In this episode, Nate talks with Pastor of Formation & Mission Benjamin Kandt about the connection between attachment theory and the most widely used metaphor in the Psalms.
Nate and Ben unpack the concept of God as a refuge and its parallels with secure attachment. The Psalms unveil a portrait of God as a safe haven and a secure base, concepts so vital to our growth and sense of safety. Moreover, the linguistic shift from addressing God as "he" to "you" in places like Psalm 23 speaks to a deepening relationship that offers the same comfort and safety as a child finds in a parent's embrace.
The discussion digs into the intersections of theology, psychology, and neuroscience as we prepare the ground for the "Summer in the Psalms" series. We reflect on our own personal journeys and the paths that have led us here, and hope to pave the way for a summer of reflection, connection, and growth through the lens of secure attachment and the Psalms.
In this episode, Nate talks with Pastor of Formation & Mission Benjamin Kandt about the connection between attachment theory and the most widely used metaphor in the Psalms.
Nate and Ben unpack the concept of God as a refuge and its parallels with secure attachment. The Psalms unveil a portrait of God as a safe haven and a secure base, concepts so vital to our growth and sense of safety. Moreover, the linguistic shift from addressing God as "he" to "you" in places like Psalm 23 speaks to a deepening relationship that offers the same comfort and safety as a child finds in a parent's embrace.
The discussion digs into the intersections of theology, psychology, and neuroscience as we prepare the ground for the "Summer in the Psalms" series. We reflect on our own personal journeys and the paths that have led us here, and hope to pave the way for a summer of reflection, connection, and growth through the lens of secure attachment and the Psalms.
Welcome to another episode of the All of Life podcast. I'm your host, nate Claiborne, and today I'm with our pastor of formation and mission, benjamin Kant. It's been a while since we've done one of these, it's true.
Speaker 2:This is one of my favorite things we get to do together, Nate, so the fact that we haven't done in a while something's not working right here.
Speaker 1:I know that's right.
Speaker 2:We're hoping this is what kind of gets us back on track, because we've got a big series of I can't say it's a big series, so the Psalms and secure attachment. Secure attachment, of course, is a phrase from a body of psychological literature called attachment theory. That's a really big deal, right? So I could give you some history on it, but John Bowlby is kind of the founder of it and he was really cutting against the grain in his day and age and, from what I gather, he was kind of neglected for a while.
Speaker 2:Like nobody really took him seriously in his time I shouldn't say nobody, but he was not kind of a main stage thinker in psychology until a little bit more recently Some people kind of uncovered his work and it's now in many ways all the rage. And one of the things I really appreciate about attachment theory is that it has this view of human beings that were fundamentally relational, which is very resonant with biblical anthropology that humans, made in the image of a triune God, have a relational ontology. That's a fancy word, for our very beings are developed and sustained in relationship, first with God as our creator and we as creatures, but then second as people who are born in relationship and sustained through relationship. It's not for nothing that solitary confinement is like the worst punishment that we have to offer prisoners, because that is profoundly damaging to a relational being like a human being.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. It's almost as if that's you think about. I don't want to go down this road too far, but capital punishment. It's like you're almost taking someone's life away from them without putting them to death.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, that's right. In fact, I'm pretty convinced that the two fundamental fears that humans carry around with them are the fear of death and the fear of social rejection. That those are all Ostracization is almost read by the nervous system as the same as a physical threat, because social threats and physical threats are equally as damning and damaging, for a human being.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we've even talked about that in previous episodes. I'm not sure I could go back and collect them, but we've talked about like just online behavior and just the way people like with people being canceled. It's doing violence to them in a way that's it's not physical, but the experience of it may as well be similar to physical violence.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So this is relevant because, if that's true, when we read the book of Psalms we're going to see things like that. We're actually going to see people really concerned about the threatening words that other people use about them, which is exactly what you read in the Psalms. We both have read Gordon Wedham's book on the Psalms and one of the things he points out is that, of the 10 commandments, the one that the Psalms seem to be most concerned with is bearing false witness, is the violation of using your tongue to destroy, which is really remarkable that this book of Psalms would take that one so seriously, and I think there's reasons for why that is that we'll get to unpack together here. But so we just kind of very simply touched on secure attachment. But I want to talk about the Psalms for a moment and then kind of come back and bring them together. So the Psalms are arguably the most psychologically rich text in the entire Bible, in the whole 66 book canon of the scriptures, and that's not my opinion, although it is, uh, but it's not only my opinion Um, uh, athanasius and Augustine and Calvin.
