Prayer and Personality
Preached 8/18/2019 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
“Sonder” is the word for a feeling that you probably didn’t know had a name. Sonder is defined as, “The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it.”
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows describes sonder as, “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.”
Sonder.
Every single one of us is the main character in our story, and every single side character, every “extra,” the person sitting in front of you or behind you, the person driving the car that is passing by right now, the person filling orders at the Arby’s across the street, everyone, has their own incredibly complex backstory, everyone is filled with stories and with joy and with deep, complex pain. All of us. We are all so wildly, incredibly different, and yet we all have that in common: complex stories, deep emotions, histories that involve pain as well as joy. And not just people that look or act or believe like you or me. Not just men, but women, and folks who identify outside the gender binary as well. Not just white people and black people, but people of other races, of mixed races, of ancestral backgrounds that we have never learned of or considered, and those who we would be surprised to learn are more closely related to us than we know.
Think of your spouse, your mother, your closest friend: this person is incredibly complex and the more you get to know them the more you realize that you don’t know them as well as you thought. Human beings are impossibly complex.
Many species need physical care. Humans have doctors and hospitals, animals have veterinarians, plants even have botanists and farmers who look after their health. For humans, we often also seek additional health care for our emotions from professionals like therapists and counselors as well as from close friends. There is a third dimension of health, I believe that humans also tend to seek out spiritual care, as we face life and death.
During our lives, many of us wonder about a deeper meaning, about morals and ethics that go beyond the emotional. We seek connection with one another and with our life source. We wonder what life is, where it comes from, and why it ends. The healthy human, I believe, tends to these three aspects of health: physical, emotional, and spiritual.
One could point out that these three aspects of health correspond to Freud’s libidinal system of id, ego, and superego, with the physical representing the id, the emotional representing the ego, and the spiritual representing the superego. Scientific understanding of personality development has come so far since Freud that this alone sounds simplistic. Of course, we have these three parts, and all three need to be in good health. So you come to church as you would go to a doctor or a therapist because keeping your spiritual self in good health is vital to your holistic health.
Carl Jung, building off of Freud, identified what he called the “spiritual problem” as he worked to diagnose what he saw as a new angst brought on by the industrial age. Jung said, “How totally different did the world appear to medieval man! For him, the earth was eternally fixed and at rest in the centre of the universe…Men were all children of God under the loving care of the Most High, who prepared them for eternal blessedness; and all knew exactly what they should do and how they should conduct themselves in order to rise from a corruptible world to an incorruptible and joyous existence. Such a life no longer seems real to us, even in our dreams.”
Another privileged white man, wanting to make society great again.
It is true that before science and modernity rendered our human superstitions impotent, day-to-day life was very, very different. Certainly not better, but different, and Jung was correct in pointing to a “spiritual problem,” though I would argue that medieval people had their own spiritual problems, just different from those of today. Today, in a post-Myers-Briggs, post-enneagram age, science continues to clarify our understanding of ourselves, our needs, and our own quirky, development.
Dr. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is a British scientist who studies brain development in adolescents, and she begins her engaging book, titled “Inventing Ourselves: The Mysterious Workings of the Teenage Brain” with a defensive tone. Yes, she assures the adult reader, yes teenagers do have brains. Dr. Blakemore is not a person who puts forward opinions without scientific backing. In hundreds of studies, many involving MRI machines, she has shown that our personalities, our own understanding of who we are as individuals, begins to form in childhood, but this formation is ongoing throughout adolescence and straight into early adulthood.
There is a reason that adolescents are the way that they are, for instance, studies have found that between the ages of 11-14 the brain’s reward systems are fully activated and extra sensitive, but the prefrontal cortex, the area that governs self-control is not yet fully formed. So, the thinking goes, it is a lot harder to resist temptation if your brain is wired to give you an exaggerated feeling of reward for something that you know you should not do or have. Or eat. Or smoke. Or vape. Whatever.
This same structure of development leads to adolescents having stronger preferences for immediate rewards than either adults or children. And here’s the thing we all already knew but that science has now confirmed: One of the very strongest rewards for the adolescent brain is the approval of peers. We now know that adolescent caving into peer pressure is much more than a psychological issue; it is a physiological, neurological reality that the adolescent brain is geared toward being affected by peers in a way that neither children nor adults are.
