Truth

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.

The Duty and the Burden of Solemnity

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There is no good verb for what clergy do in a wedding ceremony.


We don’t “marry” the couple. They marry each other.
“Preside” implies that you are in charge of the wedding. I know that some clergy insist upon this role. They lock themselves into a battle of wills with the bride’s mother, the hotel/restaurant events manager, or the bride herself. Worst case scenario, the photographer wants to preside. In 45 years, I can only remember two weddings in which the groom took charge. Not a good sign, either time. On some simple, lovely occasions, I did “preside.” I would count the one couple who asked if they could be married in our living room with Jacquie as their witness as one of those. But presiding at most weddings means you are in charge of the choreography, the placement of the flowers, rolling out the white carpet, training the ushers, making sure the bridesmaids are zipped. That is beyond my competence.

The verb that works best, I think, is “solemnize.”


It’s harder work than you may think to solemnize a wedding. Weddings are, by definition, joyous. They symbolize peace and love and good will. They should be celebrated with good food and drink and music and dancing — and they usually are, after the ceremony. Weddings lead (snicker) to wedding nights and all that implies. It’s tough to be the one who tamps down that hilarity for an hour.


Yet, I always thought it was necessary. It is necessary for the community, represented by family and friends — or the pastor’s wife, to witness the couple making their solemn vows to each other. It is necessary for the couple to feel the enormity of the promises they are making. (Although only the widowed and the more-than-once divorced ever come close to understanding.)

It is necessary to place this very human and natural event into a larger context. The very fact that this couple has come together and chosen each other is a kind of miracle. Their love and faithfulness to each other, especially over the long haul, will be a sign and symbol of the Love that is at the heart of the universe.
That demands solemnity. It requires seriousness.


But, it can take a toll on the person who has to do the solemnizing.


Do you remember, when you were a little kid and made a face, your mother would tell you to be careful because your face might get stuck in that position?


She was right.


It has taken almost five years for my face to come unstuck. Like a lot of things in this Third Half of Life, I am reassessing what used to seem so important. I am not knocking ritual and tradition. I am not minimizing the enormity of the wedding vows. I am reassessing how and why it seemed so necessary for me to be so serious so often. Maybe it was necessary. Carl Jung believed that the clergy carry a necessary psychic burden within the community that no one else carries. He often treated clergy for free.


But I wonder if it would have helped if I had trusted Life provide the solemnity? After all, every couple faces days ahead where the vows they make on their wedding day will take on real seriousness. They will need to choose to love each other for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. Why not let them have one happy, light-hearted day to love each other and laugh with their friends and bask in their families’ pride?


Days like that are few and short. Why rob them of even one hour?


I have seen clergy, not in my tradition, I’m afraid, who seem to know how to put the joy and the seriousness together. I’m formulating a theory about why that is not common in mainline Protestant churches, but it’s not completely clear, yet.


All I know is that, as a Christian, I’m supposed to look to Jesus as my example. I see him at only one wedding. And for that, he brought the wine.

The Friends Who Helped Me Become More Human

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By Roger Talbott

Two of my teachers died this past month. Orlando was a cat with less than half a tail. Henry was a delightful dog. *
 
Orlando, a yellow cat, belonged to Doug and MaryAnn Kerr, who live across the street from us. “Belonged” means Orlando granted them the privilege of feeding and housing him. He let them pay his veterinary bills when he got into fights.  But he roamed the neighborhood like he owned all our yards. Age finally caught up with him a few weeks ago. We are already seeing an uptick in the number of squirrels and chipmunks since he died.
 
Henry was a golden retriever. Henry lived up to that breed’s reputation for being friendly and playful . There was no question that Henry loved Jim and Cathy Stentzel more than anything in the world. We met Henry about a year after Cathy and Jim brought him home  as a very young dog.
 
Orlando seemed much the same right up until the end. We did not see much change in the 15 years we lived across the street.
 
