Responsibility

The Day We Remember The People Who Are Thrown Away

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The Christ of the Breadlines, Fritz Eichenberg, Woodcut, 1951

For those Christians who worship a Holy God who cannot abide sin and whose righteousness demands punishment, today is a day to remember how God, the Father, inflicted all His anger on His Beloved Son, satisfying once and for all the debt of sin the human race has run up since we limped out of Eden.

I used to believe that myself. And, on a good day, I took comfort in it. I believed that my sins, even mine, were forgiven, and felt some peace, until I screwed up again.

As an old man, I have looked through enough microscopes and telescopes, stood at the foot of enough mountains, walked through enough forests, seen enough waves roll in, and held enough babies in my arms to change my definition of “Holy” from “Absolute Righteousness” to what Rudolf Otto was trying to express when he described the “Holy” as Mysterium et Tremendum:

“Mysterium” is the feeling I had in the mountains, at the seashore, and holding that new grandchild. It can’t be put into words.

“Tremendum” means what the hymn, “Were You There?,” is singing about:

“Sometimes, it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.”

This is what Moses felt when he stood before the burning bush. Isaiah felt this when he saw the Throne of God high and lifted up in the Temple. Mary felt this when the Angel Gabriel asked her to bear God’s Son.

It doesn’t matter whether you believe these stories are literally true or not. What matters is that they represent moments —moments I hope you have had—moments of awe that both humble you and fill your soul with a sense of your worth in the grand scheme of things.

The opposite of this feeling, these days, is consumerism. Consumerism only recognizes the value that can be rung up on a cash register, and throws away the things that no longer have value: toilet paper, laptops, and human beings. We are all immersed in it. Many of us struggle against it, but it can sometimes be overwhelming. The message is that our buying power measures our value. Those with more buying power are far more valuable than those with little or no buying power.

We Americans are currently ruled by two men who had the misfortune of being blessed with success by consumerism . One succeeded at making things that consumers will buy, and the other excels at selling things, even things that don’t exist. Consumerism has stunted our souls, so most of us buy what they sell—or at least don’t object to their pitch.

We are now beginning to see the ultimate evil that consumerism can drive us to — making a virtue of throwing away human beings

It is no accident that those who are now randomly firing “corrupt and lazy” scientists, weather forecasters, and park rangers and are advocating throwing away the elderly, the poor, the disabled, immigrants, and others they have deemed valueless, want us to forget that we did the same to Native Americans and Enslaved People. They don’t want us to see that their disparagement of DEI is a continuation of a pattern of cheating and exploiting women and people of color, while carving out some cushy positions for incompetent white guys.

According to some traditions, the place where Jesus was crucified was on top of Jerusalem’s trash heap. One of the things we remember on Good Friday is, “He took his place with sinners” . . . on the trash heap.

We always label the people we throw away “sinners” AKA criminals (read mentally ill, learning disabled, abused as children), shiftless people who can’t feed their kids even if they work three jobs, the disabled and old people who didn’t amass a fortune to support them and depend on Social Security instead. All of them drain money away from those of us who always want more. I am appalled at how well I understand that reasoning.

This Good Friday, Jesus takes his place with “gang members” (Guys with brown skin, Latino names, and wearing the wrong colored clothes) in a jungle prison in the ironically named country of El Salvador.

The only thing that will save Elon, Donald, MAGA, and me is to recover a belief in human beings as the image of God. To have an experience of the Holy, whether it manifests as a burning bush or a new grandbaby, a Heavenly Throne or a hug when we need it most and expect it least, an angel or an answer to our heart’s oldest question. We need the encounter with the Holy that Thomas Merton felt one day at the corner of Fourth and Walnut in Louisville.

He saw the faces of all the strangers passing him by and realized he loved them.

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.

― Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

It Isn’t Denial. Your Wizard isn’t Talking with Your Lizard

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Created by the author in Dall-E

My most recent post received some comments that helped me rethink what I wrote. I see now that I fell into the preacher’s besetting sin of alliteration. Trying to help us to not despair about the diminishment that takes place in aging, I urged us to discern what we can change and what we can’t. To do that, we need to resist denial.

That last word, denial, is not helpful. I wish I had not used it.

