WholeHearted – More on

Brené Brown

Caféchurch Melbourne 10/6/14

Contextualising for Caféchurch

If we are distinguishing between fide (heart based, trust, faith) and assensus (head based, belief, assent), this fits mainly (but not entirely) within fide

The Price We Pay for Modernity

Numb• It turns out that you can’t only numb some of your emotions• If you numb the bad stuff, you numb the good stuff as well.

Connection

• Our basic desire - “what we are here for”

Authenticity• To connect with people, we need to be authentic – (only?) the real me connects with the real you

Shame• Fear of disconnection•“I’m not worthy”• Not the same thing as guilt• If you really knew what I was like, you wouldn’t want to connect with me, so I mustn’t let you find out

Vulnerability• We need to be vulnerable to be authentic• But it’s risky- you can, and will, be rejected

Vulnerability

Shame

Connection

Authenticity

•What is the relationship between shame and vulnerability?

•Between vulnerability and authenticity?

•Between authenticity and connection?

Numbing

WholeHearted• The people who are most able to be vulnerable and hence authentic, and thus most able to connect have one thing in common• They believe that they are worthy of love and belonging

What Does It Take To Be Wholehearted?

• Courage• Compassion

–To self–To others

• Connection– Authenticity– Vulnerability

• Spirituality

Spirituality“Spirituality is recognising and celebrating the fact that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives.” The Gifts of Imperfection Brené Brown

The Woman at the WellSo he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that

Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.  A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’…. The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’

Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’

The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’

Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.

Theological Reflection• “We love because he first loved us.” – 1 John 4:18• Our sense of worthiness comes from God’s action: we know that we aren’t, in point of fact, always very worthy, (i.e. there is such a thing as sin) but that God’s prior action recognises and names us as loved, and hence lovable, and hence worthy of love. •God sees what is, not what is not.

Limitation of Brown’s Idea

• She doesn’t make much allowance for sin in this – especially the deliberate aspect of it. •