Speaker 2:Calvin called it an anatomy of all parts of the human soul, which sounds a little bit psychological to me Right. Um, I believe he's ahead of his time. He was ahead of his time, that's right. And then Kurt Thompson picked up that phrase and used it for his first, uh, his first book, which is fantastic and so, which is on interpersonal neurobiology and talks a lot about attachment theory. And so Augustine talked about the Psalms as being a mirror in which our very selves are reflected back to us, but in a sanctified way. And the Athanasius and Augustine both kind of work out the therapeutic that's the actual word that's used the therapeutic nature of the Book of Psalms. And so it was not unusual for the Psalms to have a kind of a heart place, like a place at the heart of Judeo-Christian spirituality. And really that's kind of up until modern day, right. If you get a New Testament, usually it has the book of Psalms and maybe the Proverbs attached to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's never Leviticus and Ezekiel. That's right. That's exactly right. The two books that get thrown in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, and so the Psalms teach us how to live out this covenantal relationship with God, where we both come to the table, god and we who are in covenant with God. They train us in that kind of relationship, and they do that by helping us really do what CS Lewis called the preface, the prayer that precedes all prayers, which is let it be the real I who speaks and let it be the real you to whom I speak. In other words, the constant threat or danger in relating to God is that I would relate to God as a false God, making him into whatever idolatrous image I want him to be, or I would relate to God from my false self and put forward a mask or a persona or some fake version of who I am, even though God refuses to love anybody, but the real me, the true self, and so the Psalms train us to take off our masks, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you didn't necessarily think of it this way. Well, I can't say. I know what you think, but part of the pivot to the McShane Bible reading plan that we started earlier this year is that it gets you through the Psalms twice in a year, and so at any given point during the year you're in some section of the Psalms. At the time of this recording we just started one, but that means we're going to be working through the Psalms chapter or two a day for the next several months and then later on in the fall we'll do the same thing, and so if you really are engaging this plan, you're going to find yourself in the Psalms almost more often than not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a good bit, which is really great and very typical to historic Christian practice. Christians throughout history have taken the Psalms very seriously and had them as a part of their diet, their daily diet of what it means to walk with Jesus. So as I was studying the Psalms this was probably seven years ago now I read this book called Seeing the Psalms by William Brown. Um, is that right William Brown? I think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's that is a guy that writes on that type of thing. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:And, uh, it's, and. And so his book Seeing the Psalms is about the theology of metaphor in the book of Psalms. Um, one of the distinctives of Hebrew poetry is its use of metaphor, and it's rich in its use of metaphor, and so he essentially shows how there are these kind of meta metaphors, if you will, or these kind of anchor metaphors, and then from those anchor metaphors come all these related metaphors. Okay, so, simply put, the number one metaphor in the book of Psalms is and I wonder what our listeners would guess- yeah, let's even just leave it there for a minute.
Speaker 1:What is the number one metaphor in Psalms? And just get a clear, distinct. What do you think it is? Just kind of sit there with it.
Speaker 2:You might think Psalm 23,. Right, the Lord is my shepherd. You might think about Psalm 16, where the Lord is my portion. You could think about Psalm 150, about how let everything that has breath give praise, like this breath, nature of what it means to praise. You've given them all these wrong answers only.
Speaker 1:That's right, isn't that?
Speaker 2:amazing. The number one metaphor in the book of Psalms is refuge. It's refuge, and so what refuge? Though? It's one of those meta metaphors where it connects with a bunch of other ones.
