The left hemisphere [of the brain] prefers the impersonal to the personal, and that tendency would in any case be instantiated in the fabric of a technologically driven and bureaucratically administered society. The impersonal would come to replace the personal. There would be a focus on material things at the expense of the living. Social cohesion, and the bonds between person and person, and just as importantly between person and place, the context in which each person belongs, would be neglected, perhaps actively disrupted, as both inconvenient and incomprehensible to the left hemisphere acting on its own. There would be a depersonalisation of the relationships between members of society, and in society’s relationship with its members. Exploitation rather than co-operation would be, explicitly or not, the default relationship between human individuals, and between humanity and the rest of the world. Resentment would lead to an emphasis on uniformity and equality, not as just one desirable to be balanced with others, but as the ultimate desirable, transcending all others. As a result individualities would be ironed out and identification would be by categories: socioeconomic groups, races, sexes, and so on, which would also feel themselves to be implicitly or explicitly in competition with, resentful of, one another. Paranoia and lack of trust would come to be the pervading stance within society both between individuals, and between such groups, and would be the stance of government towards its people. Ian McGilchrist
It is in our nature to be connected with each other. Interwoven. Interdependent. Interlocked in love and community.
And yet this is not our reality. Instead, we are alienated. Separated. Resentful. Mistrustful. In fear and paranoia, we depersonalize. Criticize. Exploit. Avoid.
In this increasingly diseased state, lacking the restorative powers of wholesome social community, the suffering caused by our isolation intensifies – due to our isolation.
It’s time to reverse the trend. To heal the wounds. To cure the disease.
Today, in our look back at the previous six episodes, we will surface their underlying theme of creating community and reversing the curse of isolation and the catastrophic toll it has taken from on of us.
Source Scripture
Matthew 5:10-12; Luke 6:22-23,26
Matthew 5:13; Mark 9:49-50; Luke 14:34-35
Matthew 5:14-16; Mark 4:21; Luke 8:16; 11:33
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
Many of the neuroses that plague the lives of modern humans, from anxiety to depression, are often fed, if not caused, by a confined, claustrophobic, and ultimately unsubstantiated interpretation of consensus reality: that is, by a deprived myth derived from grammatical rules. The depressed person sees no meaning in life largely because the small box of her linguistic thinking limits her view of what life is. Bernardo Kastrup
Words. Logic. Reason. Argument. Language is the bedrock on which most of us form and defend our framework of belief – the over-arching narrative that governs how we make sense of the world around us.
If something cannot be expressed in words, we think, then it cannot be true. How could it be?
And yet, are not the greatest experiences of our lives those in which we find ourselves… Speechless? When someone we know faces profound grief and loss, do we attempt to console them with logic? Would you prefer a detailed map and well-worded paragraph describing the islands of Hawaii over a personal visit?
Logic, reason, and the scientific method can go only so far in their attempts to penetrate the depths of the human soul. To limit ourselves to only what they offer is to live in the shadows of the fullness of reality. In a growing darkness. Where we crawl about, wondering why we cannot seem to see and experience the true depths of who we are and who we are meant to be.
What, then, can penetrate this darkness if not reason?
The divine light of truth, demonstrated in the raw, authentic, spiritual form of a narrative.
Words. Logic. Reason. Argument. Language is the bedrock on which most of us form and defend our framework of belief – the over-arching narrative that governs how we make sense of the world around us.
If something cannot be expressed in words, we think, then it cannot be true. How could it be?
And yet, are not the greatest experiences of our lives those in which we find ourselves… Speechless? When someone we know faces profound grief and loss, do we attempt to console them with logic? Would you prefer a detailed map and well-worded paragraph describing the islands of Hawaii over a personal visit?
Logic, reason, and the scientific method can go only so far in their attempts to penetrate the depths of the human soul. To limit ourselves to only what they offer is to live in the shadows of the fullness of reality. In a growing darkness. Where we crawl about, wondering why we cannot seem to see and experience the true depths of who we are and who we are meant to be.
What, then, can penetrate this darkness if not reason?
The divine light of truth, demonstrated in the raw, authentic, spiritual form of a narrative.
Source Scripture
Matthew 5:14-16; Mark 4:21; Luke 8:16; 11:33
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes. William Shakespeare
Atop the human body is the head. Here we inhale and exhale, consume food, see, hear, smell, and taste the world around us, and experience consciousness as provided by the brain. For whatever reason, all of this takes place at the highest point in the body.
Atop the pyramids is what is known as the pyramidion – the capstone. Typically it is a different color and stone than the rest of the pyramid and often contains the name of the owner of the pyramid etched into it. Many pyramidion of the ancient pyramids are now missing, lost to treasure hunters who valued their uniqueness.
Atop the Washington Monument is a small pyramid itself, with a capstone comprised of 100oz of aluminum and with the words laus Deo – or Praise be to God – etched therein.
Atop the Christmas tree every year are various objects of central importance to families – an angel or a star or some sort of prominent decoration that crowns the tree in symbolic fashion.
The highest point of a human or object or story is often set apart from the rest. It is the location that represents the climax of everything that led up to it or that comes afterward.
