We live in a world that has, over the last fifty years, and especially over the last fifteen, become increasingly accustomed to virtually instantaneous effects summoned by our causes. Our technology only serves to reinforce the experience of the shrinkage of time and space—if only in our minds—as we wirelessly go about the planet in fewer seconds than it takes to brush our teeth. So much about our world conditions us for speed, while our God seems at times not to have heard of, let alone access the Internet. I wait only seconds for the download. Why am I waiting years for God?

But what if I have this whole time thing, and the urgency with which I dwell in it, completely backwards? What if I’m not waiting for God, but rather he is waiting for me? What if he is waiting for me to stop running around long enough to be present with him, to notice what he notices, to do, in the smallest details that take so much time, what he is doing? Much like a parent waiting for her child to run out of steam so she can take the little rascal upstairs for his afternoon nap. What if it is my pace that is off kilter? And what if creation echoes this fundamental discrepancy between my movement and God’s? One look at the nervous system can tell us something about this.

When I was in medical school, we learned that if a nerve is severed, it can begin to regenerate, but only at the rate of about 1 millimeter per month, depending on how serious and extensive the injury is. Some injuries can repair more quickly, up to 1 millimeter per day. But still, come on. That’s just not very fast—by my iStandards. Imagine how long it will take for a damaged nerve in a hand to return to health. Or worse, what about someone who has a stroke and has thousands of nerves killed or traumatized in a matter of minutes? Even more complicated, what about the neurological implications of relationships that have been traumatized in innumerable ways that seem beyond repair? What has any of this to do with God’s pace?

What the story of the brain and nervous system seems to reveal is that God is very serious about the change he is bringing about in this world. And his seriousness translates not only into large, sweeping sea changes (think, the work of William Wilberforce or Martin Luther King, Jr.), but perhaps more often in the most microscopic, detailed spaces such as a single moment of restraint when disciplining a child; confessing a wrong done rather than sweeping it under the rug; or beginning a practice of regular, rhythmic fasting, solitude, or journaling in order to open up channels for God’s spirit to have access to you. None of these latter things listed would seem in and of themselves to change the world. No journalist will cover these events for the Washington Post. But if neurons only grow at the pace mentioned above, it will take lots of practice, and lots of time to coax them to create new networks. If God has made me with neurons, then I can’t change any faster than they can. It will take time and practice for my hoarding and gluttony and consumerism and lust and anxiety and impatience to be transformed. It is less a surprise to find that patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness are growing, if surely, then only slowly.

Now, if I begin to pay attention to this reality, this awareness of God’s comfort with his own pace, perhaps I need not worry so much that I’m not changing quickly enough—more importantly, that others are not changing quickly enough either. And the odd thing is, when I am less worried, I am more likely to be open to the changes I so long for in the first place, especially if I am closely connected with others whose pilgrimages are moving in the same direction.

And so, for you who long for change but for whom it seems to be coming slowly, be of good cheer. God’s pace and your brain are working to draw your attention to the quantum reality that he loves you at his pace—so much so that he will leave no stone unturned, no moment of your life unredeemed, no matter how long it takes, even if it happens one millimeter at a time. In this we can have joy, that even if timing is everything, it is still the one thing we need worry nothing about.

What does this have to do with “being right?” More significantly, what does it mean when we are “wrong?”  First, it suggests that when we feel the urgency to demonstrate that we are right about anything, and especially in the context of relational conflict, what our brain is doing is primarily attempting to maintain connection.  “How so?” you may wonder. We only have to examine what it means to be “wrong” to find out.  Being wrong, in many circumstances, means one is not only mistaken, but one is, by implication, inadequate or ineffective. This of course bears the hint, and eventually for many the full on experience of shame.  In theory, I don’t mind being wrong: it means I am only learning something new.  In practice, however, being wrong activates so much imagery, thoughts, feelings, and sensations related in mild to severe forms of shame. I’m not just wrong about making a right or left turn; I’m wrong about my marriage, about my job, about just about anything that matters, and especially about God. And to be wrong is to be ashamed in these stories. And shame is ultimately about being left. Left, as in left behind, left out, discarded, dismissed, abandoned.  And we will do anything to prevent this.  For to be abandoned—to be left—is to be left alone.  Not alone as in “by myself in my apartment,” but alone as in what hell would be like. And last I checked, nobody I know wants that.

