Being “technically right” is only half of what is going on.It is only half of what counts as what “really happened”.
Category: Neuroscience
This time of year, many progress-liberal minded Christians criticize the idea that God “turned away from” or “abandoned” Jesus on the cross. And most conservative minded Christians take the idea for granted, because God can’t look at sin. Did God abandon Jesus on the cross?Did the Father forsake the Son in death? Did God turn […]
Our clients’ relationships with God are not the sum total of their early human relationships, or the internalization of those relationships. While seemingly obvious from a theoretical perspective, extensive training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, without complementary experience in the spiritual disciples and spiritual direction, likely biases us toward reducing our client’s “God” to the internalized mother […]
Why do children want to show you everything? And what’s it got to do with ancient Israel confession of faith—the Shema? Like I said yesterday, the prophets of distraction (paying to make you pay attention to what they are selling) are trying to gain, and hold, and direct your attention. But how do you […]
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Pay Attention to God
PAY ATTENTION! Our entire culture is trying to capture your attention, to make you look at this shiny object, to make you love or fear whatever it is selling at the moment. The prophets of attention are just selling your attention for profits—they are paying to make you pay attention. Amid the prophets of disaster…Amid […]
What is the “social construction” of reality? Is everything just relative and subjective? Is everything just made up? Or could the social construction of reality have something to do with being made in God’s image? This is what I’m thinking about as I finish up Lisa Feldman Barrett’s new book, Seven and a […]
Why do we experience culture shock? Why do people process the same event so differently? Why is code-switching so exhausting? It’s because different people, especially from different cultures, have different minds—and shifting between them is taxing. This is the main point of Lisa Feldman Barrett’s 6th lesson. I’m continuing with Barrett’s new book, Seven and a […]
What does it really mean to say that humans are social beings? How does it really affect us that we are embedded in our relationship? And what does this mean for discipleship? I’m continuing with Barrett’s new book, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain (I’m working through chapters as part of the […]
Why do people experience the same situation so differently? Because we don’t respond to the world. We predict it. And how do we predict the world? Through past experience. Basically, people experience the same situation differently because they have different pasts. This is the focus of chapter 4 of Lisa Feldman Barrett’s new […]