The Heart and the Head

In this episode, I look at Psalm 23 - "The Lord is my Shepherd..." and examine it from the lens of what it tells us about faith. Is faith useful and practical for human beings?Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this podcast, I look at Jesus's conversation with Pontius Pilate. Pilate asks Jesus, "what is truth?" revealing a deeply cynical outlook on the world. I examine that question as a temptation to a philosophy which all of us must reckon with. Will we choose Pilate's philosophy or find another one to call our own?Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

On this podcast, I look at Mark 3:1-6, where we read about Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath, and how that affects a group of Pharisees.In this second part of the two-part series, I look at Jesus's emotional response to the Pharisees' hard hearts. I argue that this tells us something about our emotions on a Biblical view, as well as about what it means for Jesus to be Emmanuel -- "God with us".Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

On this podcast, I look at Mark 3:1-6, where we read about Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath, and how that affects a group of Pharisees.I argue that Jesus attempts to use philosophy to reason with these Pharisees, which shows us the blessedness of philosophy, but that the reaction of the Pharisees reveals the limits of philosophy.I mention my dissertation (published by ProQuest, 2024) in this podcast. Here's a link to it for those who are curious: https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI31236250/Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this episode, I continue my discussion of common characteristics in direct experiences with God through examining the account of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus, and a letter the philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote referencing an experience he had.This is the second half of the discussion, you can find the first half by looking in the podcast history.This show contains an impassioned reflection at the beginning of it about the importance of independent, critical thinking in the context of the current geopolitical situation today.Here is the text of the note Pascal wrote to himself:The year of grace 1654,Monday, 23 November, feast of St. Clement, pope and martyr, and others in the martyrology.Vigil of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others.From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight,FIRE.GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacobnot of the philosophers and of the learned.Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.GOD of Jesus Christ.My God and your God.Your GOD will be my God.Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.Grandeur of the human soul.Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.I have departed from him:They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.My God, will you leave me?Let me not be separated from him forever.This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ.Jesus Christ.Jesus Christ.I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified.Let me never be separated from him.He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:Renunciation, total and sweet.Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.Eternally in joy for a day’s exercise on the earth.May I not forget your words. Amen.Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this episode, I discuss common characteristics in direct experiences with God through examining the account of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus, and a letter the philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote referencing an experience he had.This is only Part I of the discussion, more will be released in the future.Here is the text of the note Pascal wrote to himself:The year of grace 1654,Monday, 23 November, feast of St. Clement, pope and martyr, and others in the martyrology.Vigil of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others.From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight,FIRE.GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacobnot of the philosophers and of the learned.Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.GOD of Jesus Christ.My God and your God.Your GOD will be my God.Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.Grandeur of the human soul.Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.I have departed from him:They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.My God, will you leave me?Let me not be separated from him forever.This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ.Jesus Christ.Jesus Christ.I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified.Let me never be separated from him.He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:Renunciation, total and sweet.Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.Eternally in joy for a day’s exercise on the earth.May I not forget your words. Amen.Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this episode, I examine Isaiah, Chapter 11: 6-9 and compare it's depiction of a future paradise to the depiction the Greek philosopher Plato gives in Republic.-----------------------------------Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this episode, I focus my own reflections today on a portion of this well-known passage from Isaiah which often doesn’t get much attention. This is the portion at the beginning of the passage, from verses 2-3, where we learn that this messianic figure, who turns out to be Jesus was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain,a man whom people hide their faces from, who was despised and held in low esteem.Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this episode, I look at the account of what is sometimes referred to as "Jacob's Ladder". I argue that this is a depiction of an opposite way of life to what we examined last show, with the tower of Babel.--------------If you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected] passage I’ll look at for the next show will be Isaiah's account of a messianic figure in Isaiah 53: "He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain."If you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected] the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this episode, I look at the story of the tower of Babel found in the Bible's book of Genesis. I argue that the picture of "building monuments" represents an existential act we human beings take to try to try to make meaning for our own lives. I also argue that this is a clear depiction of the nature of sin.