Dr. Blakemore goes on to use this information to advocate for changes in school curriculums, but she also argues that the popular cultural acceptance that it is ok to joke about adolescents is unfair and even harmful. Yes, adolescents do have brains, she argues, and why is it okay to joke about that? “Imagine,” Dr. Blakemore asks, “if we went around openly sneering at the elderly for their poor memory or lack of agility.”
We are who we are, in great part because of factors over which we have no control. Whether it is brain development or physical ailments, hormones, or external environmental factors, we have very little say into who we are.
My parents were very into the Myers-Briggs personality test in the 1970s and 1980s, and my son is very interested in it now. My son, Adam, my 17-year old, has autism, which separates his brain from neurotypical brains like mine. He finds personality tests fascinating from an anthropological point of view. If he can know your Myers-Briggs type, he can hope to understand you.
The Myers-Briggs website 16personalities.com has consolidated the 16 types into four archetypes: Analysts, Diplomats, Sentinels, and Explorers. All of this categorizing is certainly soft science and not meant to be taken as gospel truth, but it can be quite helpful in understanding ourselves and each other. If I, a strong extrovert, can understand that a family member is an introvert, it can help me to objectify the issue, understanding that this person needs alone time when I do not, I learn not to take it as a personal rejection.
Understanding ourselves also helps us to work on solving Jung’s “spiritual problem.” I spoke last week about my personal struggle with prayer, and it helps for me to understand that as an extrovert, that is, as a very externally-oriented person, prayer for me might need to be cooperative, incorporating interaction and movement. There are times for stillness, but stillness might suit you more than it suits me. Or not. And that’s fine!
I’d like to encourage you to look at your own spiritual practice and notice whether it suits you personally. When it comes to spirituality, one size will never fit all, and that’s because of the glory of our diversity. If you do not have a spiritual practice, think harder, because I think you probably do. It might be unconventional, or something that folks in our culture wouldn’t identify as a spiritual practice. It might be walking the dog after dinner or reading a book. It might be silence, it might be singing in the shower, or it might be being here today. Just like with physical health, I know you are eating something. I know you are exercising in some way, even if you feel it could be improved. So it is for spiritual exercise. You are already doing something to tend to your own “spiritual problem.”
You are so unique. We are tempted to hide our uniqueness, but it is this very uniqueness that makes us rich, that is the definition of diversity. The vastness of human uniqueness leads to sonder - the recognition of how overwhelmingly, impossibly, completely unique, and precious each person is. Diversity makes us rich. Neurodiversity makes us rich. Diversity in physical ability, diversity in race, class, Myers-Briggs type. And diversity in age.
At the end of “Inventing Ourselves,” Dr. Blakeman goes on to call for an end to demonizing adolescence. For “this period of life, We should,” she says, “understand it, nurture it, and celebrate it.” Adolescents, teens, tweens, those who are at this formative stage have much to teach us adults about how we became “I” and “me.” About how, for a few years, our own neural plasticity was such that it eventually jelled into forming the differentiated types that we are today.
And while I am absolutely grateful for the teens that we have in our midst today, I find it hard to embrace my own teenage self. The teenage Meg that I picture is too passionate, too outspoken, too embarrassing.
Can we each close our eyes or soften our gaze as we feel comfortable and bring to mind your teenage self. Your young, adolescent, unsure self. Was that self idealistic? Were they isolated? Confused? Ashamed? What would that self think of you today? Would they be happy to see you sitting in church? Or would they be confused? Angry?
Before we open our eyes and come back to this space, let’s thank our teenage selves. Let’s beam a soft light of gratitude toward them. Forgive them. Generate warm feelings of kindness and protection towards your teenage self. Thank you. As we slowly come back to this space, and to this time, look at your feet, make sure they are grounded on the floor. We will express our love towards ourselves and one another by appealing to that great love that surrounds and envelopes us. There is a love, Rebecca Parker said that, “There is a love holding us all.”