We saw Henry only once or twice each year, so we noticed how he grew and changed and, eventually, aged. As a young dog, he ran circles around the slower humans who took him for walks. His size and stubbornness made him hard to resist when he wanted to go one way and you wanted to go another. His good-natured enthusiasm for his quest was even harder to resist. Over the past couple of years, we saw Henry slow down, take shorter walks and longer naps. But he never stopped beating his tail on the floor with joy when Jim and Cathy would arrive home.
 
It is only when Henry and Orlando died that I realized what they had taught me. When I learned of their deaths, I felt sad. That feeling of sadness amazed me. It told me something deep inside of me had changed. 
 

Learning to Be Tough

I grew up on a dairy farm surrounded by animals. We had a dairy barn full of Holsteins. We also raised chickens and hogs. We always had a cow dog that helped us move the cows from the pasture to the barn. We had cats running around the barn to keep the mouse population under control. The dog had a name, Queenie. My sisters gave some of the cats names. I did not learn to love animals on that farm.
 
I learned to take care of the animals because our living depended on them. I tossed bales of hay down a chute from the mow to the barn below. I climbed a silo in the dead of winter and forked chopped corn into a feed cart three stories below. I shoveled manure into a manure spreader. So, I cared for their needs. I also learned how to milk the cows, gather the hen’s eggs, feed the hogs, and how to help butcher cows and hogs and chickens so we could eat them.
 
I know people who grew up on farms and people who live on farms who love animals. I do not think farming is completely incompatible with compassion. But, I never learned how to love animals and kill them.   I chose to think of animals as commodities. I measured their value in dollars and cents per pound, like milk and eggs and oats and hay. I was like the kids who have spent two years raising a steer that wins the Grand Champion ribbon at the fair. As a reward, they get a big check from the owner of a local restaurant. Some city-bred reporter will ask them if they are sad that their steer will be turned into steaks. The kids usually say, “Are you kidding? Why do you think I went to all that trouble in the first place?” I was tough and realistic.
 

How What We Believe Hardens Our Hearts

My mother’s theology further justified my attitude toward animals. When, as a little boy, I asked her if animals went to heaven, she explained that they do not because they do not have souls. She taught me to read the Creation story as a story about how human beings are special and different. We have souls. Animals do not. We commune with the Lord. Animals do not. We go to church and to heaven. Animals do not. She was in line with traditional Christian theology. I did not know it then, but those teachings hardened my heart.
 
When I was a pastor, parishioners would tell me about losing their beloved pets. I sensed that they were grieving, and I hope that I said appropriate things, but I admit that, inside, I did not get it. I empathized when they grieved for a relative or a friend. I did not understand the grief they felt for a pet they had recently put down.
 

Finding the Center

In my two years of retirement I have been practicing meditation. I supplement my life-long practice of prayer centered on Jesus with Yoga classes. I read books on Jewish spirituality recommended by my daughter-in-law, a Rabbi. I read books on Buddhist meditation recommended by Henry’s owner, Cathy.
 
I see a common thread running through these writings. I have learned what several wise observers mean when they say, “The theologians all argue. The mystics all agree.”
 
These books and practices lead me to a warm place in my heart. I believe that place is in every heart and at the heart of the universe. In that place is profound stillness and immense power. It is the Truth. It is Love. The New Testament calls it “God.”   
 
People of all faiths and no faith encounter this Truth and Love.  They may meet Love in deep meditation. They may meet Love when they hold a newborn baby. They may meet Love when they connect with a friend. They may meet Love when a slender ray of hope penetrates despair. When they speak of it, I recognize the same Love Christians meet in Jesus. 
 
We also call this Love, “Truth,” because Love shows us that all our reasons for not loving are based on lies. I can see how the “terrorists” and “bigots” twist their religious beliefs to justify not loving. A hard heart can turn any scripture into a lie that explains why it is OK to kill some people, or animals, and not others. It is harder for me to see how I do the same thing with my hard heart. 

