Made to Be
Known, Known to Bring Peace.
We all come
into the world looking for someone who is looking for us.
This is one of
the most significant insights of neuroscience: our brains together with our
bodies are made in such a way that they need others in order to function
properly. In other words, at the very level of biology, physiology, and
chemistry, we are designed to be interdependent; we are made to thrive by living
in a community of vulnerability. We need to be seen by another, to be noticed
by another, to be attended to by another, to be known, and to be cared for.
This is not a
unique insight, of course. Genesis 1-2 tells us a similar story. It is not good
for us to be alone. The world is an intricately ordered place of
hyper-relationality. That is to say that all things function best when they are
in right relationship with God’s ordering. Humans flourish when they are in
right relationship to God, right relationships with others, have a proper sense
of self-understanding, and are in right relationship with creation.
But there is an
important theme that is often overlooked in these first two chapters of Genesis.
One of the main points of the narrative is to remind us that humankind is seen
and cared for by God and as a result is equipped to in turn pay attention to
themselves and to one another in ways that bring about flourishing and delight.
The word the Old Testament uses for this is shalom, or peace. Peace is
not merely the absence of conflict. Peace is relational harmony, wholeness, community
flourishing. Peace means people are seen, cared for, and known.
Both the Bible
and neuroscience teach us that we live in an intricate ecosystem of
relationships which has an inescapable impact on each one of us individually.
We do not, indeed cannot, live on our own.
And here is
where we are faced with a significant, life-altering problem: we aren’t always
seen, attended to, cared for, and known the way that we need to be. And this
has a profound effect on the ecosystem we live in. We live in a world in which
we are increasingly unable to pay attention to anything that really matters. We
live in a world where we not only don’t get the attention and care of others
that we want and need, but we also aren’t able to pay attention to our own lives.
Cultural
critics, political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, neuroscientists,
and pastors have highlighted that increasingly we live in an age of
disintegration--an age of fragmentation, where things that belong together are
no longer connected. Our foundation institutions are disintegrating; our families
are disintegrating, our education system is disintegrating, even our churches
are disintegrating. But at the core of all of this is the disintegration that
each of us experiences within ourselves; we are made up of parts that don’t
relate to the whole. And this is what happens, neuroscience tells us, when we
don’t develop secure attachments with others, when we aren’t seen, soothed, and
made to feel safe. When we experience life in such a way that we don’t feel
seen, cared for, attended to, and safe our minds literally disintegrate; all
the different parts of our brain are hindered in their ability to do their part
in making us whole and healthy people. As a result, we not only feel wounded,
we also, out of our woundedness, wound others. This is part of what makes up
our complex ecosystem, the environment in which we all live.
I say that this
is “part of what makes up our ecosystem” because it is not the whole
story. In the Christian calendar we have just passed through Advent and
Christmas, and we are now in the season of Epiphany. As we attend to the story
of Jesus and his coming, we are reminded that God sees us. He has come to heal
our wounds and restore our ecosystem of relationships; this is what St. Paul
calls “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). As we gather each Sunday in the wake
of Advent and Christmas, and in the season of Epiphany (which reminds us that Christ
has come for all), we proclaim (and remind one another) that God sees us, God
cares for us, God knows our needs, and God attends to our fears and anxiety.
But there is
more to that story. God comes to us in Jesus and by the Spirit to make us feel safe so that we can launch out into this fragmented
and disintegrating world to see and sooth others, to attend to their needs, so
that those we attend to can launch out into the world to do the same!
We are made to be known. And when we are known, we become
instruments of peace.
Dr. Kelly Liebengood is dean of the School of Theology and
Vocation and Professor of Biblical Studies at LeTourneau University.
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