Speaker 2:So today is the 4th. It's April 4th that we're recording this on, and so I have a practice of taking the month, the day of the month, and multiplying it by 5., and that gives me 5 psalms to read, to pray, to think through for that day. So I take the 4th of the month, multiply it by 5. That's 20. And then I back up 5. So the psalms for today are psalms 16 through 20. Okay, so I know that was confusing, but Let the listener work out the math. Yeah, that's right Track with me here. So let me just this is just an example. We could have recorded this yesterday or tomorrow. I would have done tried the same thing.
Speaker 2:Now listen to this Psalm 16, the first Psalm for today. Preserve me, o God, for in you I take refuge, literally the first line of Psalm 16. You get to Psalm 17. And if you're just kind of scrolling your eyes through this and looking for these, you might think you might find 17, verse seven. Wondrously, show your steadfast love, oh, savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand. Okay, so then we'll go on to Psalm 18. It doesn't get very, you don't have to go very far.
Speaker 2:This one is just like David's pulling out all the stops. I love you, o Yahweh, my strength, yahweh is here. It is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who's worthy to be praised, and save me from my enemies. Okay, so there's a good example of refuge.
Speaker 2:Has these other related metaphors like rock shield, stronghold, strong tower, fortress. Those are all refuge-like metaphors. Another one would be the bird metaphors of hide me under the shadow of your wings. Or the worship metaphors of let me enter into your sanctuary and you hide me under the shadow of your wings. Or the worship metaphors of let me enter into your sanctuary and you hide me under the cover of your tent. Psalm 27 talks about Lift me high upon a rock right. All of these metaphors that the Psalms use are talking about the exact same thing, which is refuge, a place where you seek safety, security from the difficulties of life, whether inside of you or around you, and so let's now go back to secure attachment.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because, I said earlier, john Bowlby is the founder and he had somebody named Mary Ainsworth who kind of continued his work. And Mary Ainsworth took Bowl of, continued his work and Mary Ainsworth took Bowlby's work and distilled it. And here's the three kind of key fundamental criteria for secure attachment. So you know that there's an attachment relationship when the first one is there's a maintenance of proximity. Okay so the language is proximity seeking behavior. In other words, people prefer to be near an attachment figure, especially in times of stress or need. Now, hopefully, those of you who know much or anything about the book of Psalms, you recognize how the entire book of Psalms is proximity seeking behavior. Yeah, all you have to do is pick up the book of Psalms and just pray through Psalm 16, preserve me, oh God, for in you I take refuge. That's proximity-seeking behavior. So that's the first part. Now here's the second part is the provision of a safe haven. And so the safe haven is when an attachment figure relieves an attached individual's distress and provides comfort, encouragement and support. Okay so, proximity, maintenance of proximity, a safe haven. And the third one is a secure base, and I'm going to distinguish those two in a moment. A secure base is when an attachment figure increases the attached individual's sense of security, which in turn sustains exploration, risk-taking and self-development. Okay so this is how a secure base and a safe haven works.
Speaker 2:Just think if you go to any playground where kiddos are running around and having a good time and their parents are kind of encircling around the outside of the playground, right, you'll see this happen, where a toddler will venture off away from mom or dad's legs and kind of go do something and you might actually watch they'll do this thing. Where they'll look back and just check in every now and again to make sure their mom or dad is still there. And then let's just say they're climbing a little bit too high and they trip and fall and hurt themselves. What do they do? They immediately beeline it right back to mom or dad and mom and dad hopefully picks them up, calms them, soothes them, and then they can put them back down. And what happens? The kid goes and ventures off again. That's all three of these things happening.
Speaker 2:There's a secure base, which is the place from which the child launches out into a potentially dangerous world. But it's okay that it's dangerous, because I always know I have a safe haven to come back to. I always have this place. I can come back to where I'm going to be okay and I'm going to be nurtured and I'm going to experience my distress, soothe, I'm going to receive comfort, encouragement, support, whatever I need, and then, okay, I can launch back into the world from my secure base again. So, but that movement back and forth from the secure base and the safe haven is what's called maintenance of proximity or proximity seeking behavior, and so that dynamic is exactly what we see happening constantly in the book of Psalms when we talk about this refuge metaphor. So, nate, you know the Psalms well, you know attachment theory well. What does that evoke in you, just even as we kind of walk through those things?
