, pulling, squeezing, stretching, squelching. Aaaaaaaaaaaah.

Who would’ve thought that the cure for our over-stimulated world was more … stimulation?!?

It just shows that our human desire to be stimulated, entertained, or sensory-bombarded is not the problem. It’s what we choose as our stimulation, entertainment, or sensory-bombardment that’s the problem.

The wrong sensory bombs will stress us. But the right sensory bombs will satiate us.

In the Bible, God sends his sensory bombs to soothe us.

God’s creation sensory bombs his awe and wonder at us. (Maybe that’s why psychologists tell us that the outdoors is a natural anti-depressant.)

And God sends his Son, Jesus, to be the sensory bomb, we didn’t want but needed.

Jesus turns water into six overflowing barrels of hyper-intense, super-flavoursome wine. He feeds over 5000 people with so much bread, that twelve basketfuls were left over.

And, in the ultimate sensory bombing, Jesus touches those who especially long to be touched. The lepers. The unclean. The outcast. The dead. And he reverses their misfortune. He cleanses them.

And maybe that’s why Jesus calls himself the new wine who will burst our old wineskins.

He will be more hyper-real than any religious experience we dared imagine. He will be more hyper-true than any religious revelation we dared to hear. And he will be more hyper-personal than any other God we dared to know.

The next time you want to plunge your hand into a bucket of slime … take the plunge also into knowing Jesus.

He might be the sensory bomb you’ve been craving. 

Psalm 19:1-6
John 2:1-11
Luke 9:10-17
Matthew 8:1-3
Luke 8:43-48
Luke 8:49-56
Mark 2:22

LIKE us on our FACEBOOK page
and follow Dr Sam Chan at Twitter @drsamchan
and Instagram @drsamchan