{"id":27574,"date":"2026-09-08T08:04:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T12:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27574"},"modified":"2026-09-08T08:50:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T12:50:02","slug":"27574","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27574","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Center and the Edge<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Stable Song - Gregory Alan Isakov (Lyrics)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0M-99D98w00?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Tuesday, September 8, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>I have learned to <strong>prize holy ignorance more highly than religious certainty and to seek companions who have arrived at the same place<\/strong>. &nbsp;<br>\u2014Barbara Brown Taylor,<em>&nbsp;Leaving Church&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The writer Barbara Brown Taylor had to deepen her trust in God, as she stepped away from pastoring in an Episcopal church:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By the time I resigned from Grace-Calvary, I had arrived at an understanding of faith that had far more to do with trust than with certainty. I<strong> trusted God to be God even if I could not say who God was for sure. I trusted God to sustain the world although I could not say for sure how that happened.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I trusted God to hold me and those I loved, in life and in death, without giving me one shred of conclusive evidence that it was so. While this understanding had the welcome effect of <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">changing faith from a noun to a verb f<\/span><\/strong>or me, it was an understanding that told me how far I had strayed from the center of my old spiritual map.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like any other map, mine had both a center and an edge. At the center stood the Church, where good women baked communion bread, ironed altar linens, and polished silver that had been in the church family for generations. Parents presented their children for baptism, and those children grew up with dozens of church aunts and uncles who knew them by name\u2026. These people at the center kept the map from blowing away.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As it turned out, the edge of the map was not all that far from the center\u2026. All we had to do was step outside the Church and walk to where the lights from the sanctuary did not pierce the darkness anymore\u2026. There were no slate roofs or signs to the restroom out there, no printed programs or friendly ushers. There was just the unscripted encounter with the undomesticated God whose name was unpronounceable\u2026. These people at the edge kept the map from becoming redundant.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the Bible, both the center and the edge are essential to the spiritual landscape, although they are as different from one another as they can be&#8230;. There is life in both places \u2026, but they are so different from one another that it is often difficult for people \u2026 to agree that both places really belong on the same map. Much that is certain at the center is up for grabs in the wilderness. [1] &nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br><em>Brown Taylor feels called to continue her vocation beyond priestly ordination:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My vocation was to love God and my neighbor, and that was something I could do anywhere, with anyone, with or without a collar. My<strong> priesthood was <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">not what I did but who I was<\/span>. In this new light, nothing was wasted. All that had gone before was blessing, and all yet to come was more<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>======================<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/app-link\/post?publication_id=3367802&amp;post_id=213403922&amp;utm_source=post-email-title&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=2dkj2&amp;token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozOTkyMzY2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoyMTM0MDM5MjIsImlhdCI6MTc4ODg2ODk1NCwiZXhwIjoxNzkxNDYwOTU0LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzM2NzgwMiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.QFQ0VUo_1tJbbFDcKTLC6cVa1Dmemrr-9jQ39hpYE50\">Building Character Through Connection&nbsp;<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">(Not Perfection)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@chuckdegroat\">CHUCK DEGROAT<\/a>      SEP 8<\/td><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@chuckdegroat\"><\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s something I\u2019ve learned about character formation across thirty years of ministry and counseling.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Who you really are shows up right here and now<\/strong>\u2014in patterns of&nbsp;<em>thinking, believing, feeling, working<\/em>, and&nbsp;<em>relating<\/em>&nbsp;that reveal the deeper and more subtle habits of your heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sure, we\u2019re all prone to occasional mistakes and misjudgments. Even people of high character will sometimes disappoint themselves and others. It\u2019s inevitable. Yet when it comes to character,&nbsp;<strong>we shouldn\u2019t just pay attention to one-off behaviors; instead, we should focus on what has become second nature, revealed in the everyday habits and patterns of our lives.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>And those habits didn\u2019t begin yesterday.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To take character seriously, we need to look deeper and start much earlier.&nbsp;<strong>Because who you are didn\u2019t happen overnight.&nbsp;<\/strong>The architecture of your character has been shaped over a lifetime. Who you are is revealed not just in the habits of the heart, but in the hub of what James K. A. Smith calls the \u201cautomaticities\u201d\u2014the workings of the central nervous system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well before modern advancements in neuroscience and physiology, ancient pastoral psychologists were mapping the inner landscape. Rowan Williams notes that these cartographers of the soul named a \u201cwhole realm of instinct, reaction, [and] coping mechanisms\u201d that drive our outward behaviors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you want to understand character and why people are the way they are, you\u2019ve got to understand&nbsp;<strong>what\u2019s happening at this subterranean level&nbsp;<\/strong>within the human heart. You need to pay attention to that realm of instinct, reaction, and coping mechanisms that often operates beneath conscious awareness. Or in more contemporary parlance, you need to pay attention to emotional