Amen.
Preached 8/18/2019 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
“Sonder” is the word for a feeling that you probably didn’t know had a name. Sonder is defined as, “The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it.”
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows describes sonder as, “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.”
Sonder.
Every single one of us is the main character in our story, and every single side character, every “extra,” the person sitting in front of you or behind you, the person driving the car that is passing by right now, the person filling orders at the Arby’s across the street, everyone, has their own incredibly complex backstory, everyone is filled with stories and with joy and with deep, complex pain. All of us. We are all so wildly, incredibly different, and yet we all have that in common: complex stories, deep emotions, histories that involve pain as well as joy. And not just people that look or act or believe like you or me. Not just men, but women, and folks who identify outside the gender binary as well. Not just white people and black people, but people of other races, of mixed races, of ancestral backgrounds that we have never learned of or considered, and those who we would be surprised to learn are more closely related to us than we know.
Think of your spouse, your mother, your closest friend: this person is incredibly complex and the more you get to know them the more you realize that you don’t know them as well as you thought. Human beings are impossibly complex.
Many species need physical care. Humans have doctors and hospitals, animals have veterinarians, plants even have botanists and farmers who look after their health. For humans, we often also seek additional health care for our emotions from professionals like therapists and counselors as well as from close friends. There is a third dimension of health, I believe that humans also tend to seek out spiritual care, as we face life and death.
During our lives, many of us wonder about a deeper meaning, about morals and ethics that go beyond the emotional. We seek connection with one another and with our life source. We wonder what life is, where it comes from, and why it ends. The healthy human, I believe, tends to these three aspects of health: physical, emotional, and spiritual.
One could point out that these three aspects of health correspond to Freud’s libidinal system of id, ego, and superego, with the physical representing the id, the emotional representing the ego, and the spiritual representing the superego. Scientific understanding of personality development has come so far since Freud that this alone sounds simplistic. Of course, we have these three parts, and all three need to be in good health. So you come to church as you would go to a doctor or a therapist because keeping your spiritual self in good health is vital to your holistic health.
Carl Jung, building off of Freud, identified what he called the “spiritual problem” as he worked to diagnose what he saw as a new angst brought on by the industrial age. Jung said, “How totally different did the world appear to medieval man! For him, the earth was eternally fixed and at rest in the centre of the universe…Men were all children of God under the loving care of the Most High, who prepared them for eternal blessedness; and all knew exactly what they should do and how they should conduct themselves in order to rise from a corruptible world to an incorruptible and joyous existence. Such a life no longer seems real to us, even in our dreams.”
Another privileged white man, wanting to make society great again.
It is true that before science and modernity rendered our human superstitions impotent, day-to-day life was very, very different. Certainly not better, but different, and Jung was correct in pointing to a “spiritual problem,” though I would argue that medieval people had their own spiritual problems, just different from those of today. Today, in a post-Myers-Briggs, post-enneagram age, science continues to clarify our understanding of ourselves, our needs, and our own quirky, development.
Dr. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is a British scientist who studies brain development in adolescents, and she begins her engaging book, titled “Inventing Ourselves: The Mysterious Workings of the Teenage Brain” with a defensive tone. Yes, she assures the adult reader, yes teenagers do have brains. Dr. Blakemore is not a person who puts forward opinions without scientific backing. In hundreds of studies, many involving MRI machines, she has shown that our personalities, our own understanding of who we are as individuals, begins to form in childhood, but this formation is ongoing throughout adolescence and straight into early adulthood.
There is a reason that adolescents are the way that they are, for instance, studies have found that between the ages of 11-14 the brain’s reward systems are fully activated and extra sensitive, but the prefrontal cortex, the area that governs self-control is not yet fully formed. So, the thinking goes, it is a lot harder to resist temptation if your brain is wired to give you an exaggerated feeling of reward for something that you know you should not do or have. Or eat. Or smoke. Or vape. Whatever.
This same structure of development leads to adolescents having stronger preferences for immediate rewards than either adults or children. And here’s the thing we all already knew but that science has now confirmed: One of the very strongest rewards for the adolescent brain is the approval of peers. We now know that adolescent caving into peer pressure is much more than a psychological issue; it is a physiological, neurological reality that the adolescent brain is geared toward being affected by peers in a way that neither children nor adults are.