Getting Past the Hard Heart 

Hard hearts even argue with the Bible. Yes, the Creation Story says humans and animals are all made from the same dust on the same day. But, said my hard heart, look at how much longer the author lingers over the creation of people.
 
I know the breath that God breathes into humans making them “souls” is callednephesh in Hebrew. I know that the same nephesh gives all beings life. But, said my hard heart, “nephesh” means “soul” in some places and “breath” in others.
 
Arguments did not work. It was Orlando and Henry who wore me down. Henry did it as he danced around Jim’s legs.  Orlando did it when I caught sight of him silently hunting in our hostas. I did not know that I learned to love them until after they died. Orlando and Henry changed me in the way Carl Jung said happens to us in the second half of life.
Before I retired, I did a series of sermons on the Beatitudes.  “Beatitude” means “happiness”. So, the second Beatitude always stumped me, “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  How can grief be happiness? We only grieve those we love. Now I understand. I mourn Orlando’s and Henry’s deaths. I am comforted by feeling that sadness, because it means that I am in touch with Truth and Love.

And, in the Real World

Yesterday, my sister told me that her son and his wife had their first baby, a little boy. Mom is the daughter of Filipino immigrants.
As I got this news, news about how our country is separating the children of illegal immigrant children from their parents at our borders was playing in the background.
I was reminded of a story Christians tell each other every December. You may have heard it. It is about a baby born into a world in which there was no room for him. The story tells how his parents, like so many people in Central America today, feared for their child’s life. They, too, headed for the border and they somehow got across without losing their baby.
Jeff Sessions is a devout and faithful member of same denomination that I served as pastor. He hears the Christmas story every year. That story is in the same Bible that he quotes to justify his draconian policy of tearing children from their parents. After all, he and millions of Americans agree that we have no more room for such people. I drove across Wyoming, Idaho, and Eastern Oregon two weeks ago, and I think we could squeeze in a few more people. But if you agree with Jeff Sessions, you have already come up with good reasons why I am full of B.S.
The Christmas story does not argue with you or Jeff Sessions. The babies that God keeps sending us do not argue either. The merciful God will not beat you or me into becoming the full image of Love and Truth. But sooner or later, I pray that Love will appear to you and me and Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump. I pray that we may be worn down by Love when it appears in a new baby, a golden retriever, or a cat with less than half a tail. Then we will stop being “tough” and start being as human as Jesus.
*This is an update of an earlier version published on June 12.

How to Read the Eternities: The End of a Series

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I learned about “forest bathing” while hiking the other day. Since it was 37 degrees F. with a sharp wind, I can assure you that it did not involve removing my clothes.

Jacquie used the term as we hiked in the North Chagrin Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks. There is growing scientific evidence that walking through natural areas — especially a forest — is good for you.

Well, duh!

Henry David Thoreau could have told us that in the 1840’s. He may not have been able to compare blood pressure readings or count white cells, but for two years he lived by himself in the woods near Walden Pond in order to face life.

In his essay, “A Life Without Principle”, Thoreau described how to live in the “Post-Truth” era. He told us that to find the truth in such times we need to

Read not the Times. Read the Eternities.

This is not an easy thing to do in an age when the Times, or the Post, or the Plain Dealer feel like Medieval texts compared to Twitter or the news crawl at the bottom of the 24-hour news channel screen. To get at the truth these days we need to learn to slow down the newsfeed, take time to listen to ourselves, and seek the wisdom of the ages in the holy writings, like the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita.

To read the Eternities themselves, we need to turn to what some Christian theologians call “The First Testament” — Creation.

The Bible tells us that Creation points to God:

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies announce what God’s hands have made.
Day after day they tell the story; night after night they tell it again.
They have no speech or words; they have no voice to be heard.
But their message goes out through all the world; their words go everywhere on earth.
Psalm 19:1-4

Looking at a starry sky or a mountain or an ocean helps us get a better perspective on ourselves, our successes and our failures.