Denial is a guilt word. If you are in denial, you are bad. Even therapists pronounce the word “denial” with disapproval.

I fear that my post added more shame and guilt on to people who are already beating themselves up. We can’t beat ourselves into facing the truth. We can’t beat ourselves into discernment.

I learned this a little over a year ago. I consulted a therapist who has developed an expertise in neuroscience.

My issue was how I could take more responsibility for my health. I always seemed to sleepwalk through doctors’ appointments. I wouldn’t think about them beforehand. I wouldn’t ask questions during the visit. I wouldn’t remember what the doctor said after I left.

Jacquie is understandably annoyed when she remembers things about my health history that I have completely forgotten.

When I explained this problem to the therapist, she asked me how I felt about telling her that.

I said that I was ashamed. I felt like I was being childish.

She shook her head. She said:

“No, there is a breakdown between your lizard brain and your wizard brain.”

“You have two brains,” she said. “A Lizard brain and a Wizard brain.”

The concept of Lizard brain was not new to me. I had majored in Psychology in college. I knew that, at the base of the brain, there is an almond-shaped structure called the amygdala. The amygdala senses changes in our environment and tells us to flee, fight, or freeze. Even lizards have a brain like that.

My therapist explained that the amygdala works 50 times faster than the prefrontal cortex. That’s why you jump when a snake darts across your path before you even register that it is a little green garden snake — not a cobra.

The part that distinguishes between garden snakes and cobras is the prefrontal cortex in green below.

Only humans have a highly-developed prefrontal cortex. It is where we concoct the magic that writes symphonies, builds skyscrapers, and sends people to the moon. The prefrontal cortex is the “wizard brain.” The rest of the brain may store our past memories of encounters with snakes or pictures of snakes. The prefrontal cortex sorts all those snakes into “poisonous” and or “harmless” categories and can decide what to do on the basis of that taxonomy.

The amygdala also stores memories — especially those associated with pain. These memories may go back to birth. We may not be able to access them the way we remember learning the multiplication tables. But these memories do not fade with time. The amydala may also store our fundamental fears of falling or of death.

I suspect, for example, that as a child, I came to associate any trip to the doctor meant that I felt miserably sick. It also involved getting a needle jabbed into my little rear end. So, when I see the word “doctor” on my calendar, my amygdala immediately says: “Doctor = Sick + Pain in the . . .”

This happens so fast that I am not consciously aware of it.

The therapist asked me to close my eyes and relax. She called up the image of the doctor’s office and asked me what I felt — not what I should feel. What did the little boy in me feel?

Then she had me open my eyes. She placed an empty chair in front of me and said that my wizard brain was sitting in that chair. She told me to explain to the wizard brain how I feel when I am in the doctor’s office.

I did that, describing how I felt as a child: sick, bewildered, and hurt.

Then the therapist asked me to move to the wizard brain chair. She asked my wizard to respond to this bewildered, hurt, frightened child inside my lizard brain.

In the wizard chair, I told the lizard brain that I understood his fears and I cared and I would take care of him.

I then went back to the lizard brain chair and questioned those nice words. How would the wizard take care of me?

Back in the wizard chair and with the help of the therapist, I formulated a plan.

I would make a list of the questions I wanted to ask the doctor and read them over. I would listen for the Lizard brain’s response.

I also agreed to consult with the lizard brain about his concerns about my health. That part of the brain is more in touch with changes in my body than my wizard brain. My wizard brain is too busy writing blog posts to notice the pain in my left side.

This conversation didn’t take very long, but when I was done, I was no longer ashamed of my “denial” about my health. I had created alliance within me between the lizard and the wizard. I could combine intuition with reason. In this past year, that has helped me deal with doctors and take more personal responsibility for my health.

So don’t feel guilty about being in “denial.” Instead, create a relationship between the “Wizard” and the “Lizard” in your brain. The Lizard responds well to understanding and compassion. It runs away from — or fights — guilt and shame. Let them work together. Your lizard can detect how you are feeling. Your Wizard can respond with wisdom.

Together, you can become more discerning about how to face any problem including the problem of diminishment with age. Your lizard brain notices the changes in your body, mind, and relationships. Your wizard brain can find things that you can change. Working together, these two parts of your brain can give you the courage to change the things you can change and the serenity to accept what you can’t.