Unconditional and Selfless Love
February 13, 2024
Hi! How is each and every one? We have just
celebrated Chinese New Year with so many kinds and names of colored dragons
around. The whole day I just had the
confirmed sensitivity that we do need to pray for the Chinese. The conviction
to pray for them gets to be as strong as their grips to economic power all over;
strong as and even stronger than their 1500 drones they put together in making
the flying dragon/s. Such a display of resources and talents I offer to the all
powerful mighty God for each and every Chinese and each and every dragon by
which they wish to be represented yearly.
Last Sunday was the
second Sunday devotion to St. Joseph, a beloved father, model for fathers,
patron of the family. On the same day
was the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. Not
a minute of the day without giving thanks to our Father God for His provident care
of His children in His kingdom on earth.
Now let us continue
discovering ourselves and reflecting on our divine longings
(From
Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the
Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 3). Let us focus on appreciating God’s plan for you and for me
as we also ask His help in our effort and struggle to do according to His
divine plan while you and I travel through the our daily life, work and
activities on earth.
Grace
on the Brain
Neuroscience teaches us that the brain locks down
when it experiences even short-term stress (Baram, 2008). Stress triggers both
chemical and neurological changes that make it difficult for nerve cells to
grow and new connections to be formed in the brain. These connections are an essential part of
hardwiring—so to speak—the experiences we’ve had so that we can learn from
those experiences, retain those lessons, and benefit from them in the future. This tendency for the brain to lock down
during stress protects us from being traumatized from bad experiences in the
short term, but it also accounts for our tendency to make the same foolish
mistakes over and over again. Neurotic
guilt, judgmentalism, anger, blame, and shame all impair our ability to process
new experiences, integrate new information, and create change. When we feel attacked, even by ourselves, the
brain clamps down as a way of freezing out the threat and preventing us from
being negatively impacted by an experience deemed to be contrary to our best
interest. When this happens, we get
tunnel vision and we shut out everything that doesn’t relate to seeking
immediate relief from our pain. We focus
on “getting through” the experience, not learning from it. We’re reactive rather than responsive. Rather than feeling effective, connected to
others, and able to grow and adapt, we feel powerless, isolated, self-pitying,
and prone to self-indulgence as a way of anesthetizing ourselves from the pain
of the moment.
By contrast, the brain is most open to change when
we are experiencing the state of mind produced when four qualities—represented
by the acronym COAL—are present:
curiosity, openness, acceptance, and love (Siegel 2007;2012).
I want to explain what it means to approach oneself
and one’s failings with the mind-set that enables us to see God moving behind
even our failings, but first I want to address two objections that I imagine
some people might have to COAL. First, shouldn’t we feel guilty when we do
something wrong? And, second, why should
anyone interested in spiritual growth care one whit about the brain?
Is
There No Place for Guilt?
Of course we should feel guilty when we do something
wrong. But there are two kinds of guilt. The first is a loving correction from the
Holy Spirit. When we experience godly
guilt, we recognize that we have committed some offense, but the Holy Spirit
simultaneously points us toward what we can do to try to resolve the
problem. With godly guilt, the awareness
of our wrongdoing is followed immediately by the peace of knowing that God will
help us make things right. The person
experiencing this type of guilt actually experiences a sense of consolation rather
that a sense of condemnation. “I do not
condemn you” (Jn 8:11).
By contrast, neurotic guilt causes us to wallow in
our wrongdoing without any plan or hope of making things better. St. Ignatius of Loyola considers this type of
neurotic guilt a “desolation,” or a temptation from an evil spirit that makes
it more difficult for us to draw close to God or become the people we were
created to be.
Unfortunately, after rejecting this experience of guilt as unhealthy, a lot of people engage in an equally foolish acceptance of all their imperfections. They think, “Well, making myself miserable about all my failings didn’t work, so now I’ll just tell myself how awesome I am in spite of all my failings!” This is what many people imagine when I talk about adopting an attitude of curiosity, openness, acceptance, and love toward oneself. They initially think I am telling them to embrace the behavior of the addict who never met an impulse he didn’t like. Of course, this is not what I am advocating at all. But more on that in a minute.
Guilt
and the mystical Brain
The second objection many people raise to the
concept of COAL is, “Why should we care about the brain?” After all, this is a book on
spirituality. The answer is simple. In his theology of the body, St. John Paul
the Great tells us that by prayerfully contemplating the design of the body, we
can learn a great deal about God’s plan for our life and relationships: “The fact that theology also includes the
body should not astonish or surprise anyone who is conscious of the mystery and
reality of the Incarnation” (Pope John Paul II, 2006).
Remember, the mystic sees God at work behind all the
mundane and even the profane aspects of everyday life. From this mystical perspective we see that biology
itself is a theology. We are made in
God’s image and likeness, and his fingerprints are all over our design. The more we understand how God has made us,
the more easily we can develop holistic approaches to cooperating with his
grace so that we can train our biological impulses, drives, and desires instead
of warring against them. Had St Francis
of Assisi had the information you will discover over the next few pages,
perhaps he would have had no need to repent at the end of his life for
referring to his body as “Brother Ass.”
Too late he proclaimed on his deathbed, “Rejoice, brother body, and forgive me, for behold, now I gladly
fulfill your desires, and gladly hasten to attend to thy complaints” (Wiseman,
2001).
You know what? I have been going through reading and re-reading
the above passages and it is only now after the third or fourth meditated
reading that I capture the message. It
is beautiful. I will never tire of
saying that passages like this need quiet time of reading, reflecting and meditating
in the presence of the Holy Spirit such as in prayer. Allow the Holy Spirit to enlighten your mind,
body, heart and soul. Work on this precious attitude and you will savor life
more and more each day in His loving presence.
See you
in the next post,
“May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and
laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us
together again.”
Affectionately,
Guadalupinky
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