Speaker 1:I mean, if it is true and I'm not questioning the truth that refuge is this sort of meta metaphor, it seems unquestionable. All you have to do is just read the Psalms. And there's other metaphors, but even the ones that you mentioned the Lord is my shepherd is one it's like. Well, that's not a refuge metaphor, but if you look at the language of even that Psalm, it is the things that you just mentioned. The shepherd needs to be nearby. The shepherd is creating a safe haven for the sheep. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. It also has an interesting proximity maintenance in the pronouns. The shepherd is a he, so distance early in the Psalm and then later in the Psalm it's a you.
Speaker 1:Now he's moved closer and it's unclear necessarily whether the sheep's gotten closer, the shepherd's gotten closer, but either way the gap has been closed so that I feel safe. And so it's safety, security imagery, even if it's not refuge metaphor imagery. So once you expand it like that, it's like well, actually it's maybe even more pervasive in the Psalms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so well said. Yeah, why is it that I'm okay walking through the valley of the shadow of death? Because you are with me, your rod and your staff. They comfort me. Comfort is one of the things that a safe haven provides, and so I think there's so much richness and so much potential here. And I want to look at Psalm 22, because I think this one's actually where this initially really hooked my attention and began to get worked out for me. But before we do, I really want to put this question out there that it's a working question for me. In other words, I don't have a conclusive answer that makes me feel like, yeah, I've buttoned that one up and the question is okay.
Speaker 2:So this makes sense. If you're talking about a physical mom or a physical dad to whom the child can run and literally experience strong arms, lifting them up, holding them, soothing them, calming them right, Looking into their eyes, regulating their right brain, regulating the child's right brain and their nervous system, calming the child's nervous system this is all the things that happen in attachment, secure, attached relationships. What does it mean to take refuge in a God who is spirit, which is what we confess? God is a spirit, and so that's a real question and I think the Psalms tutor us in that. But it means that in some ways we have to take refuge by faith, not by sense.
Speaker 2:And yet I genuinely believe the kind of refuge that the Lord provides, the secure base and the safe haven that the Lord provides is relevant to our physical natures. In other words, it actually, if you take God as your refuge and you find security and safety in him, if you seek proximity to him, it actually can regulate your nervous system. It actually can make you, it can bring you back into a window of tolerance and out of fight, flight, freeze, whatever your propensity might be in a moment of fear. I really sincerely believe that. But then I really want to work this out in a practical way. Like, what does it mean to take refuge in a God who is spirit, who's not an actual tower that you could run into and like shut the door and lock it and feel the rock walls around you kind of encasing you in Right? That's a real challenge.
Speaker 1:It is a real challenge. Yeah, Because it is a. You don't want to go too far in one direction and say, well, it's just all supernatural Like.
Speaker 1:if you just have enough faith, the spirit will rewire your nervous system so that you feel these things where you're just sort of you're making it too mystical at that point. But that's also a live option, because it's because God is spirit and because his spirit dwells within me. That doesn't not affect my biology. There's maybe ways I could hinder its effect on my biology. There's maybe ways I could hinder its effect on my biology. There's maybe ways I could enhance its effect on my biology. But there's not a sense in which that does not have some sort of biological effect, even if it can't be mapped biologically.
Speaker 2:That's such a good point. And in fact the word supernatural we use it a good bit. It's not a Bible word, though it's actually from. You'd probably know better than me on this. I think it's a fairly modern word. I don't think you find Aquinas and Augustine and you don't find the church using the word supernatural that often.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's a well, I could even clarify that's even a. It's a modern category, and when we say modern, we really mean theology done post-enlightenment, post, Even just the creation of religion as something that's separate from philosophy or separate from theology. Now we have a natural world that's like a self-contained thing. So a supernatural thing is something that's outside.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Then eventually you're like well then, how do we? Even we can't measure that, so then that doesn't even exist. And so yeah, I would say supernatural and natural are very modern, they're a little sketchy categories.