Dr. Blakemore goes on to use this information to advocate for changes in school curriculums, but she also argues that the popular cultural acceptance that it is ok to joke about adolescents is unfair and even harmful. Yes, adolescents do have brains, she argues, and why is it okay to joke about that? “Imagine,” Dr. Blakemore asks, “if we went around openly sneering at the elderly for their poor memory or lack of agility.”
We are who we are, in great part because of factors over which we have no control. Whether it is brain development or physical ailments, hormones, or external environmental factors, we have very little say into who we are.
My parents were very into the Myers-Briggs personality test in the 1970s and 1980s, and my son is very interested in it now. My son, Adam, my 17-year old, has autism, which separates his brain from neurotypical brains like mine. He finds personality tests fascinating from an anthropological point of view. If he can know your Myers-Briggs type, he can hope to understand you.
The Myers-Briggs website 16personalities.com has consolidated the 16 types into four archetypes: Analysts, Diplomats, Sentinels, and Explorers. All of this categorizing is certainly soft science and not meant to be taken as gospel truth, but it can be quite helpful in understanding ourselves and each other. If I, a strong extrovert, can understand that a family member is an introvert, it can help me to objectify the issue, understanding that this person needs alone time when I do not, I learn not to take it as a personal rejection.
Understanding ourselves also helps us to work on solving Jung’s “spiritual problem.” I spoke last week about my personal struggle with prayer, and it helps for me to understand that as an extrovert, that is, as a very externally-oriented person, prayer for me might need to be cooperative, incorporating interaction and movement. There are times for stillness, but stillness might suit you more than it suits me. Or not. And that’s fine!
I’d like to encourage you to look at your own spiritual practice and notice whether it suits you personally. When it comes to spirituality, one size will never fit all, and that’s because of the glory of our diversity. If you do not have a spiritual practice, think harder, because I think you probably do. It might be unconventional, or something that folks in our culture wouldn’t identify as a spiritual practice. It might be walking the dog after dinner or reading a book. It might be silence, it might be singing in the shower, or it might be being here today. Just like with physical health, I know you are eating something. I know you are exercising in some way, even if you feel it could be improved. So it is for spiritual exercise. You are already doing something to tend to your own “spiritual problem.”
You are so unique. We are tempted to hide our uniqueness, but it is this very uniqueness that makes us rich, that is the definition of diversity. The vastness of human uniqueness leads to sonder - the recognition of how overwhelmingly, impossibly, completely unique, and precious each person is. Diversity makes us rich. Neurodiversity makes us rich. Diversity in physical ability, diversity in race, class, Myers-Briggs type. And diversity in age.
At the end of “Inventing Ourselves,” Dr. Blakeman goes on to call for an end to demonizing adolescence. For “this period of life, We should,” she says, “understand it, nurture it, and celebrate it.” Adolescents, teens, tweens, those who are at this formative stage have much to teach us adults about how we became “I” and “me.” About how, for a few years, our own neural plasticity was such that it eventually jelled into forming the differentiated types that we are today.
And while I am absolutely grateful for the teens that we have in our midst today, I find it hard to embrace my own teenage self. The teenage Meg that I picture is too passionate, too outspoken, too embarrassing.
Can we each close our eyes or soften our gaze as we feel comfortable and bring to mind your teenage self. Your young, adolescent, unsure self. Was that self idealistic? Were they isolated? Confused? Ashamed? What would that self think of you today? Would they be happy to see you sitting in church? Or would they be confused? Angry?
Before we open our eyes and come back to this space, let’s thank our teenage selves. Let’s beam a soft light of gratitude toward them. Forgive them. Generate warm feelings of kindness and protection towards your teenage self. Thank you. As we slowly come back to this space, and to this time, look at your feet, make sure they are grounded on the floor. We will express our love towards ourselves and one another by appealing to that great love that surrounds and envelopes us. There is a love, Rebecca Parker said that, “There is a love holding us all.”
Amen.