regulation and dysregulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/bd56c7fa-6dab-4ab8-b9f6-def3341d291a?j=eyJ1IjoiMmRrajIifQ.ND0qR5RKsmVnltuWgIlyr3BY7uwq2Kt9ZzX29UJK4cg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!6vls!,w_538,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F843ffb80-288d-4592-83d4-18cc496d0b32_5375x3588.jpeg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Image from \u201cBelow the Waterline\u201d from Grant Bulloch\u2019s Substack<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And these states are anchored in your story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before you had words, your body was already asking, Am I safe? Am I seen? Am I loved? Often, your present character is a&nbsp;<strong>direct result of the answer your body was given in those early days,<\/strong>&nbsp;inextricably shaped by these deep, embodied learnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your parents or caregivers consistently responded to your needs, you likely internalized a felt sense of security. Through the reliable presence and secure love of your parents or caregivers, you experienced the soothing co-regulation your young and fragile nervous system needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This safe connection may have led to habits of regulation, prompting healthy patterns of reflection, compassion, kindness, patience, long-suffering, even self-awareness\u2014echoes of Christlike character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Conversely, the prolonged absence of co-regulation\u2014either through neglect or abuse\u2014shapes the soul and body much differently. If your early needs were met with inconsistency, criticism, or absence, your body likely learned to adapt.&nbsp;<strong>You may have become hypervigilant and people-pleasing, performing for approval, or withdrawing to protect yourself. These are all signs of a character shaped for self-protection and survival, leading to internal division.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such adaptations don\u2019t just disappear either; they become the soil out of which habits grow. As these early self-protective strategies endure into adulthood, they become second nature. And the capacity to love becomes disordered\u2014which, from a classic theological lens, simply means that our loves are out of order. Instead of learning that love is anchored in connection, we find that love is based on survival and self-protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When our lives are shaped more by survival than connection and when our hearts become divided and disordered, patterns of autonomic nervous system dysregulation are inevitable.&nbsp;<strong>This isn\u2019t something to beat ourselves up about, but it is an invitation to curiosity<\/strong>&nbsp;because our reflexive responses do have an impact\u2014on us and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At times, our patterns will be charged with the self-protective energy of what I call Storm, reflecting the activation of our sympathetic nervous system. Here, we might see the instinctive and involuntary response of fight, flight, fawn, and find. At other times, our patterns will reflect the parasympathetic pull to preserve energy or shut down in what I call Fog\u2014with its responses of freeze and fold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These six patterns\u2014<strong>fight, flight, fawn, find, freeze, and fold<\/strong>\u2014often shift from short-term survival responses to chronic and long-term ways of navigating a fraught world,&nbsp;<strong>the proverbial mask becoming the only face we know.<\/strong>&nbsp;Once these autonomic responses become second nature, they\u2019re hard to see. We may even baptize them as righteous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there is hope, my friends. Our nervous system is not set in stone;&nbsp;<strong>our learned automaticities can change with curiosity and compassion<\/strong>. Over time, it\u2019s possible to reorient ourselves away from disconnection and back toward connection, creating the conditions for the character change we long for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Character, you see, is not ultimately behavioral. It\u2019s relational.<\/strong>&nbsp;In some ways, then, Christlike character, too, is more caught than taught. Of course, a mix of factors contribute to Christlike character and wholehearted devotion: worship, discipleship, prayer, community, catechesis, and more. But these are actually built on a&nbsp;<strong>foundation of connection<\/strong>\u2014and wither when it is absent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This isn\u2019t about perfection; it\u2019s about connection. We don\u2019t have to get it right every time. When we don\u2019t get it right, we get to circle back around and reconnect. We get to check in and re-tune. Perfection doesn\u2019t build the secure foundation. Connection does, even when we mess up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cYou are what you love,\u201d James K. A. Smith writes. Our capacity to love, and love well, requires a secure foundation.&nbsp;<strong>Understanding how your loves were shaped and your habits were formed is key to transformative character change.&nbsp;<\/strong>You are not doomed by your painful past, and there is no expiration date on the possibility of repair and reconnection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Grace isn\u2019t a race to the finish line. You can\u2019t force character change. Reckonings and reformations\u2014personal and collective\u2014take time. A sacred repatterning within needs to happen, and it can with your consent.&nbsp;<strong>If you long to change\u2014or long to see someone you love change\u2014it begins here, at this foundational level, as you find your way into the safe arms of divine Love, as you are held by others who want what\u2019s best for you, as your loves are reordered at the depths.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>===========<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To Contemplate:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where in your life might you be being invited to let go of certainty or self-protection\u2014and trust that connection, rather than having all the answers or getting everything right, is enough?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Center and the Edge Tuesday, September 8, 2026 I have learned to prize holy ignorance more highly than religious certainty and to seek companions who have arrived at the same place. &nbsp;\u2014Barbara Brown Taylor,&nbsp;Leaving Church&nbsp; The writer Barbara Brown Taylor had to deepen her trust in God, as she stepped away from pastoring in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27574"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27582,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27574\/revisions\/27582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}