Speaker 2:Right, they're not biblical categories. They're not biblical categories because this is the way the Bible talks about the Son. In Matthew 5, jesus says that the Father makes his Son shine on the wicked and the righteous, on the evil, the good, the just and the unjust. Okay, so if that's true, the very natural thing, like the sun rising and setting every day, is apparently, it's God, the Father, making the sun rise which sounds very supernatural, but it's not. It's actually God's providential care of his creation that is sustaining all things at all times.
Speaker 1:And that's actually the important point. There is the view of the author of the Bibles and a biblical view. It's not nature, it's creation. It's creation, that's right.
Speaker 2:With the creator. That is a very important distinction.
Speaker 1:So, it is the creator's creation. He interacts with it in a way that's not. It's just doing its thing, and then sometimes he intervenes. That's not the way that we would want people to think about it.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's so good, and and so, in that sense, a miracle, uh, is a real concern for people who have a natural supernatural dichotomy. Um, a miracle is the in-breaking of the supernatural into the natural, um, and yet, as if it doesn't belong there. As if it doesn't belong there. And in some ways CS Lewis makes the argument a miracle, by definition, can't be something that's normally experienced, right? And yet he also makes the same point, which is you know, jesus, turning water into wine was miraculous. And he said but isn't all wine just water turned into wine? It just takes a little bit longer for the grapes to draw it from the ground, and then the fermentation process, and then the barreling and all these other things that happen. He's like all wine is water turned into wine. Jesus just kind of expedited the process.
Speaker 2:And so why is this relevant to Psalms and secure attachment? It's because I want to be really concerned with the point that you so helpfully brought up, which is don't just go supernatural on this. In other words, let me use the language of Kurt Thompson, who I referenced earlier. He's got a book called the Soul of Shame and in there he has this quote he says our patterns of attachment deeply influence the way we experience our relationship with God, for God has to deal with the same brain that we do. He engages the same proclivities we have for avoiding or being anxious about the intimacy of relationships. It is not as if we get to put our brains, which are wired in a particular way, through our attachment patterns, on the shelf and somehow draw on a separate one when it comes to dealing with God. That would be we don't get to just become supernatural in our relationship with God, but then we naturally relate to everybody else. It doesn't work that way. God comes to the same set of neural networks that our friends, parents, spouse, children or enemies do. So the way you relate to your friends, parents, spouse, children or enemies is probably pretty indicative of how you relate to God. If you're not a very good, if you're not very good at relating to your spouse or your friends or your enemies or your neighbors, you're probably not going to be very good at relating to God. And so if you don't actually know how to feel, felt and sense the nearness and intimacy and presence of a human, you probably should expect you're not going to very much experience that from God. That's essentially what Kurt Thompson's arguing, because the same proclivities you have in a relationship with other people is going to show up in the way you relate to God.
Speaker 2:Now, god is free. God is always free. So God is not bound by my attachment defects. He can always break through and does truly. He really does. Ephesians 3 talks about this ability for God to supernaturally tease that word again, for the spirit to come and to strengthen us so that we can receive the love of God that surpasses knowledge. Right, and so there's this breakthrough. That's real and true. And yet the ordinary means by which God relates to us is through the same neural networks, the same attachment style that we relate to our coworkers and our friends and the people that we spend time with.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and you're framing it that way, and we could even double down on framing it the other way of the way. I am inclined to relate with God, or relate to God is very much the same way.
Speaker 1:I would relate to closest people in my life, so parents growing up, siblings, but then spouse friends, neighbors and kind of expanding the circles there spouse friends, neighbors and kind of expanding the circles there. It makes me think of just the idea that we talk about how we relate to God as a personal relationship and so, if it is true that we say it is, you're relating to a person and so there's not a special category, for well, I relate to God in this way.
