Our house

Our house
cradles the holidays
with festive glee
and seeps grief.

This ageless,
chaotic charge
cups our cheer
o’r full.

Inevitably wayward plans
fly awry and
our excitement marries anxiety.
We unwrap and hold space for alone time.

We commit to authentically communicate
our individual needs.
We collaboratively sit together to meet them
with consensus agreements, and plans.

We set boundaries,
break triggering traditions,
give more presence than presents,
and view each other as the finest gift.

You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well, really, what’s it to ya?
There’s a blaze of light in every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Jesus Christ _the only perfect user of the brain human_

A series of salient events recently led me back to Alicia Britt Chloe’s anonymous, specifically chapter 37, a disciplined imagination. Professionally, case-guided research in the fields of neuropsychology, brain development and traumatic brain injury shepherded me to an unexpected spiritual epiphany.

The more I read about the brain, the more I want to learn. In order to understand even the most basic concepts of cognition or behavior, the more I have to read. Two central themes quickly become elemental: First, there remain far more uncharted territories of the brain than findings revealed by modern science. Secondly, people’s typical brains routinely operate at rates significantly lower than their full-use capacity.

Implications about our brains’ capacity prompted my recall of a disciplined imagination. I realized that thinking about brain activity, specifically in regard to its impact on preferred and non-preferred behaviors across individuals and community systems, began to shift the way I was thinking. Essentially, a task that I had initiated to better serve pediatric clients spiritually converted my mindfulness of the neuroplasticity of my own brain. Quite simply, thinking about thinking changed how I pray.

Glory to God in the highest and by His grace alone, His perfect Word burst forth fresh understanding about the character of Christ and his sinless legacy.

The integrity of Jesus and the humble ransom of his own unsullied life as guarantor for our torrid sins stand as the seminal sacrifice of history.

The enormity of this gift eclipses the ability to grasp it in whole, as do the range of questions triggered, justified by faith, as God interrupts the life of one of his children, and his/her heart floods epiphany as witness to the living reality of Christ’s work on the cross. What else can s/he do, but offer his/her life completely to His will?

In tandem with the relevant brain research mentioned above, daily verses contracted different places of my heart. As prime example, Peter affirms that Jesus led a pure life:

He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth, (1 Peter 2:22).

This unprecedented biography rightly boggles the minds of believers like me, who
strive to live godly lives, and yet daily sin beyond the frequency scale of any clinical observation chart. We wonder how Jesus was able to accomplish this feat when we regularly sin before our feet hit the floor each morning to begin our days. We know conceptually that during his life on earth that Jesus was entirely man and wholly God, but our experiences remain inclusive. Entirely men we, even those among us genuinely slain by the Spirit in their own burning bush audiences with God, can only imagine the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness Christ leveraged within his human carriage to live an entire life free of sin.

Yet, as Chloe so richly explores in anonymous, there is much unknown about the life Jesus led before his ministry began. For over thirty years of his precious life, Christ led an ordinary life filled with the regular chores and routines of those common to the people of his day and time. As she also posits, everything that Jesus did before he began His Call to speak and teach about the will of God, prepared him to finish his work for us on the cross. All of His lessons mastered, chores done, sheep tended, and conversations with family and community members shared were without sin. Meanwhile, in the here-and-now, many of us struggle to prepare and eat one Thanksgiving dinner with our families without sin.

It was along this vein of thought when the reality hit that Jesus was not only sinless in his actions and words, but also in his thoughts:

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment, (Matthew 5: 22).

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart, (Matthew 5: 28).

Jesus marshaled a sinless mind. Jesus guarded his mind and exclusively employed his wholly human brain without sin and according to the will of his Father. It was about here when my own wholly human and entirely faulty mind began to perseverate.

Jesus was perfect. He was without sin. He was without sin in his mind. His thoughts were clean. Jesus maintained his mind perfectly… Jesus was perfect. He was without sin. He was without sin in his mind. His thoughts were clean. Jesus maintained his mind perfectly. .. Jesus was perfect. He was without sin. He was without sin in his mind. His thoughts were clean. Jesus maintained his mind perfectly…

Jesus was the perfect user of the human brain.

It was familiar to consider that Jesus had hands like mine or to imagine the pain He managed while being nailed and hung from the cross. Countless bible studies partner us to model our own responses to situations by such representative vignettes from the life of Christ, who felt all the same kinds of temptations and hurts that we experience, but acted only in ways that kept God’s commandments. However, the epiphany that Jesus had in his skull the very same type of brain designed by the very same, perfect Creator, our Father God, triggered metacognitive stutter. Given the backdrop of human brain studies, the mind’s tenacious elasticity, its underused capacity, and its regional partnerships, I was led to speculate if the human brain that God first crafted for Adam was so designed because it offered the necessary facility resources that Christ would need to live a sinless life and atone for our sins. Adam was the first user of the human brain, yet his culpability for sin led to the fall of man that necessitated our salvation through Christ.

Furthermore, as our Father foretold the coming of a perfect lamb, so too did He equip Jesus with the necessary hardware and access to become the sole, perfect user of the brain God made for man alone:

How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him, (Acts, 10:38)
I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me, (John 5:30).
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you, (John 16:7).