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you set in place— what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Psalm 8:3-4

This is what Thoreau did. He looked at the sky, listened to the wind, followed rivers, and took note of birds and insects. He heard the Truth in the wind and the bird songs. He saw the sun rise and set. He felt the change in the seasons.

Here are some of the things he learned:

The universe is wider than our views of it.

Things do not change. We change.

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

What has the Creation taught you that is the opposite of what the Tweets, the Times and human “wisdom” tries to sell you?

Read The Scriptures: Reading the Eternities Part 3

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Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.

Things do not change; we change.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

These words were written over 150 years ago. They still strike us as true. How did Henry David Thoreau do it, when neither the latest advertisement nor political speech can convince us that it is anything but B.S.?

He followed his own advice:

Read not the Times. Read the Eternities.

How do we do that?

First, we slow down the news cycle. Instead of Tweets, wait a day and read the Times or some other newspaper. Wait a week, and read a magazine. Wait a year and read a book.

Second, we dig into our life’s experience. Where are the gold nuggets of truth that we live by?

A third step is to read scripture.

But which one?

Some say that the very fact we have to ask that question is the reason why there isn’t any truth these days.

I grew up in a world where THE scripture was the Protestant Christian Bible. Everyone either read it, or thought they should. Today, I live in a city where thousands read the Torah, the Koran, or the Vedas. And hundreds read lesser known sacred texts — and seek to live by them. Who knows what is true?

Things were simpler in Thoreau’s day before cultural and religious pluralism called the old truths into question.  Except they weren’t simpler.

Yes, he was  brought up in church and attended Sabbath School as a child and his writing shows he is more familiar with the Christian Bible than most of today’s public intellectuals. But when he spent two years in a cabin on Walden Pond, he took with him a book he called the “Bhagvat-Geeta.”

The closest thing Hinduism has to a Bible is the Bhagavad Gita, which was first translated from Sanskrit into English about a generation before Thoreau was born.

The book was a sensation in Thoreau’s circles in New England. His friend, Emerson, loaned him a copy. From his reading, Thoreau appeared not to simply admire the spiritual and psychological insights of Hinduism, but also came back to the Bible, especially the New Testament, with eyes that no longer saw it as a “yellowed document”, but as superior to all other writings for it ethical teachings.

That can happen to people who may have deep commitments to one spiritual tradition but who also become familiar with another.

It works like this:

Do you remember the first time you stayed overnight with a friend when you were a kid?

Your first impression probably was, “Everything my friend’s family does is wrong.”

That was because the way they talked to each other (or not), the way they ate their meals, and the way they went to bed was different from the way your family did those things.

Perhaps, if you visited your friend on a regular basis, or you visited other friends, you came to appreciate some of the things that they did.

Jacquie and I started dating in high school. One of the things she says she liked about my family is that my parents saw to it that we did things together. My Mom and Dad worked really hard to run a dairy farm and raise five kids, but they were both youngest children and they knew how to have a good time.

What I liked about Jacquie’s house was the food! Her Mom was a fabulous cook and she liked to feed people. As a 17-year-old farm boy who was burning about 4,000 calories a day, I loved eating at their house.

I learned a lot from visiting in my friends’ homes. I also went back to my own home with a deeper appreciation for what I received there. I saw things that I wouldn’t have seen if I didn’t ever go anywhere else.

It happens that I was introduced to the Bhagavad Gita by a gifted teacher a few years ago. I’ve been slowly plowing my way through a Christian commentary on the book.

Reading that book, I have the same experience Thoreau described:

“I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial.” 

Yes, the writings of the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita, or the Tao Te Ching  make the Op Ed pieces in the newspaper seem trivial — to say nothing of the observations of cable news commentators. That is a good reason to read them. For they have inspired people, as Thoreau said, since long before our current cultural gods were born and they will do so long after those gods are dead. 