Thus we see that our need to be right is mostly a need to prevent being left. Which may come as no surprise, not only because Jim Coan is finding this to be true empirically, but because many years ago it was written: “…Let Us make man in our image…” and that “…it is not good for man to be alone…”  This relational God of Father, Son, and Spirit knows nothing but relationship, knows nothing of being left or the shame that is its harbinger; and he longs for it to be no other way for his creation that he loves. Not surprisingly, when our first mother and father ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they too were seeking to be “right,” to “know” in a way that did not depend on the risk-taking venture of relationship.  Relationship with a God who I suspect is less primarily concerned that we are right, and more concerned that we are not being left.  No wonder Jesus went as far as he did to proclaim that he would never leave us. And now research in brain science is reflecting the weight of his words.

So what to offer to my friend at the beginning of this story, back in Part 1?  Perhaps in the end, the crucial question is not so much “Am I right about what I think about God?” but rather “Am I willing to believe—to be-living-as-if—God will never leave me?”  (That we even assume that the more we can describe the function of the brain that correlates with our experience of God the less God is real but rather a function or extension of our brains tells us more about the way we have come to think over the last four hundred years, and less about God, but that is for another space). And one would then wonder how our lives would be different in any moment if each of those moments was shaped by the awareness of a God who energetically and delightfully remains in your presence. My guess is, when we can’t be left, we worry less about being right.

Where in your life is your being right more about being left?  Isn’t it good to know that since with Jesus the latter never happens, we don’t have to worry about the former?

I too sometimes worry that I might not be right about some things.  About God.  About the next recommendation to make for a patient. About what I should say to my wife in the middle of an emotionally charged conversation.  I so want to be right about so many things.  It began when I was a boy.  I wanted to have the right answers for my teachers.  I wanted to do the right thing for my parents. I was taught and I learned that there was a right way to live (and that anyone who lived differently than the right way was not really to be trusted all that much, because, of course, they were…wrong).  This naturally led to the discovery that much of the time I was not right.  I didn’t know all the answers on the test. I disobeyed my parents. And I didn’t always possess the right answer for some of my friends’ toughest questions, especially about God, Jesus, the Bible, heaven, hell, or all the rest of the REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTIONS.

Being right, it seems, is important to us.  So much hinges on it. It is important to know which side of the highway on which to drive, the right way to land an airplane, or which medicine to put in the baby’s eyes to stop the infection rather than induce blindness.  This right/wrong processing is mostly a product of the left hemisphere of the brain, that which leads us down the path of logical, linear thinking. And we depend on this for our survival.  Unfortunately, we at times tend to overuse this same mechanism when engaging relationships, processing people through that same matrix we use for calculating math equations. We cling to being right about our interpretation of our relational events—especially our conflicts and arguments, our memory of history, and how to best make sense of this world filled as it is with evil and its extended suffering and brokenness.

Why does our brain tend to place so much emphasis on this function of being right? I mean, sure, I want to survive, but the mechanism that ensures survival in one setting (prescribing antibiotics) doesn’t seem to be nearly as helpful when my certainty that I am right about who owns the land leads to bloodshed. What is it about the way our brains work that drives us to know that we know what we know, and that we are right about the whole kit and caboodle? What is it about this right/wrong mechanism such that it serves us so well when it comes to choosing the right medicine, but creates so many challenges when it comes to relationships, especially with God? And why is there so much anxiety produced when the possibility of being wrong enters the room of our mind?

Perhaps it’s not so much about being right after all.  Perhaps it’s about being left.   Let your mind reflect on that.  Then read on in Part 2 in the next blog post.

Recently someone asked me how we know the difference between the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing about emotional healing, and the work that is accomplished through the various practices or techniques offered by a counselor. “With all that you do as a mental health professional, is there any room left for the Holy Spirit?” This person’s question, well intentioned as it was, reflected many of similar ilk I encounter. And it tells a story about the story we tell. With no exceptions we each approach life’s experiences having made assumptions about the nature of reality. Those assumptions shape the questions we ask and judgments we offer as ways to make sense of our lives. Many of us unwittingly assume, as did my inquirer above, that there are two realms of existence, one in which we occupy and work as material beings (the world that science usually rules), and one in which God occupies and works, the immaterial; and this one, along with God, continues to shrink the more we are able to expand our capacity to measure it through material means. Ergo, we assume that the work the Holy Spirit does and the work we do are in different domains, albeit ones that communicate with each other. But this is not what the story of Scripture would indicate, and surprisingly, neither would the emerging research that reveals more about the mind, relationships, the material world, and all of their interactions. The bible certainly would suggest that there are two worlds, heaven and earth, or rather, the domain of reality that God occupies, and the domain that everything else occupies. But this is not to be understood in terms of material and non-material worlds.

