With Heart & Mind
 a sermon by Rev. Ted Tollefson
©April 6, 2008 @ UU Society of River Falls, Wisconsin
Special thanks to Kristen Eide-Tollefson, Garth Schumacher, and Paula Lugar for help with proof-reading.

Part One: Origins and Assumptions
Origins     
I have been seeking the path where heart-and-mind converge for most of my adult life.  The themes of this sermon havebeen in the works for 30 years or more.   Here are some of its sources:

1. My discovery as a child that a 'cool head' was more useful than a 'hot head' when dealing with emotional storms.

2. Twenty five years teaching Jungian psychology which has developed an inventory (The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) which measures our preferences for "thinking" and "feeling".

3. Twenty years coaching from my wife Kristen on reclaiming my "heart" to balance my "mind".

4. Our recent Open Forum/Talking Circle where many of us struggled to get "heart" and "mind" on the same page.

5. Participation with our Youth group in a concert by Twin Cities Gospel Choir, where the music moved our feet and bodies and sometimes our 'hearts" but not necessarily our "minds".

6. Thirty years practice of yoga and meditation which makes it possible to witness "thinking" and "feeling" without necessarily identifying with them.

7. A denominational conversation between Unitarians who have valued Truth-testing to cultivate an "open mind" and Universalists who have practiced Loving Kindness to nurture an "open heart".  Unitarians and Universalist have often joined hands in working for Peace and Justice.

Key Assumptions
I also bring some assumptions to this inquiry.  Many of these are probably not provable, so it might be useful to state them openly.

1. "Heart" and "Mind" are code-words for capacities present within (almost) every person.

2. Many people seem to develop a pattern of preferences which, over time, can harden into a "habit" or "character trait" ---preferring "feeling" or "thinking".   Whether these tendencies are created by nature or nurture or both has not yet been established.

3. With care, practice and persistent training, many people can enlarge or expand their range to include several modes of "thinking" and "feeling".

4. To some extent, what we call "thinking" and "feeling" can be linked to particular areas of the human brain. "Critical thinking" for many right-handed people is somewhat localized in the left-hemisphere of the neo-cortex. "Creative thinking" for many right-handed people is somewhat localized in the right hemisphere of the neo-cortex.  "Feeling" or "Emotion" seems to be largely localized in the "limbic ring" upon which the neo-cortex rests.

5. Many families and cultures establish norms for what kind of thinking and feeling are appropriate based on gender, class, vocation, etc.  My own values are shaped by Chinese religion & philosophy--Taoist, Confucian, Buddhist.  These traditions use one character [           ] hsin/xin to represent both "heart" and "mind".  Within this frame of reference, Power (T), Virtue (C), Wisdom (B) arise from the cultivation and marriage of "heart" and "mind".


Part Two:  Cultivating the Mind via Critical Thinking

Without the capacity for "critical thinking" (Reason, Free Inquiry, etc) many of us would not be Unitarian Universalists.  For several centuries Unitarians have used their critical thinking skills to free themselves from religious or political beliefs systems which are full of contradictions and out-dated ideas. When I was about 12 years old, my mother came home from church and said "we Presbyterians believe in Predestination". I asked her what that meant.  She explained it and was troubled by the idea which, I suspect, did not fit well with her Methodist roots.  I said, "that doesn't make any sense to me".  From that point on, my mind was free from the ghosts of Predestination.  I became a "social Presbyterian" who attended to be with my friends and sing in the choir.  Critical thinking is enshrined in our 4th UU Principle: "the free and responsible search for truth and meaning".

There are many ways to trace the history of "critical thinking".  I imagine its roots in a Greek philosopher named Socrates who was told by the Oracle at Delphi that he was the "wisest among the Greeks". Rather than take the oracle literally and believe it or disbelieve it, Socrates chose to test the Oracle by the light of day.  He questioned anyone who pretended to be wise and discovered that many beliefs were false, contradictory or rested upon unexamined assumptions.  The Socratic method became a cornerstone of western philosophy.  It is one of the great gifts of liberal education and liberal religion.  I understand and teach the Socratic method as the art of questioning.  Here are several kinds of questions that I have found useful.

Seven Key Questions

1. Questions which high-light contradictions between one statement and another.
For example, in talking with my fundamentalist friends and neighbors I have sometimes asked:
"You speak alot about 'family values': is hatred a family value?  Is hatred for people who
are different than you a 'family value' that you'd like to pass on to your children?'

2. Questions which call attention to something important that has been left out.
You seem to be fond of quoting the Book of Leviticus.  How about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount?

