The Broken- Open Heart

1 1w e av i n g s x x i v : 2 TheBroken- open HeartL i v i n g w i t h Fa i t h a n d Hope i n t h e T r agic Gapby Parker J. PalmerJust heard an NPR interview with Basim, an Iraqi who worked asan interpreter for American troops. He took the job believing that theAmericans represented hope for his country. But when Abu Ghra ibsho wed Iraqis that Americans could be as brutal as Sad dam s police,Basim s effor ts to bridge the two cultures brought dea th threa tsaga inst him and his family and they were forced to flee their home-land. Was it na ve to believe that you could stand in the mid dle likethat? , the interviewer asked. Without hesitation Basim answered, No.

2 It wasn t at all. Ifreconciliation is going to happen, he sa id(no w I paraphrase), there must be people who are willing to li ve inthe tragic gap and help the two sides understand each other. I m deeplymoved by Basim s witness and I wonder about my o wn .. From my journal, July 5, 2008 Becom i ng C ivil iz edOn t h e l o n g l i s tof hopes that have driven our ancientand unf inished project called becoming civilized, overcoming the t yranny of the primitive brain issurely at or near the top. No one who aspires to become fullyhuman can let the primitive brain have it s way, lea st of allChristians who aspire to a gospel way of the primitive brain dominates, Christianit y goesover to the dark side.

3 Churches self-destr uct over doctrinaldif ferences, forgetting that their f ir st calling is to love oneaWea v in gsr e p r i n t sta n d i n g i n t h e t r a g i c g a p2david klein 3w e av i n g s x x i v : 2another. Parishioners f lock to preachers who see the anti-Christ in people who do not believe as they do. Christian voterssuppor t politicians who use God s name to justify ignoble andoften violent agendas. When the primitive brain is in charge,humilit y, compa ssion, forgiveness, and the vision of abeloved community do not stand a primitive brain contains the hardwiring forthe infamous fight or f light ref lex that helps otherspecies sur vive but can diminish, even destroy,human beings.

4 The moment we sense danger, realor imagined, that hardwiring induces a state oftension that we want to resolve right now, eitherby eliminating its source or by removing ourselvesfrom its reach. That s a good thing when you areabout to be attacked by a tiger or hit by a bus. It isa ver y bad thing when you are dealing with an atti-tudinal teenager, an idea that threatens some taken-for-granted belief, the challenge of racial or religious other ness, or a local or global conf lict that would best beresolved , the f ight or f light ref lex runs so deep thatresisting it is like tr ying to keep your foot from jumping whenthe doctor taps your patellar tendon. But against all odd s,resisting it has been key to the project called civilization eversince we climbed down from the trees.

5 Learning how to holdlife s tensions in the responsive hear t instead of the reactiveprimitive brain is key to personal, social, and cultural creativity:rightly held, those tensions can open us to new thoughts, rela-tionships, and possibilities that disappear when we tr y to f leefrom or destroy their we had not sought ways to hold tension creatively, ourspecies would have long since wasted away in caves or beendone in by war. If caves and war sound like word s fromtoday s headlines, it is only because they are. Despite millenniaof cultural inventiveness, we have not yet vanquished theenemy within. What are some of the cultural inventions meant to help ushold tension in a life-giving, not death-dealing way?

6 Languageit self is among the f ir st of them, because it allows us torespond to tension with words instead of actions. Even if thef irst word is a ref lexive shout at the moment tension hits,the words that follow can be inquisitive and explorator y, as inCan suffering become life-giving ratherthan death-dealing? sta n d i n g i n t h e t r a g i c g a p4 Hey! What s going on here? Language leads to the possibilityof understanding, and thus to a tr ue resolution of tension,something that is never achieved by fighting or f leeing, whichmerely leave more tension in their ar ts are a civilizing institution that can help us lear nto hold tension in a way that lead s to life, not death.

7 A goodpainting, a good drama, a good novel, and a good musicalcomposition share at least one trait: they are animated by thetension between their element s, a tension that not onlyattract s the eye, the ear, and the mind, but draws us into theexperience ar t offers, the reality it has to share. Entering intothe tension of great ar t, and allowing that tension to pull ourhear ts and minds open , is a time-honored way of becomingmore is another ancient institution designed to helpus hold tension creatively. A good education teaches us torespect that which is other than our experience, ourthoughts, our certainties, our world. A good education helpsus embrace complexity, find comfort in ambiguity, entertaincontradictory ideas, grasp both poles of a paradox.

8 It challengesthe primacy of the primitive brain, drawing on the largercapacities of the human self to hold the multiple tensions ofthought, and life, in ways that invoke the better angels of then there is el igion a n d t h e B r ok e n H e a rtWh e n t h e p r i m i t i v e b raintakes charge we arein thrall to the fallen angels, and the outcome isaltogether predictable: we contribute to thedynamic of violence that constantly threatens life it self. Whydo we persist in tr ying to solve problem s with violence,despite the fact that violence threatens our sur vival? Thatquestion has several valid answers. But the one I want to pursuehere has yet to get its due and takes us directly to a key functionof the spiritual life: violence arises when we do not know what elseto do with our back, for example, to the murderous and hear t-breaking events of September 11, 2001,that created such wide-spread tension and suffering.

9 America wa s attacked, wesuffered, the primitive brain kicked in, and f ight or f light 5w e av i n g s x x i v : 2was elevated from the nether regions of the brain stem to policyoptions in the White House and the nation-states usually do when they have superior fire-power, our government chose to fight (although largely againstthe wrong enemy in this misbegotten case). Now, eight yearslater, the violence in our world has multiplied. We chose tof ight despite the fact that an alternative path was available tous, a path of seeking justice rather than making war that mighthave allowed us to create rather than destroy. In the process,we squandered the life-giving sense of global community thatbegan to emerge in the weeks following September 11as peopleof many land s empathized with our suffering, including,amazingly, people whose suffering we helped suffering become life-giving rather than death-dealing?

10 Could America s suffering in the wake of September 11 haveyielded outcomes other than violence multiplied? We don t needto become dewy-eyed dreamers to answer that question with a yes. The experience of our own lives proves among us has not suffered the loss of someone preciousto our hearts, a loss so heartbreaking that we wondered how wecould go on living? Who among us has not been tempted toshut down in the wake of such a loss, to turn toward bitter-ness, cynicism, and anger, perhaps even going there for awhile? And how many of us have sought for mal or informalspiritual practices from meditation to walks in the woods to transform a wounded, shut-down Heart into something moretrusting,more capacious, a Heart that dispels the darkness andopens to new light and life?