Speaker 1:That's right, and I relate to everyone else in my life this other, completely different way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good way to say it. In fact, you know, if they're not persuaded by us or by Kurt Thompson, let's have the Bible speak here. There we go. So, john, in 1 John, chapter four, verse 20. Now reminder John is the beloved disciple who inclined his head on the chest of Jesus and heard the very heartbeat of the incarnate holy God of the universe. So that's somebody who has a vantage point into some things, right, I mean, like he knows some things. This is what John says in 1 John 4, 20. If anyone says, quote I love God, end quote and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. What's John doing there? He's saying, listen, you could flip it the other way and say, oh, I've got this wonderful relationship between me and God. Like we. Just, we have a. I have great quiet times.
Speaker 1:It's so rich we're vibing.
Speaker 2:That's right. I'm getting all the Holy Spirit feels like it's amazing. But then I kind of frankly, I'm kind of a jerk, or let's just say I'm pretty, I'm passive, aggressive, or I'm somewhat emotionally avoidant, or I have hesitancy to offer my need in relationship, or I have very low emotional intelligence, very low EQ, or, you know, keep filling the blanks. I have a. I have a kind of a track record of broken and ruptured relationships. None of them are my fault, of course. Right, that's true.
Speaker 2:If that's true, john's saying you're a liar about your relationship with God. In fact, you actually have probably tricked yourself into thinking it's way better than it really is. Now. Okay, take John on with that one, not me, because I think that there's strong language there John is using. But what he's saying is he's trying to inextricably link the first and second great commandments.
Speaker 2:That to love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, but to not love your neighbor as yourself is a contradiction in terms. You cannot do that. And so this is relevant to Psalms and secure attachment, because I believe the book of Psalms is intended to help us heal our attachment, the way in which we attach to primary caregivers, friends, spouses, leaders, god all of these different ways that we can relate to people. I actually believe praying, meditating, living in the book of Psalms has the ability to bring healing to those areas so that we can actually relate to God and our neighbor better. So with that I want to look at Psalm 22. Okay, because I'm kind of going back to the beginning a little bit here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's even just recap just a little bit just kind of like plot, how we got to where we even landed. Right now we started out. We kind of gave background on this thing called attachment theory. We defined what it is for people not necessarily as granular as we will in maybe another episode. We just sort of laid out the three defining features of the attachment theory. We haven't talked about attachment styles yet. We're saving that for another one it's going to be a good one. You mentioned feeling felt along the way.
Speaker 1:We haven't talked about the significance of something like that. We've talked about just the place of Psalms in the history of Christian church very briefly, how we're engaging it in just our Bible reading plan, and then also the interconnectedness of how we relate to everyone in our lives, including God. So, god, and so horizontal and vertical, the interconnected one is not special and the other ones you're broken or you know. They have the same not exact same status, but they are very similar to one another.
Speaker 2:And so then now Psalm 22. Let's look at Psalm 22 together and that was a great recap, by the way, oh thank you and the reason why we want to look at.
Speaker 1:I was listening.
Speaker 2:We want to look at Psalm 22 together is because I think there's something really relevant here. To kind of back up a little bit In psychology, there's this language of family of origin. So this is the primary caregivers you grew up with. For most people throughout history, that's mother, father, siblings Plenty of people, that's mother, father, siblings Actually this is probably more of the majority and then generations in the home too. That's probably the majority today and throughout history that you'd have grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, all kind of in this tight family knit environment. That's your family of origin, right?
Speaker 1:Or it's your origin story, if you want to be more dramatic about it.