3. Questions which hold statements/beliefs accountable to factual evidence.
You seem to believe that some forms of love and sex are 'natural' and others are 'unnatural'.
What's the scientific basis for that?  Are you aware of the diversity of love/sex patterns among
various cultures and species?

4. Questions which ask the speaker to set limits on their claims for universal truths.
Your theology seems to rely heavily on the Book of Leviticus.  How might your views change
if it drew equally from the sayings of Jesus?

5. Questions which disclose unspoken (and often unprovable) assumptions.
Your statements about love and sex seem to imply a God who takes sides and hates.
Is that true?  What about the Gospel of John which emphasizes the power of God as Love?

6. Questions which ask the speaker to define key terms.
You use the word "God" frequently.  What do you mean by "God"?  How do you know that your idea of "God" is correct?  What if you're wrong?

7. Questions which ask the speaker to reflect on the absurd consequences of their stated beliefs.
You like to quote selectively from the Book of Leviticus.   Are you aware that Leviticus
calls for  the death penalty for more than 20 offenses?  How many congregations and
legislatures would be emptied if the letter of Levitican law were applied universally?

There are many other kinds of useful questions, but this list is a beginning.  What other kinds of questions would you add to this list?

PART THREE: On The Limits of Critical Thinking

I hope you can tell that I'm partial to critical thinking.  Without it, my personal and professional life would be difficult if not impossible.  Without it, our "liberal religion" becomes just another vendor of wishful thinking.  I became a Unitarian Universalist, in part, because I wanted to liberate myself from convenient fictions. 

The problem, however, with getting too fond of a good hammer (like critical thinking) is that soon we treat everything as if it were a nail.  Critical thinking is useful and perhaps necessary for human wholeness, but by itself it is not sufficient.  Why?

1. Critical Thinking is an effective way to test our beliefs and assumptions, but may be less useful in discovering new ideas.  The history of discovery and invention in science, humanities, arts and religion often requires a very different form of thinking, what has been called "Imagination", "Intuition" or "Creative Thinking".  Creative thinking uses a different logic, different methods, and begins with different assumptions.  Often Creative Thinking requires that we temporarily suspend our habits of fact-checking, to glimpse something new.  

2. Critical thinking uses the verbal language, linear logic and fact-checking capacities that (for most right-handed people) are often localized on the left-side of the brain.  Evolution and/or God equipped human beings with a complementary brain, the right side of the neo-cortex (for most right-handed people).  The right brain processes visual patterns of information.  It handles facial recognition, musical appreciation and reads the non-verbal dimensions of communication.  At moments of discovery, waking dreams and night dreams, the right-brain often makes the break-through.  To use an archaic vocabulary, the right-brain is like the "Angels" (messenger of God/) who signal the left-brain (Joseph" the bewildered carpenter) that something New is about to happen (birth of Christ/human wholeness).  As individuals, families, congregations and cultures, we depend upon complementary communication between left-brain and right-brain, Reason and Imagination,  "Joseph"and the "Angels". 

3. Learning through Living
If you've been in a committed relationship with another human being for more than 6 months, you may have noticed that

sometimes being right is less important than being loved
winning an argument can mean losing a relationship
sometimes what is required is not brilliance but kindness
not reasons-why  but  caring-about
not reason & facts but bread & chocolate


PART FOUR: Learning the Language of the Heart

1. The Humane Heart and the Limbic Ring
Luckily enough, Nature, God or a Trickster has provided us with another brain that specializes in emotions, feelings, the language of the heart.  Both sides of the Neo-Cortex rest upon the Limbic Ring.  The Limbic Ring handles much of the emotional communication, inside ourselves and with other beings.  It monitors relationships and gives them an emotional tone or flavor.  It conveys emotionally charged memories.  It may be the source of an empathy-guided ethic, as distinct from a rule-guided ethic.  Just as the "heart" in traditional psychologies lies below the "mind", so the the Limbic Ring cradles the Neo-Cortex.  In myth-talk, we could say that all the characters in the birth-narrative of Jesus---Angels, Animals & Humans----rest in the lap of unconditional Love.

2. Listening to the Heart
Some of you have already mastered the language of the heart; your challenge might be to bring more awareness and less unconscious identification to the ebb and flow of emotion.  For others, the "Heart" might represent a largely unknown or untrustworthy aspect of being human.  Your challenge might be to make more room in your life for this intimate stranger.  There are many ways that families and cultures provide to become more conscious and graceful in the realm of emotional intelligence.  Here are several ways that have trustworthy in my life.