Immersing yourself in any of them will make you wiser. I admit to being biased in favor of the Christian Bible. That’s my family home. Visiting the Gita, however, has taught me even deeper truths about the spiritual life, just as visiting the homes of friends taught me deeper truths about family life.

Families may eat different foods at different times, but everybody eats. Families may go to bed in different ways, but everyone sleeps.

What Thoreau discovered from both the Bhagavad Gita and the New Testament, is that both believe the spiritual life is lived out, not in holy isolation in a cave or on a mountaintop, but in the ordinary actions of life. In the Gita, we learn to do our work by letting go of our ego’s need for recognition and success. In the New Testament, we learn serve each other in love. They aren’t so different.

And both change us and our world for the better.

Read Your Life: Part 2 of Read the Eternities

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Pontius Pilate asked Jesus of Nazareth, “What is truth”.

As far as Pilate was concerned, “truth” was just the “alternate fact” he needed to justify executing a carpenter to please the crowd.

Pilate would feel right at home in a place where  last night’s tweets will be explained away in this afternoon’s press briefing

“What is truth?”  How do we find it?

150 years ago, Henry David Thoreau was writing things that remain true even to this day. How did he do that?

His advice:

“Read not the Times. Read the Eternities”

How do we do that?

Step one, as I said last week, is to step back from the 24-hour news stream and read reports of events from a longer and deeper perspective. Don’t read the Tweets, read the Times, and newsmagazines and books. That will help you separate the true from the trivial — the signal from the noise.

However, I no longer think that reading what others have written about anything is as important as I once did. Now, it’s more important to read my own life.

My mother-in-law used to preface some of her sentences with the words, “Now this I know is true”.

How do YOU know what is true?

In his essay, “A Life Without Principle“, Thoreau was addressing people who were suffering, as we do, from information overload. Cheaper methods of printing created more newspapers — and a hunger for news — even fake news.  An efficient postal service brought deliveries of mail twice a day in many places. America was polarized around issues of slavery and race, the dangers of allowing Catholic German and Irish immigrants into the U.S., and trade policies. They were also distracted by the promise of gold.

Thoreau suggests that instead of rushing off to California to dig a shaft straight down into the ground, people should dig down in their own lives. We can pan for the gold in our life experiences. The miner washes away gravel to find flecks of gold in the bottom of his pan because gold is heavier than gravel. It has more weight.

How do you dig a shaft and pan for the gold in your own life? How do you find the stuff that has weight in your life?

One way to do this is to keep a diary of your life’s experiences.

Thoreau wrote in his journal the first drafts of truths that became gold nuggets about the desperation with which most people pursue their lives;   the importance of simplicity,  and what it means to disobey unjust laws.

I admit that I’ve tried to journal off and on through my life and until recently it hasn’t done much good because I didn’t go back and read what I had written to see that I was saying and doing the same things over and over again.  I couldn’t read my own handwriting. Using a word processor meant I would lose files when I upgraded. 

I’ve been more successful recently using an app called Day One that allows me to tag entries so that I can go back and look at recurring themes.

As John Dewey said:

“We don’t learn from experience, but from reflecting on experience.

My mother-in-law didn’t keep a diary. She just got up before dawn, sat on her couch with a cup of coffee and a cigarette and thought about life.

I am not privy to her thoughts, and I’m pretty sure that the hour, the coffee and the cigarette are optional, but I do know that she must have reviewed her life in those hours and it enabled her to say about a few things, “This I know is true.”

It takes time to dig into your life and sift the gold out of the gravel of your life experiences. It means you will miss some tweets. You will miss some news bulletins. You will miss some photos of what your “friends” had for dinner and a cat video or two. If that’s more important, so be it, but remember these words from Thoreau’s “Life Without Principle”:

You may depend on it, that the poor fellow

who walks away [from the Post Office]

with the greatest number of letters,

proud of his extensive correspondence,

has not heard from himself this long while.

How do you read your life?

What truths are you finding?