Speaker 2:That's right, yep. And so if you use even like a four chapter story to describe the meta narrative of the universe, which is creation, fall, redemption, restoration, we also have a four chapter story and this would be in the creation category, right, and some of your fall it comes from your family of origin, like who are you? Where are you from? What were your early childhood experiences? What formed you early on, for better or for worse? Right, all of those things happen and it actually starts in utero. It starts before you're even born, through things called epigenetics and the state of anxiety that your mother's in while she's, you know, while you're getting all of your nutrients and things like that through her in her body, right, right? So those kinds of things. If her cortisol levels are high, you're going to internalize those as a pre, you know, as a baby in utero, essentially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's some wild statistics with that which we can get into in a later episode.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:The effects that it has.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so there's something called the ACEs scale or the ACEs questionnaire, which is Adverse Childhood Experiences, ace, and the ACEs has 10 questions to it. There's some other ones that have added a few more around growing up in under-resourced areas, things like that. But basically what it comes down to is if you have a lot of adverse childhood experiences, you are more likely to have things like drug addiction, dropout of school, higher unemployment rates, various cardiovascular diseases. I mean it is unbelievable the correlation between your various cardiovascular diseases. I mean it is unbelievable the correlation between your adverse childhood experiences and your later in life experience of what it means to be a human. So all that is a way to kind of clear my throat to say your early childhood formation with your mother and your father is very formative, or lack thereof.
Speaker 1:Or lack thereof In a lot of cases.
Speaker 2:It's exactly right. So let's look at Psalm 22, which is known as the my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's known as kind of a crucifixion Psalm in a lot of ways, but in Psalm 22, verse nine, it says this speaking to God, yet you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother's breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near and there's none to help. Okay, so the psalmist here seems to be making a case for from my mother's womb you've been my God. Okay, our Baptist brothers and sisters might have to wrestle with that one a little bit. Been my God Okay, our Baptist brothers and sisters might have to wrestle with that one a little bit.
Speaker 2:There's a way in which John the Baptist is a great example. There was a way in which John the Baptist recognized Jesus, the Messiah in utero, left in Elizabeth's womb. Right, there is a knowledge of God, it seems to me here. You made me trust you. At my mother's breasts, there's a knowledge of God, a trust in God that can develop before things like language develop, things like the ability to crawl develop right. I mean, one of the first experiences that a child has is to be laid on its mother's breast and to be able to draw sustenance right. And the psalmist is saying that actually is God teaching that child how to trust God through the secure, attached relationship with the child's mother. So I think that this is where I would argue that attachment theory is not, it's not new in one sense.
Speaker 2:It's been codified and clarified, thank God, by modern science, but it's been around for a long time. So I want to read this quote from Louis Cozzolino as far as I know, not a follower of Jesus. He has a book called the Neuroscience of Human Relationships. The subtitle is called Attachment and the Developing Social Brain. This is a nerdy textbook okay, but as I'm reading it I am taking note of things that are relevant to the Psalms and secure attachment, like this one Quote should we think of our mothers as our first true loves?
Speaker 2:We're touched, held, kissed, fed, cared for and rocked to sleep by our mothers. We gaze into their eyes and learn the joy of connection and the pain of separation. Early in life we learn the smells, sights, touches and sounds of our mother's presence, unconsciously associating these experiences with our bodily and emotional states. We all have what has been called an internalized mother, a network of visceral, somatic and emotional memories of our interactions with our mothers, which are thought to serve as the core of self-esteem, our ability to self-soothe and the foundation of our adult relationships. This early, pre-verbal dyad relationship between mom and child establishes the biological, behavioral and psychological structure of our expectations about other people, the world and the future.
Speaker 2:And I would add and God? I don't think Cosalino believes there's a God. So I'm going to add and God, read that again this early relationship, pre-verbal relationship between mom and child establishes the biological, behavioral and psychological structure of our expectations about other people, the world and the future, and God. That sounds a lot like Psalm 22, verse 9. And so why is this such a big deal? Let me ask you that, nate, because I'll answer the question. But what do you hear in this? What seems significant about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, to me I'm hearing a convergence of the best of the wisdom that psychologists and scientists have, which we might even say is because of common grace, is dovetailing into something that is explained in Scripture. But they're kind of mutually, they shed light on each other. It's not as if you had meditated on Psalm 22 long enough you could have gotten to that quote. It's like I don't think you could unpack all that, but it changes the way you read Psalm 22. Now you're like, okay, these seems like these are talking about the same thing and they mutually inform one another such that it enhances how I understand both things.