Today, we will examine the top, the crown, the climax of the nine beatitudes that Jesus shares with us at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount. It is the fifth beatitude, and the apex of the chiasm formed by all nine of the statements Jesus made beginning with “blessed.”
And it deserves special treatment – because it is the climax of message of God to us, not just in the beatitudes, but in all of Scripture.
That beatitude is…the subject of today’s podcast.
Source Scripture
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure that God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do enter your room, you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep on praying for light: and of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and paneling. C.S. Lewis
We may not realize it, but our modern definition of waiting has devolved into something like this: that maddening interval of time we must endure between two successive desired experiences that leaves us irritable and discontent.
The key point to recognize here in this definition of waiting is that what we see as positive are only the bookends – the experiences on either side of the waiting period – and not the treasury of stories available to us in between.
As much as we may like to think so, life does not consist of creating an agenda and checking off each line item with as little waiting in between as possible.
Life does, and always will, consist of waiting. And so the key to life in this respect is not the impossible task of eliminating the wait. The key is establishing an altogether different definition of waiting.
We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. Joseph Campbell
In today’s episode, we will attempt to derive a true definition of waiting, to accept it as an inevitable and necessary, and to embrace its presence…through embracing the present.
Source Scripture
Good News or Fake News? – Matthew 5:1-2; Luke 6:17-20
Inside Man – Matthew 5:3-12; Luke 6:20-26
Escaping the Matrix – Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20,24
Have a Great Mourning – Matthew 5:4; Luke 6:21,25
Meek in and Meek Out – Matthew 5:5
Just Right – Matthew 5:6; Luke 6:21,25
Extras
Suggested Scripture: Psalm 22; Psalm 37; Psalm 42
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner. William Shakespeare
The day is June 5th, 1989. The city, Beijing, China, is soaked in the blood of soldiers, students, and bystanders after the Chinese army’s violent suppression of protests in Tiananmen Square.
A column of four tanks, just like the one that had plowed through a crowd hours earlier and killed eleven people, is rolling down the street near the square. An unknown person, known since that day only as Tank Man, walks in front of the steel beasts that could easily crush him. He stops. His arms, carrying shopping bags, are down by his side. He makes no gesture of hate. He has nothing with which to attack. He simply stands there, facing them, knowing that he possesses no power whatsoever with which to physically halt the oncoming instruments of war.
The tanks attempt to maneuver around the man, but he calmly shifts his position to stand in their path. The choice becomes clear. Those in power must decide whether to use it and kill a man who calmly stands there or to stop.
The captains cut the power to their engines.
The photo that captures this moment and the story behind it is awe-striking. What captivates us, in this case, is the wonder of how gentleness can be as or more powerful than murderous military force.
The gentleness with which a single man subdued a column of tanks that could have easily taken his life is known as meekness. And in today’s episode, we will explore how we can tap the forces within in order to forego the forces without, transforming both ourselves and our world with the gentle power of meekness.
Source Scripture
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
We conquer nature, we augment our power and wealth, we multiply the means of distracting our attention this way and that…but the despair burrows in deeper and grows fatter; it feeds on our secret sense of having failed the potentialities of human being….Out of despair, they grow burdened with moral embarrassment for themselves, until they must at last despise and crucify the good which they are helpless to achieve. And that is the final measure of damnation: to hate the good precisely because we know it is good and know that its beauty calls our whole being into question. Theodore Roszak
From the moment our memory offers us a glimpse into our origin story until now, we have likely navigated life with the unquestioned assumption that we must assert control over our environment in order to achieve any measure of happiness. This is the kingdom in which we live – to establish and maintain control – so that we may, on-demand, summon the experiences to which we believe we are entitled: pleasure, popularity, prosperity, protection, and the progressive preservation of this presuppositional power.
The inescapable outcome of such hubris, whether individual or collective, leads not to happiness – but variegated forms of its opposite.
It is impossible to control everything, especially when our peers seek the same, and so once enough trial and error confirm this, we despair. In dismay we double down our resolve – knowing of no other way to press on – and inexorably resort to manipulation, deceit, and varying degrees of force ranging from passive aggression to wholesale violence.
And yet, if we ever become still enough to listen to the depths of our own souls, we would hear a gentle voice from within crying out there is another way. There is an alternative kingdom in which you can live.
The beauty of this voice and the magnitude of its truth call our whole being into question. We are faced with either hating this challenger of all we have become and labeling it a siren, lashing ourselves to the mast of control, or abandoning ship and succumb to the call.
In this kingdom to which this voice calls us – this alternative mode of reality – the currency of control has no power to purchase happiness. In fact, quite the opposite is true.
Today we will explore the sound of this voice from within and the kingdom to which it calls us – where the currency of control is worthless – to ascertain if it is siren… or Savior.
Source Scripture
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist
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Quotes
Impoverishment is a teacher, unique in its capacity to renew and that its yield, when it ends, is a passionate openness that in turn reinvests the world with meaning. An intensity of awareness is impoverishment’s aftermath and blessing. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg