Conclusion: Epiphany

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the territory of Judea during the rule of King Herod, magi came from the east to Jerusalem. They asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.” (Matthew 2:1-2)

Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh. Photo from PaxChristiUSA.org

Epiphany, as i said last week, means a manifestation of the Divine. The gospels are very interested in who recognizes Jesus and who does not: pagan astrologers recognize him. The political and religious power structures do not.

I’ve been exploring consciousness over this Advent and Christmas season because I believe noticing and recognizing the Divine has to do with a shift in our consciousness, a willingness to question our perceptions, our automatic reactions, and our personal and cultural narratives. Becoming more conscious of our own consciousness allows us to change how we relate to our selves and to other people. Many of these concepts are ones I’m borrowing from both Buddhist teachings and from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

This expanded awareness is not just about navel-gazing. It’s about cultivating an inner and outer peace that changes relationships and how we approach the world. It is 3000 year-old wisdom that modern neuroscience is validating with empirical research.

I’ve appreciated learning more about the friendship of Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh, monks from the Roman Catholic and Buddhist traditions who found that their faith traditions were more complementary than competitive. Both mystical traditions (I would argue most mystical traditions) speak about self knowledge and divine knowledge as being intimately tied to each other. As we learn more about our own consciousness, we learn more about the infinite and about God. As we learn more about God and the infinite, we learn more about ourselves. The knower and the known, the seeker and the sought, are united in a dynamic dance. We seek God’s face, but God continually directs us to our neighbor’s face—and our own.

The way this manifests in our social world is that often the people who recognize the Divine are not insiders, but outsiders. Hanh and Merton saw each other as spiritual brothers. I, likewise, have found spiritual siblings among Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, and agnostics. I believe the great epiphany for us all will be finding ourselves in the same stable, kneeling in front of the same manger, and the child we recognize there in the hay will look remarkably like our selves.

Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, may we grow into your fullness, so that you may be all in all. Amen.

Week 5, Day 4: Co-regulation

“Be happy with those who are happy, and cry with those who are crying..” (Romans 12:18)

Photo by Sneha ss, from Wikimedia Commons

I’ve shared a bit about game theory and the research of John Gottman because I think it is insightful and helpful research into the ways we individuals act as part of larger social systems. One of the key insights into Gottman’s research on couples is about co-regulation.

We can see co-regulation illustrated by a study of sixteen married women who were put into an fMRI machine while electric shocks were applied to their feet. Researchers knew that holding someone’s hand could reduce the pain and fear of the electric shock, so they created these experimental conditions: holding an anonymous person’s hand, their husbands hand, or no hand at all. The women had also filled out assessments of their marital happiness.

When the women held the hand of a partner with whom they had a good relationship, the electric shocks created less pain and fear responses in their brains. The touch of a loved one helped them regulate their own response to the stimulus. But if they had a negative relationship with their spouse, holding their hand provided less comfort than the hand of a stranger!

At a physiological level, good relationships help us co-regulate our negative emotions and experiences.

Gottman’s training for couples involves helping them simultaneously manage their own and their partner’s emotions. This skill doesn’t just apply to couples, but to parents and children, co-workers, neighbors, and even strangers. We humans have a unique ability to be able to spread peace and self-awareness.

I’ve been speaking about becoming consciousness as a way to create more awareness in ourselves of our own experience, more room for self-determination, more capacity for trust and forgiveness. But becoming conscious of the working of our own minds also helps our relationships become more life-giving and supportive.

Prayer: Source of Life and Relationship, thank you for the people in our lives. Help us to bring out the best in each other. Amen.

Week 5, Day 3: Forgiveness

“Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you, just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.” (Matthew 6:12)

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Return of the Prodigal Son. From Wikimedia Commons

Yesterday I mentioned an important idea in game theory: the Prisoner’s Dilemma, in which each player has to choose whether to cooperate or betray the other. Several research studies have used the Prisoner’s Dilemma to explore how people actually approach relationships, and what happens over time when people play multiple rounds with other people.

How do you treat someone who has betrayed you? Do you let yourself be a doormat and trust someone who has shown they are untrustworthy?