Scripture confirms that God anointed Christ with the Holy Spirit. His Word further manifests that Jesus had to leave earth so that the Advocate could come to convict people regarding righteousness, judgment and sin. As followers of the resurrected Grace through our Savior of the New Covenant, we our justified by faith to receive the same anointed gift God gave His only begotten son: the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. God has anointed each of his faithful with the same brain architecture and gift of the Spirit as he did his son, Jesus.
Like the Armor of God, we may use these gifts to be strong in the Lord, stand against the schemes of evil, walk out the will of God in our lives, take up the Shield of Faith, and maintain a stance of readiness to extinguish evil and bear the Helmet of Salvation. What lies beneath the Helmet of Salvation and resides within the heads of those charged to bear the Sword of the Spirit is the potential to house a godly mind.
Certainly, unlike Christ, we cannot be perfect users of our God-created brains anymore than we can live lives free from sin. We remain wholly man and naturally sinners. However, the cognizance that we are imbued with the same brain hardware and anointed by the perfect Advocate sanctions us to intentionally engage our brains in ways that fortify our internal capacity to live more closely and in alignment with our Father’s plans for our lives.

Likewise clinicians, educators, parents, students and family systems seek to maximize the potential of the human brain. Partnered with revolutionary scientific discoveries about how the brain works the internet allows unprecedented access to trending neuropsychological research. Agreement that the brain continues to change, grow, adapt, and progress, despite age has become culturally mainstream. Empirical and social scientists have begun to investigate ways for individuals to use their brains in ways that better assist them to live happy lives. For example, Dialectic Behavioral Therapy asserts that mindfulness seeks to balance the best aspects of the emotional mind with the intellectual mind into one unified wise mind. The wise mind construct pulls from each of the other brain domains to ensure that a person’s response is most likely to benefit the individual. Neither the emotional nor the intellectual mind is considered to be more useful than the other in isolation, but instead, the wise mind respects that both are necessary to create behaviors that satisfy one’s emotional experience, and are also considered sensible within various situations. Venn diagrams often illustrate this concept. An individual is taught mindful practices that allow him to identify his feelings, be critical of those feelings, rate the intensity of these feelings, and rank his motivation to respond in the moment when compared to what he knows historically about his feelings, what his history has taught him about responding emotionally, and the certainty that the more intense a feeling impacts him, the less accurately he can globally respond and identify a best-outcome response. The process trains an individual to pause, be still, and intentionally engage what he has learned about his feelings, the topic, similar situations or dynamics, his triggers and mindfulness theory. This approach maps a secular model for how to manage different, and often contrary, signals from the brain to aid people to make choices that dovetail their goals.

Consider, however, what the Venn Diagram intersection would look like if instead of over lapping the two circles of the emotional and intellectual brain to create an intersected wise brain, we trained our minds through prayer and scripture to overlap the wise brain with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Innately, our human capacity to do evil dawned with the Fall of Man. Likewise, the potential for people to serve God and be of good use to each other in the Body exists by the grace of God and our strength delivered only by and through Christ our Lord. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit amplifies our human capacity through the resurrected Christ within us. Our onboard Counselor is available 24/7 and eager to deliver us from sin and partner our desires to make more godly choices and live more aware and grateful lives in God’s will. The Fruit of the Spirit construct moral pillars like internal landmarks within our minds that flash visceral lights to warn of planes on the horizon. These same perfect aspects may fortify the faithful to make better choices, avoid tempting situations, or detour undesired outcomes.

It has been said that the conscious brain merely carries acts out or delivers the decisions already selected by the subconscious brain. Such statements ground ideas like, “I can’t help what I am feeling,” “He made me so mad I hit him,” “I couldn’t help myself,” amid a sea of similar self-rationalizations. If, instead an individual uses the Word to train his brain about God’s laws, and faithfully prays to become more aware of the interventions of the Holy Spirit, God’s grace may allow him to utilize his God-given and designed-brain that is just like Jesus’ was to build a bridge between his subconscious and conscious mind. This act of faith, to surrender one’s mind to God, like the choice to offer one’s heart to Christ, transforms individuals’ lives. It also invites God free access to our thoughts and intellectual potential. This access allows God to remap circuits in our brains, overwrite or delete negative self-talk and programming, and build new neuro-pathways. These internal systems upgrade deepens our awareness of God’s presence in our lives and further equips us with strategies that better enable us to behave in godly ways in worldly situations. Likewise, this form of surrender liberates us to maintain thoughts more worthy of God and His Word. Such inspired fusion heightens our comprehension and better clears our access to what we have archived in memory by a quickened awareness of our need for God.

As our relationship with God continues to grow, so does our need for Him and our desire to more completely surrender our thoughts and minds to His will. This partnership within the brain develops over time and fortifies the bridge between the conscious and unconscious brain. Master builder of all, God paves our new cognitive pathways, expands them, and blazes them with neon orange Yield signals like a spiritually divined–security system. Better than any coveted “smart pill,” these internal mind enhancements dilate a person’s mindfulness of applications of God’s Word, spiritual perspective and self-regulation, prompting of the Holy Spirit and prayer. Such amplification of the Advocate within our own brains primes a readiness to heed God’s will as it increases our metacognitive ability to access stored knowledge of God’s studied Word, all those bible stories we sang as, and then with our children, and relevant mastered knowledge that increase positive outcomes in our behavior and choices. The intimate trust that occurs when we invite God into our thoughts to govern our minds bonds different portions of our brains, as Inspired by Him, or for His Glory alone, to be used as tools to serve our Father more fully, consistently and faithfully, as did the only perfect user of the human brain, Jesus Christ.

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you dont really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor falls, the major lifts
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

1 Thessalonians 5:18

1 Thessalonians 5:18, NLT

Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!
So I’m thankful for the scars
‘Cause without them I wouldn’t know Your heart
And I know they’ll always tell of who You are
So forever I am thankful for the scars, “Scars,” I Am They.
Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!