Parker Palmer’s “The Broken-Open Heart”

Shalom!

Got my copy of the March/April WEAVINGS the other day. The issue offers insights from and about the work of Parker Palmer at the Center for Courage and Renewal. In his intro to the theme, editor John Mogabgab writes this interesting line: “The uncontainable energy of God’s desire for life in abundance topples the tidy logic that governs our days.”

The first article is Parker Palmer’s “The Broken-Open Heart: Living with Faith and Hope in the Tragic Gap.” He begins the article with some comments that I really appreciate–so much so that I share them. I’m a bit uncomfortable with his phrase “primitive brain,” but it sheds light on some things I’ve been thinking about lately.

On the long list of hopes that have driven our ancient and unfinished project called “becoming civilized,” overcoming the tyranny of the primitive brain is surely at or near the top. No one who aspires to become fully human can let the primitive brain have its way, least of all Christians who aspire to a gospel way of life.

When the primitive brain dominates, Christianity goes over to the dark side. Churches self-destruct over doctrinal differences, forgetting that their first calling is to love one another. Parishioners flock to preachers who see the anti-Christ in people who do not believe as they do. Christian voters support politicians who use God’s name to justify ignoble and often violent agendas. When the primitive brain is in charge, humility, compassion, forgiveness, and the vision of a beloved community do not stand a chance.

The primitive brain contains the hardwiring for the infamous “fight or flight” reflex that helps other species survive but can diminish, even destroy, human beings. The moment we sense danger, real or imagined, that hardwiring induces a state of tension that we want to resolve right now, either by eliminating its source or by removing ourselves from its reach. That’s a good thing when you are about to be attacked by a tiger or hit by a bus. It is a very bad thing when you are dealing with an attitudinal teenager, an idea that threatens some taken-for-granted belief, the challenge of racial or religious “otherness,” or a local or global conflict that would best be resolved non-violently.

Unfortunately, the fight or flight reflex runs so deep that resisting it is like trying to keep your foot from jumping when the doctor taps your patellar tendon. But against all odds, resisting is has been key to the project called civilization ever since we climbed down from the trees. Learning how to hold life’s tensions in the responsive heart instead of the reactive primitive brain is key to personal, social, and cultural creativity: rightly held, those tensions can open us to new thoughts, relationships, and possibilities that disappear when we try to flee from or destroy their source.

He goes on to list several “cultural inventions” which help us hold the tension. Among them are language, the arts, education, and religion. Palmer quotes a most wonderful Hasidic tale about the need for our hearts to be opened, and he quotes “the Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan: “God breaks the heart open again and again and again until it stays open.’”

“In Christian tradition, the broken-open heart is virtually indistinguishable from the image of the cross.”

Great article. I recommend reading your copy of WEAVINGS or finding someone who gets it and will share it. ISTM that with our Wesleyan emphasis on the warm heart, we should have an inside track on what it means to live life today with a “broken-open” heart!

Shalom!
dave
(Posted also at 7Villages and Madison Blackwolf Speaks)


Source: holyleftovers.wordpress.com