I\u2019ve been hearing quite a bit\u00a0about brain research and the implications for the life of faith, namely that both brain hemispheres are equally important for how we see the world\u2014they should not be polarized and neither should hijack the other.<\/p>\n So, the left brain, which is associated with analysis, logic, reason, precision, categorization, etc., will dupe those of us who crave certainty<\/a> that it is \u201csuperior\u201d and\u00a0supremely competent to\u00a0assign value and meaning to the world around us. The right brain, which is associated with creativity, intuition, tolerance of ambiguity, etc., will be seen by these types of people as of a lower priority and value in \u201cmeaning-making.\u201d<\/p>\n But these\u00a0hemispheres are \u201ctwo different modes of experience\u201d and \u201ceach is of ultimate importance.\u201d<\/p>\n The tendency in western culture is to\u00a0placed high value in the ultimacy of analysis, which has certainly\u00a0affected how people perceive the value of religious faith\u2014both by insiders and outsiders. I comment on this phenomenon in\u00a0The Sin of Certainty <\/em>(pp. 28-29), and\u00a0DeGroat explains it more clearly\u00a0below. [Quick heads up: In his upcoming (September) book Finding God in the Waves: How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science<\/a> \u00a0<\/p>\n **********<\/p>\n We all learned at some point in elementary school that our brain was, at the very least, split in two. Perhaps we heard generalizations like this: Your right brain is your creative and artistic brain and your left brain is your logical brain. <\/em>This was the classic position, in fact, and few are aware that it has been contested. In recent times, however, this quick-and-easy explanation has been dismissed by brain lateralization researchers who dispute the traditional two-hemisphere theory in a favor of a more integrated theory. Their take is that both sides of the brain are involved in our many activities, from logical thought to artistic creation to intuitive connection. Few today would disagree that both sides of the brain are involved in all of our many activities. Both the left brain and right brain are engaged in language, engaged in reasoning, engaged in creating. This is a crucial insight.<\/p>\n However, Iain McGilchrist\u2019s extraordinary work The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World<\/a> My thesis is that for us as human beings there are two fundamentally opposed realities, two different modes of experience; that each is of ultimate importance in bringing about the recognisably human world; and that their difference is rooted in the bihemispheric structure of the brain. (Kindle locations 210-212.)<\/p>\n In other words, while both hemispheres are engaged in our many activities, they are engaged in different ways, with the very real possibility of hijacking the other. The right brain sees context while the left focuses in with precision. The right brain makes big connections while the left makes careful and logical observations. The right brain holds paradox while the left chooses sides. As McGilchrist writes, \u201cSo the left hemisphere needs certainty and needs to be right. The right hemisphere makes it possible to hold several ambiguous possibilities in suspension together without premature closure on one outcome.\u201d (Kindle locations 2275)<\/p>\n Now, this is a quite extraordinary dance if, indeed, the two hemispheres are lovingly and cooperatively dancing together. Sadly, though, the left brain tends to hijack the process. Armed with its precise rationality, it convinces us and the world of its superior importance. And we, who long for certainty and precision and clarity in times that are uncertain, join Team Left Brain. The tragic outcome is a brain (and by extension, a society of people) polarized.<\/p>\n Albert Einstein once anticipated<\/a> this when he said, \u201cThe intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a world that honors the servant, but has forgotten the gift.\u201d The servant, our logical left brain, takes an increasing meaning-making role in our thinking, our feeling, and our willing. The once-cooperative duo find themselves embroiled in a struggle for power. And instead of valuing both important contributions, we live from the hemisphere we think will give us advantage.<\/p>\n Indeed, it has been of great benefit to human beings throughout history to have both a more intuitive and artistic brain and a more logical and precise brain. The delicate balance allows us to both enjoy a sunset and understand the phenomenon of the earth\u2019s rotation. This balance gives us the freedom to fall in love while at the same time making the very rational decision to leave the one we love because he is abusing us. But at certain points in history, McGilchrist contends, the left hemisphere becomes the dominant hemisphere personally and societally. He writes<\/p>\n Here I suggest that it is as if the left hemisphere, which creates a sort of self-reflexive virtual world, has blocked off the available exits, the ways out of the hall of mirrors, into a reality which the right hemisphere could enable us to understand. In the past, this tendency was counterbalanced by forces from outside the enclosed system of the self-conscious mind; apart from the history incarnated in our culture, and the natural world itself, from both of which we are increasingly alienated, these were principally the embodied nature of our existence, the arts and religion. In our time each of these has been subverted and the routes of escape from the virtual world have been closed off. An increasingly mechanistic, fragmented, decontextualised world, marked by unwarranted optimism mixed with paranoia and a feeling of emptiness, has come about, reflecting, I believe, the unopposed action of a dysfunctional left hemisphere.\u00a0(Kindle location 286)<\/p>\n The fascinating and important insight for busy and exhausted people like you and me is this: While we looked to our left brain for the insights we And it\u2019s not working.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Chuck DeGroat![\"TSOC\"](\"https:\/\/peteenns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/TSOC-204x300.jpg\")
Below is an extended quote from Chuck DeGroat\u2019s latest book\u00a0Wholeheartedness: Busyness, Exhaustion, and Healing the Divided Self<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=inspirandinca-20&l=am2&o=1&a=0802872700\")
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![\"Wholeheartedness\"](\"https:\/\/thebiblefornormalpeople.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Wholeheartedness-194x300.jpg\")
need to progress and grow, we\u2019ve (quite unwittingly) succumbed to its most negative aspects \u2013 its propensity for division, fragmentation, expediency, and certainty. As a people, we\u2019re feeling the emptiness that comes when our control projects are thwarted. And instead of embracing our \u2018other half\u2019 with renewed vigor in an attempt to hold life\u2019s paradoxes and navigate its perplexities, we\u2019ve recommitted to mastering life, figuring it out, controlling, competing, and expediting. We\u2019ve looked for the newest latest techniques and gadgets and insights to give us that illusive control we long for.<\/p>\n
Wholeheartedness: Busyness, Exhaustion, and Healing the Divided Self<\/a>
pp. 56-59<\/p>\n<\/div>\n