In It All Begins With Why, author, Simon Sinek, addresses a question we have all pondered at one time or another. Why is it we feel at times as if there two sides to ourselves—an emotional and sensitive self that feels things deeply, and a more dispassionate, rational self that is able to coldly assess and absorb but stands outside and apart from our feelings? As Sinek explains, there is a physiological basis for this phenomenon –we are quite literally of two minds.
The limbic portion of our brains is recognized by science as the seat of our emotional self—it is where our senses are located and where speech originates. It is all about feelings and it is articulate—sometimes too much so. This is from an evolutionary perspective the early brain that can be observed in lower forms of life—sometimes referred to as our lizard brain. Which makes one wonder—do lizards think—or just react? In contrast, the cerebral cortex is like the clean room in a chip-making plant, cool, aloof and detached from the outside world—consumed with its own interior dialog as it dispassionately surveys the goings on around it. This is our rational brain—the source of our intellect. In balanced individuals these two parts of the brain hold equal sway—and assist each other to form a well-integrated human being. But, they are not natural communicators with one another—each focused on communicating—outwardly through actions or inwardly through thought. Only with effort and emotional maturity do we learn to listen to both in harmony and allow them each to contribute what they know best how to do.
How does this play out in life? It is the limbic brain that acts with sudden onrush of anger when some driver going too fast in a rainstorm cuts you off nearly causing you to crash. It is the Cerebral Cortex that calms you down and says—thank goodness but what an idiot. The rational brain says –let it go and keeps you from a bout of road rage. In a more positive vein, it is the limbic brain’s capacity to feel things deeply that causes the flood of chemical reaction when we feel love for someone—and it is that same brain that fills us with compassion and joy and all those hard to explain feelings that can overwhelm us with their depth. We are not sure where these feelings come from because the rational brain is not in touch –it does not feel it only assesses.
This erratic communication between our two selves accounts for many things. It beautifully explains why it is not possible to reason your way through your feelings –or anyone else’s for that matter--and why it is equally hard to feel your way to reason. So what does this have to do with the title of this post—The Real and The Supernatural?
Warning, I am about to talk about God again. These two words describe the way we think about and relate to God. For some of us he is the burning bush, the provider of manna and miracles—the supernatural God able to do all things –except when he doesn’t seemingly respond to our prayers and then he is like a bad stage magician whose tricks have just been unmasked.
Some of us see God as real—not supernatural, not a Hollywood version of the Father, but someone present in our lives all of the time working to help us become better versions of ourselves. It is this version of God that is bringing about—unseen and unremarked, an amazing set of seeming coincidences and opportunities that in our vanity we may mistake at times for our own doings. But that would be a mistake. Miracles sometimes come in very modest packages, and sometimes what we take as just a coincidence, as just the fruit of our own labors is in reality God’s hand bringing about a plan for us that he conceived before we ever entered this life.
The best way to see God’s handiwork is generally by looking backwards and thinking about all of the strange and unplanned things that brought you to where you are at this moment. Look carefully and you will see an unmistakable pattern. See how he saved you from yourself—or brought you to some dark place so that you could understand the consequences of your actions to yourself or others. Those things did not happen by chance—and he is as real as those events were and are.
When we lean on our own understanding we rely solely on the Cerebral Cortex, where our ego lives—to give us the entire picture. But we already know it can’t. It only sees its small part—as Paul said, through a glass darkly. We need to approach God with both brains—our whole selves, so that we can both see and feel his presence in our lives. So is God real, or supernatural? Personally, I am of two minds on this.