--------------If you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected] passage I’ll look at for the next show will be the account of the Tower of Babel, found in Genesis 11.If you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected] the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this episode I look at Jesus's response to the Pharisees and Herodians question about paying taxes to Rome. Jesus replies, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”I argue that Jesus is urging us to shift our point of view entirely about worldly authority, and recognize instead the authority of a loving God.--------------If you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected] passage I’ll look at for the next show will be the account of the Tower of Babel, found in Genesis 11.Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this episode, I look at Jesus's arrest and his words to Peter, "all who draw the sword will die by the sword," in the context of a culture which increasingly condones the use of force, and sometimes violence to attain one's ends.--------------If you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected] passage I’ll look at for the next show will be Jesus’s confrontation with the Pharisees about paying taxes to Caesar, found in Matthew 22.Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this episode, I reflect on the following passage from Ephesians 4:14 in the Bible:"Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."I discuss how this passage describes aptly, in its "blown here and there by every wind of teaching", the qualities of some of those who have committed recent violent atrocities in the name of some political identity they hold. I discuss how the only true solution to the problem of identity is the one Paul gives in Ephesians: giving ourselves and our ideologies up to the creator God, embodied in Jesus Christ.I also discuss how Christians themselves must embody these qualities in their discourse. If we attach our identities to our politics, we need to either repent, or to question whether we are really Christians at all.Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this episode, I explain the new format I'll be using for the Heart and the Head going forward. New episodes of the Heart and the Head subsequently will be released with the title "The Heart and the Head - Reflecting on Scripture", and will feature Bible passages as springboards to reflection. I discuss why I am making this change and justify it in this podcast. Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this show, I'll discuss the problem of polarization and identity politics. I will discuss the phenomenon of polarization: what it is, and why it happens. By first figuring out the answers this show to what polarization is and why it occurs, next show, we will move to examine how to solve it.Topics discussed are as follows:-What is Polarization? In order to discuss this topic, I will look at French Philosopher Rene Girard's conception of Mimetic desire, which will help us understand in a wider sense how polarization relates in a basic way to human nature.-Two different answers to one question: "Why Are we so Polarized?" The answers are: (1) Dehumanization, (2) Self-Identity and how identity relates to polarization.Because much work has been done on the first answer, I focus my reflections on the second answer, which I consider more primary. In order to examine it, I'll be relying primarily on Soren Kierkegaard's analysis of human identity in The Sickness Unto Death and Walker Percy's exploration of the same topic in Lost in the Cosmos.Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In these three episodes, I look at different ways we might respond and choose to experience suffering we encounter in our lives.This episode looks at how we might begin to find meaning in our suffering. There are a few guiding texts which I reference during this discussion: Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Huxley's Brave New World, and the Bible's Book of Job.Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In these three episodes, I look at different ways we might respond and choose to experience suffering we encounter in our lives.This episode looks at an option before us when we suffer: to see our suffering as meaningless. There are a few guiding texts which I reference during this discussion: Shakespeare’s Macbeth; as well as works by Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, and William Faulkner.Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In the next three episodes, I look at different ways we might respond and choose to experience suffering we encounter in our lives. ·There are a few guiding texts which I'll use for my discussions over these shows: primarily Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning; Shakespeare’s Macbeth; Bessel Van De Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, Brene Browne’s lecture series, The Power of Vulnerability, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World; comments by the German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche on this theme, and the Bible's Book of Job.This episode looks at the the tactic of avoiding suffering: ways that we attempt to dissociate from, or numb ourselves out to, the suffering in our lives.Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In this episode, we consider the role that suffering and pain play in the philosophical life. Suffering and pain can cause us to "hit a bottom", propelling us to live differently as a result. We consider this topic through a discussion of Boethius's consolation of philosophy, also considering a diversity of resources from Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, an opinion piece by David Brooks in the NYTimes, Terrence Malick's film A Hidden Life, and the biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky.Let this quote from Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning guide our reflections:"The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified, and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal."Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]

In the first episode of the podcast, I outline goals of the podcast, address the question of why anyone would want to live philosophically in the first place, and explain the name of the podcast - the Heart and the Head.Support the showIf you have questions or comments about content from this episode, please send feedback to [email protected]