{"id":9414,"date":"2020-02-05T20:28:27","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T20:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/andre\/?p=9414"},"modified":"2021-02-04T18:47:44","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T18:47:44","slug":"from-your-head-to-your-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/andre\/featured\/from-your-head-to-your-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"From your Head to your Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cYou must descend from\u00a0<\/span><\/em>your head into your heart.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

At present, your thoughts of God\u00a0<\/span><\/em>are in your head.\u00a0 And God himself is,<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

as it were, outside you, and\u00a0<\/span><\/em>so your prayer and other spiritual exercises\u00a0<\/span><\/em>remain exterior. <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Whilst you are still in your head,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>thoughts will not easily be subdued but\u00a0<\/span><\/em>will always be whirling about, like snow\u00a0<\/span><\/em>in winter or\u00a0<\/span><\/em>clouds of mosquitos in summer.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

~ St. Theophan the Recluse<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Theophan the Recluse (1815 - 1894) was a Russian Orthodox bishop of Tambov in Russia.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I have been sitting with this thought of St.Theophan for several months.\u00a0 I know there is something here for me beyond the face value.\u00a0 Something more than an \"Amen! Indeed, it's all about heart,\" and while I resoundingly agree, it strikes me that this is somehow not enough.\u00a0 It is not enough to file this away as just another lovely thought, another sound bite. Rather, it is to be ingested, to be tossed around in one's mouth as one savours wine, and let it slide gently down your throat to be digested and become a part of you.\u00a0 As I say this, I think of \"taste and see that the Lord is good.\"\u00a0And who can forget \"take this bread\"? It is my body broken for you, and drink this wine for this in my blood shed for you.\" Jesus also said, \"I am the bread of life\" or \"I am the Living Water\" and a promise that whoever eats and drinks will never be hungry or thirsty again. They will be satisfied! \u00a0It all speaks to me of a deeper knowing, an experience with God rather than just experience with ideas about God. \u00a0In this, we are truly satisfied.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am a big fan of healthy thinking about God because healthy thinking produces healthier actions, and yet, I am coming to see that healthy thinking in a classic western way\u00a0seems like a rather anemic way of knowing.\u00a0 My personal experience in these kinds of matters, that when I am over thinking something when my mind is awhirl with thoughts that spin and spin, I feel like the Lord stops me mid-thought to say,\u00a0\"Michael, shut up and kiss me!\"<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As many of the early Christian mystics did, I am coming to see that sometimes, even our best thoughts about God can get in the way of knowing God<\/strong>.\u00a0 In the West, especially from enlightenment, scientific perspective, we are taught to learn, to think by observation.\u00a0 We are taught to be objective observers, separate from that which we observe.<\/span><\/p>\n

To grasp that even as individuals, we are a part of a moment, even in our observation -\u00a0we are a part of a bigger context itself. \u00a0For example, we are part of a community, which helps us grasp our individuality and give it meaning.\u00a0 It is in our intimacy (being a part of) that we can move from knowing about to actually knowing.\u00a0 To experience is to be participatory, a partaker of the divine nature. \u201cWe are a part of something more than we observe something.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhen it's all about ideas, you don\u2019t have to be a part of it - you just need to speak correctly about it.\u201d \u00a0 When healthy thinking and heart\u00a0experience combine, something much more full happens, as my friend and spiritual director describes it:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"the sacred space beyond duality where\u00a0\"thinking\" and \"hearting\" are siblings\u00a0not afraid of each other, sibling who playfully collaborate until in some wild way there is a head in the heart and a heart in the head!\"<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We also\u00a0tend to\u00a0make our ideas about God somehow holy.\u00a0 Our good thinking about God, in a weird way, becomes God.\u00a0 C.S Lewis speaks of this phenomenon in his book\u00a0 A Grief Observed.\u00a0 Lewis speaking of his memory of his wife and his ideas about God, writes:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Images of the Holy easily become holy images - sacrosanct.\u00a0 My idea of God is not a divine idea.\u00a0 It has to be shattered time after time.\u00a0 He shatters it Himself.... Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?\u00a0 The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Forgetting that we all see through a glass darkly, we can take our best thoughts, the noblest and pious, and lend to them the divine.\u00a0 For many of us, what we think about God forms a rigid image of what God is like, a God box to be kind, and an idol at worst.\u00a0 The mystics tell us that as soon as we name God, we shrink God.\u00a0 This seems true because God is always much bigger than we can conceive! It is so easy to substitute what we know about God for God Himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

The truth is, God is much bigger than our biggest, best thoughts about God.\u00a0 How often do we miss the things of God when He moves in a way that is outside our God box?\u00a0 I think this is why we chafe at the counter-intuitive\u00a0things\u00a0Jesus says, like becoming like a little child, for example. Do we overthink and make simple things complicated or, worse yet, miss them altogether? Always looking but never seeing, always listening but never hearing, always thinking and never knowing?<\/span><\/p>\n

Could it be that even our best thinking can only get us so far?\u00a0<\/strong> Could it be that we don't \"get' God with sound logic and theological rigour exclusively?\u00a0 Perhaps we \"get\" God as a gift.\u00a0 Ponder Peter's profession of \"you are the Christ!\"\u00a0 It was a gift, not something he worked out, and it seems that intellectually, he really didn\u2019t understand the profundity of what he said.\u00a0 Our faith is not a puzzle to be solved but a gift to be received.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what is the way through?\u00a0 If you are like me, I am so weary of the head or heart dichotomy.\u00a0 I am coming to recognize it is simply not an either\/or situation;\u00a0it is, in fact, a both \/ and.\u00a0 I am not talking about a mixture like 50% head and 50% heart.\u00a0 We need to recapture wholeness as humans. We are more than our thoughts,\u00a0feelings or experiences independent of one another.\u00a0 As whole human beings, we think, we feel, and we experience - we are!\u00a0 We must enlarge the way we think about knowing with both head and heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

So our call is to another seeming paradox, an unknowing knowing.\u00a0 A way of head and heart that are in unity with each other - as a whole person.\u00a0 Keeping our healthy ideas of God supple and able to stretch and grow, to be wineskins that can hold wine without getting dry, stiff and cracked.\u00a0 To be open to being surprised by God, knowing that He is infinitely more than we can ask or imagine! \u00a0To learn to know God beyond our ability to understand God.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0[republished from 2013]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cYou must descend from\u00a0your head into your heart. At present, your thoughts of God\u00a0are in your head.\u00a0 And God himself is, as it were, outside you, and\u00a0so your prayer and other spiritual exercises\u00a0remain exterior. Whilst you are still in your head,\u00a0thoughts will not easily be subdued but\u00a0will always be whirling about, like snow\u00a0in winter or\u00a0clouds of mosquitos in summer.\u201d ~ Continue Reading<\/a>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":15207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,34],"tags":[58,99,129,172,179,246,286,300,312,482,553],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n