It turns out there is an optimal strategy for playing the game over multiple rounds. If the other player betrays you in round one, you betray them in round two. But if they don’t betray you in round two, you return to cooperation. This strategy is called “tit for tat, with forgiveness.” Players who use this strategy, on average, will do better than players who try to play aggressively without forgiveness.

(There’s also a lot of fascinating research on our need to punish perceived rule-breaking behavior, even if it costs us personally—but I’ll have to save that writing for another day).  

I find this research fascinating because it shows that forgiveness is not just some high-minded spiritual virtue; it is necessary for species survival. Anthropologists theorize that this kind of pro-social behavior helped our ancestors thrive. Humans that couldn’t let things go just… didn’t survive.

This conclusion runs counter to a lot of our popular opinions about human nature and evolution, that violence and domination led to “survival of the fittest.” Increasingly researchers believe that the communities who were most “fit” to survive were those that cooperated and those where forgiveness became a virtue.

When I talk about forgiveness, of course, I have to acknowledge that forgiveness has been weaponized to keep people in abusive relationships, and it has been unevenly deployed. The oppressed are often expected to forgive their oppressors.

But I would also point out that this tension highlights exactly what the game theory points out: forgiveness alone is a really lousy survival strategy, and it does not maximize the rewards for all players involved. Inasmuch as forgiveness helps us return to an even playing field, and inasmuch as it helps us restore right relationships, it is a virtue.

Becoming conscious allows us not only space to acknowledge and process our anger, but to evaluate the pros and cons of forgiveness. It helps us behave in a way that brings flourishing to larger groups of people.

Prayer: God, you forgave us before we even knew to ask. Help us extend that same grace in ways that bring flourishing to the world.

Week 5, Day 2: Trust

“Glory to God in heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.” (Luke 2:14)

The world’s first nuclear explosion from the Trinity Test. From Wikimedia Commons

In game theory, there’s a classic illustration called “The Prisoner’s Dilemma.” Two thieves are arrested and each partner winds up with two options: confess and rat out your partner, in which case you’ll go to prison for one year and your partner will go to prison for eight years; or cooperate (stay silent) and you both will get two years in prison. But if you both choose to betray the other, you will both go to prison for five years. While you’re considering your options, you know that your partner has the same choice to make.

How much do you trust your partner? Which choice do you make?

There are different permutations of this problem that change it substantially. What happens if you play several “rounds” in a row? If your partner betrayed you last time, do you betray them this time? Do you choose a cooperative strategy or a competitive one?

Mathematicians, psychologists, and political scientists have been studying game theory since the 1940’s. Research into game theory became much more intense during the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) by the world’s superpowers made such “games” a matter of policy and of life and death. Several game theorists came to the conclusion—and argued to American politicians—that it would be best to preemptively launch nuclear weapons at the Soviet Union.

Mathematician John Nash (the subject of the movie A Beautiful Mind) had a different perspective: goals could be maximized if nations cooperated instead of betraying each other. Thank God policy makers listened and learned about the “Nash Equilibrium” rather than listening to the war hawks!

One of my favorite psychologists, John Gottman, talks about game theory in relation to marriages and family relationships. He explored how spouses engage in strategic choices about such “games” in everything from domestic chores, to financial decisions, to sex. Are the partners cooperating for the best outcome for everyone, or are they competing to minimize their own losses? These games get more complex as we consider games played by larger groups over longer times: families, congregations, or political factions.

Why am I talking about game theory during the Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany season? Because I believe that if “Peace on Earth” is to mean anything beyond warm fuzzy feelings and religious platitudes, we have to become conscious of a) our own consciousness and b) the social systems of which we are a part. Being at peace in yourself, or with others, means asking questions like “what am I willing to risk? Who do I trust? Who am I looking out for, and whose interests and values do I prioritize in this situation?”

Let’s be honest: trust is at a minimum these days. I have a hard time trusting institutions or human individuals, and I certainly don’t trust large groups of people to do the right thing. Yet game theory teaches us important things about how to behave when trust is low.

Becoming conscious—of my unreliable perceptions, my automatic responses, and my beliefs—helps me approach questions about relationships and trust more deliberately. If the world is to have peace, it must also work on trust!

Prayer: God, save us from using cynicism to protect ourselves from disappointment. Put trustworthy people in our lives, and help us act for the benefit of all. Amen.

