What Do We Mirror?

Every child thinks their parent(s) can read their minds. Every student thinks teachers have magical ability to know what they are thinking just by looking at them. Every parishioner knows that the priest knows what occupies his or her mind while they sit through the homily (?).

Sometimes it is easy to tell what someone is thinking by just watching their body language or facial expression.  There are days when physical pain causes my brow to crease, and there are times when the pastoral needs of individuals gets heavy to carry and my neck feels like I am carrying a car on my back. We all react to stress differently. There are positive stressors, those that love a deadline and are energized by working well ahead of it and there are negative stressors who procrastinate until the last minute when whatever they produce will have to do.

Our brains are wired to allow us to read each other’s minds. Neuroscience studies of the brain, or its evil twin, schadenfreude (taking joy in the misfortune of another). If the other is losing, you are the winner! Competition seeks to oppose, to compare with another, to win or lose. It may be normal for athletic competitions to have this attitude, but it is not a good perspective for building communities.

Fear of losing or failing fuels competition.  Fear pushes us apart, it breads distrust, it erodes relationships because it seeks safety from potential harm another can cause.  Competition is the trophy of individualism which feeds on competition. Whoever has what he wants, wins. Competition is opposed to sharing because sharing sees the other as person with some degree of equality with the self.

 Soren Kierkegaard said,  “there can be no love in comparison, because comparison breaks the empathic bond of feeling for another”.  Empathy is loving your neighbor as yourself; it is the spiritual ability to feel the pain, grief, joy of another.  Empathy builds relationships.

MRI scans of the brain and psychological case analyses reveal more clearly how our minds work. The mind can do amazing calculations, remember detailed passages of a text, photograph a complex map, remember notes to music, words to a poem.  The mind is also the center of feeling. Our brains are wired for the ability to recognize the feelings of another, to read their mind if you will.

The “open loop” of the limbic system (our emotional center) is influenced by external factors. In short, we rely on connections with other people for our own emotional stability. That is why we seem to be able to read each other’s minds. That is why spouses and best friends can finish one another’s sentences or make the same comment in response to a stimulus, or have the same thought at the same time.  There is a group of neurons in our brain called mirror neurons because they mirror the actions and feelings of others.  Have you ever been around a person with a particular style of speaking or hand use or facial expression and afterward found yourself mimicking that gesture? That is a result of your mirror neurons.

Studies have shown that in a conversation, individuals will mimic each other: nod, wink, smile, but these mirror neurons also allow us to feel. Seeing another yawn, laugh or cry prompts a similar reaction in us.  The mirror networks not only allow us to understand another’s feeling, they actually link us together. If our brains are social organs, the mirror neurons prompt us to seek relationships, to be empathetic to others, to form community.

Daniel Siegel in his book Mindsight says, “relationships are woven into the fabric of our interior world. We come to know our own minds through our interactions with others.”

Our brains are wired to connect. Synapses fire when we connect with another; when we communicate with other minds. Science would posit there is no such thing as an individual, independent mind; our brains are social organisms that work best in relationship. (Andrew Root, How are brains are connected: Wired together, Christian Century April 3, 2013).

That our brains are so wired as to connect with other people is not only an interesting scientific truth but also a spiritual truth.  Our brains are created to indwell other brains! This unique human attribute highlights our ability to think, reason, remember, and relate! We are not just brains on legs, we are relational beings, formed in the image of the triune God – the perichoresis dance of Father, Son, and Spirit. It is vitally important whether or not we choose to mimic the Word made flesh who dwells among us. It is possible that when we spend time reading scripture, contemplating the mighty acts of God, and the amazing history of divine revelation, we can be shaped, our minds can mirror the one we follow.

Jesus in the farewell discourse prayed for the disciples. Every time I think about Jesus praying for them, I want him to pray for me too. The passage reads like an annual report giving the status of the disciples in his care, that he has worked for all of them, and now as he knows his time is nearing its end with them, he prays for them: Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. . . I have given them your word,… sanctify them in the truth – your word is truth.

What do you hear?  I hear the sincere concern of Jesus about the wellbeing of his friends after his departure. I can relate to that! He prays for them because he trusts that God will look over them, bless and keep them, after he is gone. He releases them to God who is always doing better things that we can desire or pray for.  Word is truth: what is that word? It is the promise made perfect in the Son: the one sent into the world to bear witness to God’s love. 

And thrive they did! Read again the sermons by Peter in Acts of the Apostles, about the conversion of thousands! Look around you and see this sacred space with its beautiful windows, numerous doors, and common table. This is one of millions of churches built to the glory of God to house the people of God, to form community that reflects the Body of Christ.

Today, when I hold the host up BEHOLD WHO YOU ARE! Your response is: May we become what we see. You are the body of Christ!