3. Get a Dog
If you want to learn about tranquility and effortless power (Te), get a cat.  If you want to enlarge your capacity for joyful singing, get a bird.  If you want to cultivate a loving, loyal and faithful heart, befriend a dog.  Dogs who accept us as companions, can teach us much about bonding, greeting, and joyful abandon. They're not shy about expressing what they feel.  Like many mammals, they live by the tender resonances of their limbic ring.  Next to my wife Kristen, Princess and Gryffindor have been my teachers for embodying love that is sometimes fierce, sometimes friendly.

4. Build a Network of Friends
Friendships last.  They may not offer the same roller-coaster excitement of romantic love, but they are a more steady way to travel through life, side by side, hand in hand.  Like most important relationships, friendship takes time, care, attention.  Friendships rarely 'happen', they are crafted by many acts of kindness.  I treasure old friends and new.  Old friend remind us of past lives and bring a reassuring continuity to life.  New friends open us to new possibilities.

5. Join small intimate groups
For thousands of years, human beings have gathered in small groups to practice the arts of being human.  Telling stories and listening deeply, sharing dreams and visions, sharing skills and resources, small groups create a place of knowing and being known at a deep level.  If you want to find and create a niche, to know and be known intimately, consider joining one of our many small groups.  Whatever their stated purpose---T'ai Chi, Singing, Gardening, Books, Meditation, Political Action---their deeper purpose is to give us a safe place to practice 'living by heart'.

6. Care for someone younger or older, wiser or dumber, more or less able than you are now
Caring for someone is rarely convenient, but it is instructive.  It reminds us of our own vulnerabilities and the gifts we have to share.  One of these gifts is Presence.  Bringing the gift of undivided attention to another person can make the world feel like home again.  When we share generously, we join a circle of giving and receiving that has sustained human life for centuries.  May this circle of care be unbroken.

7. Let the Music Move You
For many, music is food for our hearts and souls.  Listening to music and making music atunes us to others and produces a resonant sense of heart-felt connection.  One of my friends from college started an inner-city school in Chicago where students and teachers sang in every class and between classes too.  Their test score improvements were off the charts.  When interviewed on Public Radio several years ago, she said: "I can't tell if singing stimulates brain development or it just makes students happy and more inclined to learn, or both.  But it works wonders".  Whenever we sing together, whenever our choir sings to us, it's a good Sunday. As Confucius realized 2500 years ago, music cultivates our "true humanity", our "human-kindness". (Jen/Ren)


PART FIVE: Wisdom---Where Heart and Mind Meet

When heart and mind come together, a Path to Wisdom opens. That confluence of heart and mind is the beginning of Wisdom.  In our mission statement we say that we seek "Wisdom" as well as Justice.  Seeking ways to develop and integrate heart-and-mind, is a practical way set our feet on Wisdom's path.  There are many ways to bring heart and mind together.  Here are four paths that encourage growth in wisdom.

1. Imagination
Because of its location and functions, the Right-brain is well suited to help connect "head" and "heart", "left brain" and "limbic ring".  Images---visual, auditory, kinesthetic---are ideally suited for this bridging task because they carry both information and emotion.  If you call to mind an image of a person or place that you care about, what happens?  Typically, an image tells us about ta particular person or place (colors, shapes, patterns of movement, sounds, smells, presence) and also how we feel about them (like/dislike, flavors and intensity of feelings that shift constantly).  

2. Awareness
Transpersonal psychologies, like Echart Tolle's A New Earth, remind us that we are more than what we think, what we feel, or what we perceive.  Our "True Nature" or "Higher Self" is a capacity to be aware of thinking, feeling, perceiving without unconsciously identifying with them.  Meditation lets us practice the art of witnessing the ebb and flow of thinking and feeling.  From this position of awareness without identification, we are less likely to create suffering for ourselves and others.  We are more likely to become more fully present in our lives.  We become more serene, gracious and less troubled. We become capable of both wisdom and compassion which is our "True Nature".   

3. Values-in-Action
Our values----our sense of what makes life good---can come from either our head or our hearts.  Lawrence Kohlberg discovered how many young men's ethics come from a set of intellectual rules used to guide choice-making.  Carol Gilligan noticed how many people---including many women---made ethical decisions based on empathy not rules.  Wherever our values come from, when we translate them into embodied action both heart and mind are involved.  We march for Peace and Justice, we witness for Human Rights because we care and because we want to make a statement.  For many Unitarians and Universalists, embodied action as service and witnessing is our "yoga": our way to unify heart, mind and body.