Week 5, Day 1: Preparing for Epiphany

About that time, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. While he was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down on him. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.” (Mark 1:9-11)

Adam JonesBaptism of Christ from a church in Axum, Ethiopia. From Wikimedia Commons

Before Christ, “epiphany” meant the manifestation of a god—a showing or an appearance. One arrogant Emperor who lived two centuries before Christ adopted the title “Epiphanes” because he wanted to be worshiped as a god (and he went on to spark a Jewish revolution which is described in the books of Maccabees). The root “phan” is related to light—a light coming into the world.

Christians used the word Epiphany to describe Jesus being revealed to the world, first when the Magi visited him, and then later when he was baptized by John in the Jordan river. (Sometimes we also use the word “theophany”). We celebrate Epiphany on January 6. The twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany are “The Twelve Days of Christmas” (like the song).

Today we say someone “has an epiphany” if they have an insight or a sudden realization. It can mean enlightenment.

I’ve been writing about consciousness during Advent and Christmas because we are on the way to Epiphany. I believe the whole season is an invitation to us, in the darkest part of the year, to have our own epiphany or enlightenment. We have the opportunity to realize something important about ourselves and the world in the story of Christ’s incarnation.

It is impossible to encounter the Living God without a radical reassessment of the self. Ancient people were wise to fear looking at the face of God, who wrapped God’s self in darkness and thick cloud to protect mortal eyes from seeing. One glance at God’s face and you would be unmade. It was too beautiful and terrible to behold. (Just ask Indiana Jones!)

But the God encountered in Jesus was viewable. Here was a face of God that we could put eyes on. But still, encountering Jesus caused people to be radically changed. They could no longer be the same people they had been before. The epiphany we encounter in Christ is like the scripture above: the sky splits open, and a winged creature descends with a message that you are, in fact, a beloved part of a divine family.

I believe we have a built-in need for this kind of epiphany encounter, a radical reset in our lives. The self gets too wrapped up in its own story, believing that its perceptions are accurate, trusting too much in its unconscious reactions and learned habits, buying into the story it tells itself about the world.

When we learn how much of our lives are unconscious, it becomes clear that consciousness takes effort. The more I understand how little I understand, the more space I have to choose to see differently, to react more thoughtfully, to tell a different story than the one my internal critic or my culture are telling me.

In this week preceding epiphany, I’m going to widen the lens to talk about what the extra space consciousness gives us.

Prayer: God, I am your beloved child. Wake me up to all that means. Amen.

Week 4, Day 5: Peace

“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I give to you not as the world gives. Don’t be troubled or afraid.” (John 14:27)

Mystic Nativity, Botticelli, 1500. From Wikimedia Commons

Yesterday I talked about how acceptance leads to equanimity, a place where we can experience deep feelings from ourselves and others without overwhelm or minimizing. Acceptance and equanimity are close cousins of peace.

“Peace” is usually thought of as freedom from conflict or trouble, but the Bible often talks about a peace that passes understanding that can be present in the midst of conflict. Jesus says he gives his peace “not as the world gives.” This peace somehow transcends the circumstances of the moment and connects us to something deeper and more eternal. We live with one foot standing in the turbulent present and another foot standing in the peaceable kingdom.

I think of the nativity scenes we create in miniature all over the world in many different styles: a baby in a manger surrounded by loving parents, working-class shepherds, high-falutin’ foreign astrologers, divine beings (angels), and livestock. It’s a snapshot, a diorama, of a peaceable kingdom. We know from the story in Matthew that just out of the dioarama lurks the paranoid King Herod and soldiers who will commit genocide in this tiny Palestinian village. But for the moment: peace.

Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded the American church that “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” The nativity scenes we create at Christmas do not stick too closely to the gospel in either Matthew or Luke because they reflect an idealized version of the presence of justice, where rich people give away their wealth and workers are welcomed as prophets, where animals and divine beings share space in giving glory to God. Like the peace that Jesus gives, this is not a peace without tension. 