Speaker 2:I read that quote differently.
Speaker 1:I read Psalm 22 differently, because it's all God's creation and it's his revelation through multiple means that I'm coming in contact with so good.
Speaker 2:My son, augie, and I do this thing called Science Saturday, and I've catechized him. So I say, augie, why do we do Science Saturday? All we do is we choose a topic and we study it together that day. And Augie, why do we do Science Saturday? He says Psalm 111, 2, great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them, which is my maybe one verse summary of science that the works of the Lord are really great. The relationship between mother and child is a really incredible thing that God created. He designed it that way right. Great are the works of the Lord, and those who delight in the works of the Lord they study those things. That's what a good scientist does.
Speaker 2:I think Cosolino is a good scientist. He does really good science, and so he's studying the works of the Lord, even though he wouldn't call them that, and he's a good observer, he's a good reflector, he's a good communicator of what he observes in those ways, and he's observed the relationship between mother and child and in many ways it sounds similar to Psalm 22, verses nine and 10. Again, you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother's breasts. On you was I cast for my birth and from my mother's womb you have been my God.
Speaker 2:Now we'll wrap up here, but it's not for nothing that the 10 commandments, historically, have been broken into kind of two sections. The first four are the commandments about how you love God and the next six are commandments about how you love your neighbor. Now, the bridge commandment, arguably, is commandments four or five, right, four being keeping the Sabbath, five being honor your father and mother. Now, if what I'm arguing is true, that the way you learn to trust your mother and your father, your early attachment figures, is actually directly connected to your ability and capacity to trust God, apart from the Holy Spirit dramatically changing your hardwiring, your neurology or your neural networks, rather, if that's true that mother and father are actually meant as gifts to their children to help them learn to attach with God and trust God in the ways that they attach to their mother and father and trust them, then it makes sense that the fifth commandment honoring your father and mother would be a bridge between how do I love God and how do I love my neighbor, because I'm learning to love God through loving and honoring mom and dad and I'm learning to love my neighbor through honoring and loving my mom and dad.
Speaker 2:They are this bridge between you're relating to God and you're relating to others. Your family of origin really matters. Your early attachment figures really matter, because that's going to shape the way you attach to God, the way you relate to God and the way that you can relate to other people, and I believe the book of Psalms has the power to actually help rewire our neural networks in the ways in which we relate to God, even if we've learned some poor relating to humans some poor attachment styles.
Speaker 2:We had maybe the absence of an important attachment figure growing up. I believe the book of Psalms is meant to develop in us. The title of this podcast, the Psalms and secure attachment.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I don't think I could sum it up any better than that, but I do think that kind of points us, gives us kind of a road ahead of. This was not intended to be a comprehensive hey, now you're going to understand everything about how the Psalms and secure attachment relate. It's just more of a let's introduce the topic and then you and I are going to have a few more conversations, and we already mentioned we've got to talk about there's different styles of attachment. We've got to talk about some of these other things and then see how the Psalms are going to shed light on how we understand those things. So, Ben, I'm glad we had time today to sit down and talk through some things, and you and I have had several conversations off air about this.
Speaker 1:So I kind of have a hint of where we might be going, but I hope that, as everyone else is listening to this, they're just as excited about it. And Summer in the Psalms is a little bit farther on down the road and we didn't say what it's going to be. But I think listeners might be able to piece some of the things together if they're paying attention. That's right.
Speaker 2:Well, Nate, it's such a gift to have this conversation with you because you're a theologian who cares about psychology, neuroscience, attachment theory. I'm a pastor, I'm a therapist. I really care about these psychological categories, but I also really care about theology and understanding historical theology and biblical studies and things like that, and so we have different emphases but they compliment each other pretty well for this conversation in particular Right, because in some sense, once upon a time, I was a psychology major.
Speaker 1:So it is my roots before I went to Samaria and did what I'm doing now.
Speaker 2:So we're looking forward to future conversations as we unpack the Psalms and secure attachment together Absolutely.