4. Dialogue
Dialogue is a conversation which connects hearts and minds.  Dialogue is more than arguing, manipulating, selling or convincing.  To enter Dialogue, we must set aside our agenda so that we can speak clearly and listen deeply.  In dialogue the participants become partners.  Together we create a conversation that is surprising, instructive and sometimes life changing.  Internal dialogues have long been helpful in healing divides within the psyche.  Inter-active dialogues help human communities to become more humane.  As Martin Buber says, in Dialogue we meet one another as "Thou": beings of immeasurable and inherent worth and dignity.

In the weeks and months ahead, there will be many opportunities for dialogue that opens our hearts and tempers our minds.  There will be no shortage of calls to live our values through public witness and personal service. Our capacities for Imagination and Awareness will be valuable allies.  As we walk this path together, may we become instruments of the Wisdom that heals our wounds, embodies care, and leads us closer to our full humanity, our human-kindness [Jen/Ren:       ]

PART SIX: Resources for Further Study

Origins & Assumptions
For a readable and affordable introduction to Jungian typology (especially "thinking" and "feeling" see Please Understand Me: An Essay on Kinds of Temperament by David Kiersey.  This book also has an affordable self score inventory.

Critical Thinking
For an outstanding resource on Critical Thinking start with the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking .  One of my mentors, MJ Abhishaker, devoted a whole issue of his journal Communitas to this topic.  The notion that critical thinking is question driven also comes from many sources.  A guidebook for teachers is Classroom Questions: What Kinds? by Norris Sanders.  A more playful version is Gregory Stock's Book of Questions.  He has several question books for families and children.

There is no better introduction to the importance of "Critical Thinking" or "Free Inquiry" in Unitarian Universalism than Duncan Howlett's The Critical Way in Religion.  For a more peppery demonstration of this method at work see Bertrand Russell, Why I am Not a Christian.

The questions used to exemplify different types of questions are drawn from my sermon: Jesus was Not a Plumber! available on-line via http://www.pressenter.com/~uusrf/.

The Limits of Critical Thinking
In recent years, there have been many thoughtful critiques of the limits of Critical Thinking, Reason, etc. One of the first that caught my eye was Bertrand Russell's Human Knowledge: It's Scope and Limits.  A much more readable version is Robert Pirsig's classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. An eloquent academic presentation of the sociology of reality-construction is Peter Berger's The Social Construction of Reality and Irving Goffman's Asylums.  

Many books have popularized discoveries about left and right departments of the neo-cortex and their typical functions.  Among my favorites are Robert Orstein's A Psychology of Consciousness and Jerome Bruner's classic On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand. A Unitarian psychologist has applied these ideas to the evolution of religion: Julian Jaynes, The Origins of Consciousness and the Break-down of the Bicameral Mind.

For the Learning through Living section, I would cite all those who I have known deeply, especially my wife Kristen.

Learning the Language of the Heart
A readable introduction to this topic is Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence.  A more scholarly over-view can be found in A General Theory of Love.  James Hillman's essay entitled "Thought of the Heart" is original and beautifully written.  There is a very fine Unitarian Universalist adult curriculum entited Living by Heart by Rev. Laurel Hallman and Rev. Carl Scovel.  For a masterful integration of the 3 or 4 brain theory with congregation life see Peter Steinke's Understanding Churches as Emotional Systems.

Wisdom---Where Heart and Mind Meet
Among my first clues about the relations between Heart/Mind and Wisdom comes in a lovely book by a Platonic philosopher and bee-keeper:  With Heart and Mind, by Richard Taylor.  The poetry of Mary Oliver works the same ground with beautiful clarity.  In the Confucian philosophy of China, most "virtues" are characters with "heart/mind" (xin) as the radical.  See Archie J. Bahm, The Heart of Confucius.

Insights on the healing powers of Imagination come from many sources including Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. Dr. Mehl-Madrona's Coyote Healing and Narrative Medicine.  James Hillman's The Soul's Code and The Healing Imagination by Ann and Barry Ulanov are also helpful.

Awareness is aptly described in Ekhart Tolle's The Power of Now or more recently A New Earth. The practice of Awareness or what Buddhist's call "Mindfulness meditation" is available from many sources including Thich Nhat Hanh's The Miracle of Mindfulness, or Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness for Beginners.
   
Values as a convergent element in our lives comes from many sources, including a teacher's classic Values Clarification.  Two divergent studies on the origins of values are Lawrence Kohlberg's, Stages of Moral Development and Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development .

The healing power of Dialogue is conveyed with poetic clarity by Martin Buber's classic I and Thou.  For its psychological implications see Carl Jung's autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections and William Johnson's Inner Work.  Philosophical reflections on dialogue can be found in David Bohm's On Dialogue.


Blessed are the peace-makers