Christians tend to talk about a “peace that passes understanding” that we can have in our hearts as a different kind of thing from the socially just peace described by the prophets, but I think that’s where we go wrong. We cannot separate the interior state from the outer, as though Christ’s peace is something I just hold and nurture in my heart for my illusory self. The peace we have within demands expression in action and words. It bubbles up, like a spring of water, and overflows out of us.

I think one of the reasons the socially just peace is so elusive is that too many people try to hold peace inside of themselves, as if it were an individualistic gift. But Jesus does not give peace as the world gives. This is a gift that must be shared.

Prayer: Holy Spirit of Peace, give us a contagious peace that passes understanding. Amen.

Week 4, Day 4 (Day After Christmas Day): Acceptance

I have learned how to be content in any circumstance. I know the experience of being in need and of having more than enough; I have learned the secret to being content in any and every circumstance, whether full or hungry or whether having plenty or being poor. I can endure all these things through the power of the one who gives me strength (Philippians 4:11-13).

I’ve already mentioned one of the four immeasurables of Buddhism: lovingkindness. The other three are

• universal compassion: feeling the suffering of other beings (and wishing to alleviate it).
• universal joy: celebrating the happiness and delight of other beings.
• equanimity: feeling these things equally and not being perturbed. Remaining steady regardless of circumstance and treating other beings equally.

Equanimity is not a state of indifference. It’s a state of caring deeply for yourself and others, balanced with an awareness that everything is temporary. Someone who possesses equanimity may feel the depths and heights of emotion, but they are not overwhelmed by it. They’ve broadened their capacity to feel. They can “hold space” for their own emotions and others’. They accept what they feel and do not try to minimize it, inflate it, or push it away.

In the bible passage above, Paul is describing an acceptance that leads to equanimity. He says he can accept whatever comes by adopting the attitude of Christ. As someone who experienced shipwreck, imprisonment, ecstatic visions, and loving community, he was able to take it all in and receive it with gratitude. One verse above is often taken out of context and misread as an individualistic battle cry: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” But I think the CEB translation is better here. Paul can accept whatever comes his way with a peace that passes understanding (which I’ll write about tomorrow).

Hexaflex model of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, from Hulbert-Williams et al. (2016).

“Acceptance” doesn’t mean you agree with injustice or are indifferent to pain (which would go against “universal compassion”). Acceptance is simply making a distinction between what we can and cannot control, welcoming feelings and thoughts as responses to our situation without buying into them completely. We have more capacity for acceptance when we are intentionally present to the moment, recognizing that everything—including our own consciousness—is changing.

Christmas contains such highs and lows. Families gather to celebrate, but they can also open old wounds. People talk about the arrival of Christ but also mourn deaths and the absence of loved ones. Communities gather, but many people feel profoundly, existentially alone even when surrounded by people. Even if you have had an emotional or spiritual high during Christmas, the days or weeks after can leave you feeling depleted.

It is a good time to practice acceptance.

I’m including acceptance as a gift and gateway of consciousness because it can help bring us to the present moment, to awareness of all our thoughts and feelings. As we become more aware of our own awareness, we notice our tendency to flee pain and pursue pleasure. We gain a little space to make better self-directed choices instead of just reacting to the crisis or unpleasantness of the moment.

Prayer: Sustainer of All Life, help me accept the things I cannot change, knowing that this equanimity will help me to be more effective in changing what I can. Amen.

Week 4, Day 3 (Christmas Day): Lovingkindness

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. (John 3:16)

There is a meditation practice that I try to do occasionally called “lovingkindness meditation,” or metta. It involves consciously bringing up a feeling of universal love, and then extending that love to all the beings in the universe.

Usually, you begin in a meditative state, taking slow, deep breaths. You call to mind someone or something who is relatively easy to love: a partner, family member, or even a pet. There is a mantra that goes along with this visualization: “May you be healthy; may you be happy; may you be safe; may you be at peace.”

The idea here is that love is about wishing for others the same things we wish for ourselves. The early church referred to this as agape love, wishing the good for another. It also causes us to reflect that if we have our needs met, we are more likely to be the best version of ourselves.

You next bring to mind someone who you may not love particularly well, but who you can extend this same wish toward, like an acquaintance. Again, you’re invited to consider that if this person has their needs met, if they have the same things you wish for yourself (health, happiness, safety, peace), you are connected in a way that transcends how you feel about them at any given moment.