What does any of this have to say about the stories we tell and the way our minds tell them? Consider this exercise. For the next week, or even just for the rest of this day, imagine that everything that you experience that has its source and expression in true goodness is an act of the Holy Spirit, be that something you can see, touch, or do, or something you think or feel. We soon see that, especially as the Christian tradition of contemplative prayer suggests, God is active in all good things, even and perhaps especially in those domains from which our predominant culture has a priori excluded him, notably that which we call the mind. “Matter” and “mind” therefore are not to be excluded from one another, but rather understood as a unified whole in which the Spirit of God is always working redemptively. Just one more way to imagine that when St. Paul advocated for the renewing and transformation of our minds, our brains were coming along for the ride.

One mistake I hear a great deal about has to do with God.  We are often fearful that we have made, are making, or will make a mistake that evokes his disappointment, impatience, or anger—you name it. We often pray about, seek counsel regarding, and genuinely consider God in many of the above decisions, along with what we anticipate—via our own attachment patterns—will be his reaction. And this led me to wondering about mistakes. And about their value. What if we were to try the following.  For the next six weeks, imagine that in the wake of every—every—mistake (read sin, error, stumble, or some other such noun—you can’t really make a mistake here), God is waiting for you on the other side of that moment to lovingly, gently, firmly invite you into a conversation of discovery, not a crevasse of shame; a new opportunity for growth rather than regression; adventure rather than groveling.  Imagine if we practiced making mistakes in this fashion.  This means of changing our imagined future by shifting our attention in this way tends to reduce our anxiety, making creativity more likely and “mistakes” less so.  More light, less darkness.  More of God’s kingdom and less of mine. Mind you, I am not advocating that we jettison wisdom to live with cavalier abandon, or seek to ignore possible consequences of poor life choices. I am merely inviting you to practice making mistakes…differently. Now imagine if you and two or three of your closest friends did this together.  As far as your brain is concerned, this is all very good news.  Less anxiety. More integration. Less paralysis. More creativity. Try this jacket on and see what you think. I’m guessing you’ll like how it fits.  Make no mistake about it.

Relationships are like this.  They were made for movement, and our minds reflect this. But we often wish it not so. The movement of relationships can make us not only deliriously happy, but queasy and lightheaded, anxious and sad, angry and ashamed. We’d prefer something motionless. Or at least something for which we don’t need Dramamine.  In Eden, a rooted pear tree emerged as preferable to a God who was walking around in the cool of the day, coming and going, offering all of his wild, confident relationality.  Always trustworthy. Never certain. Not certain about God?  Some who read this will worry about what I am saying.  You mean we can’t know that we know that we know…for certain? Well…no, you can’t. Your brain won’t let you.  Imagine that. Imagine what it is like to have a mind that not only can’t be certain, but was intentionally created not to be.  Rather, it was created to trust.  Confidence, yes.  Certainty? Certainly not. At least not as we moderns like to have it.  We would much rather have it the other way round. As in C.S. Lewis’ brilliant story of Perelandra, we would that our lives, our minds, our relationships be so much Fixed Land.

Our full-bodied minds were created for movement. At times so subtle that we barely notice it, at times rapid and furious.  But movement is the ground (though sometimes perceived as shifting, as it were) on which trust is constructed, even from the very beginning, when God took that first stroll in the garden. And without trust—or perhaps in other words, with absolute certainty—we die.  Did you know that your eye is constantly moving, even within nanometers, in order to more clearly perceive an object?  Some researchers wonder that if the eye were literally perfectly still, the object would become blurred or perhaps even disappear.  Cool, huh?  But also a bit frightening.  It is when we attempt to get God to be perfectly motionless, to perfectly fit the mold we construct for him within which to fit, that he tends to eventually disappear.

In those moments when you fear that you have lost your certainty, and then, perhaps your sanity, or even your god, know that you are now ready to enter relationship with the God, not of certainty, but of Movement, the God of Trust, the God of Justice.  Of this you can be, well, not certain, but you know what I mean.