You continue bringing others to mind, including yourself and, if you are able, your enemies. After all, if your enemies had what you wish for yourself — health, happiness, safety, peace of mind — it is unlikely that you would still be enemies, right? If they had more love, if they had fewer irrational fears, if they were at peace, would they not be different toward you?

Extending lovingkindness to yourself is, for some people, even more difficult than extending it to your enemies. We see our own flaws magnified, as if through a funhouse mirror. Yet if we had the same things we wish for those we love most, would we not be better versions of ourselves? If we had safety, support, physical health, and fewer worries, wouldn’t we be more patient, disciplined, and forgiving?

Loving others as yourself is one of two bedrock commandments in Christianity (Matthew 22:39). In Hinduism and Buddhism, it is one of four “immeasurables” that you strive for. The practice of metta reminds us that this love is not just a sentimental feeling, but an orientation to the whole cosmos. Roberta Bondi summarizes the goal of Christian monasticism this way: to love as God loves — impartially, completely, “like sunshine or rain,” falling on the evil and the good, as Jesus said (Matthew 5:45).

Christmas reveals that God’s very nature is love (1 John 4:8). I believe that as we become more conscious, we begin to notice love at the heart of all things. Like awe and gratitude, lovingkindness is both a gift and a gateway of consciousness. It helps us become more fully ourselves.

Prayer: Love Divine, be born in the world again, at every moment, and in me. Amen.

Week 4, Day 2 (Christmas Eve): Gratitude

Brother David Steindl-Rast has been called “The Grandfather of Gratitude.” Two of my favorites quotes of his are below:

“Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefulness, and gratefulness is a measure of our aliveness.”

And

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.”

I believe gratefulness is another gift and gateway of consciousness, or as Brother David says here, “aliveness.” If you allow yourself to be in awe of your own life, of the color that comes to your eyes or the sound that comes to your ears, it would be difficult to be ungrateful. Steindl-Rast says that gratitude is the beginning of spirituality.

Brother David says gratitude is not just about being thankful for good things that happen to us. We are happy because we are grateful, not grateful because we are happy.

“Neural correlates of gratitude. Medial Prefrontal activity correlating with participants’ gratitude ratings.” from Wikimedia Commons. Source article here.

Gratitude activates the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). These brain regions are also involved in attention, emotional awareness, and social activity. They are also, not surprisingly, activated by prayer and mindfulness meditation.

I began this week with awe because I think awe is a more reliable path to gratitude than good fortune. Good things may happen for us or to us, and we may feel fortunate or happy without feeling particularly grateful. Gratitude comes from regarding more and more of what comes to us as a gift, and for me, the first gift is simply that I’m here. I am conscious. That I can experience anything at all is a gift. From my awareness, I can work my gratitude outward to the rest of the world. I can also be grateful to the giver—whoever or whatever she is.

Another author who has been my teacher in gratitude is Robin Wall-Kimmerer, a Potawatomi botanist and essayist who wrote Braiding Sweetgrass. She describes a version of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, a liturgy in which people take turns thanking each other, the Creator, Mother Earth, waters, fish, plants, animals, and so on. At the end of each stanza, the people say, “Now our minds are one.” The act of deliberately giving thanks in community bridges human differences and makes one voice out of many.

In the same way that my consciousness expands to include other people, our shared gratitude connects us as a community. We are not just a collection of individual minds: our minds are one.

I’m reminded of the sacrament of the Church: Communion, or the Lord’s Supper. The liturgy for it is called The Great Thanksgiving. It is a summary of the events of the Bible with the climax being Jesus’s last meal with his disciples. In that moment he held up a loaf a bread and said, “This is my body, given for you.”

It is fitting that his first cradle was a feeding trough, which we call a “manger.” Manger is a French verb meaning “to eat.” Our life, our eating together, and God’s incarnation and mission are all part of the same gift.

The Christmas story prefigures the Last Supper. The whole of Christ’s incarnation, God’s self-giving love, is reflected in this moment like a prism with many facets. We see this outpouring of God’s grace from many different angles, and I am overwhelmed on Christmas Eve with awe and gratitude.

Prayer: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.