Cerebral Catholics and Emotional Catholics

[blackforest]

For more on this phenomenon, I’m going to recommend that you watch The Lego Movie. No joke. It’s a genius bit of writing because instead of the usual Hollywood trope of a person who leads a dull, boring existence being led to something more exciting by someone who walks on the wild side (which is both unrealistic and nearly always very messy in reality), it is rather about how two people with very different approaches to life (one who follows the rules and one who is creative and spontaneous, i.e. your “cerebral” and “emotional” categories) come together to compliment one another.

I think we can find a lot of examples in both literature and pop culture of the Thinker and the Feeler. The old Star Treck episodes immediately came to my mind, with all of the frequent tensions between Mr. Spock and Dr. Bones McCoy. Or in more recent times, there was Moulder and Scully in The X-Files.

The healthiest approach, however, is not to focus on rigid labels and categorizations, but instead to realize that a little of each exists in every one of us. It’s kind of like how we each have dominant hand, but the other hand still works and serves an important function.

 

[edward_george1]

I’ll add that I consider communication among one of my stronger gifts. Writing and speaking have always come very naturally to me, and I learn languages very easily. I’m decent at reading people and picking up on subtlety. But I can say as well that communication is an art, even among intimate friends. I’ve got friends I’ve known for almost a decade that it took over half of that time to figure out how to communicate with. Nothing wrong with them or me, just that sometimes it takes a while to figure out how to connect. It’s all part of being human.

 

[BartholomewB]

Some of us like reading the Old Testament books of law while others love the poetry of the Psalms.

I expect somebody, at some time, must have devised a questionnaire aimed at classifying people by the books of the Bible that they are naturally drawn to. The books would range, I suppose, from Judges at one end of the scale to Daniel at the other, for the OT, and for the NT say from Acts to Revelation. I know that in my own case my answer would be Judges and Acts, while I’m well aware that there are people out there, both Catholics and Protestants, who would go for Daniel and Revelation.

 

[edward_george1]

I struggle to read Joshua, aka “The Saw Movie of the Old Testament.” Not because it’s roughly six hundred chapters of Joshua and his buddies mowing down everything that moves (no joke, in chapter 3, they get tired and sit down by the river to have lunch, but then they notice some more people across the river they haven’t slaughtered yet, so they cut lunch short and their enemies shorter). I just don’t find it all that interesting. But give me Leviticus and Deuteronomy. I can read the legal stuff all day long.

Numbers, on the other hand, cannot be assigned as penance, since the United States Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment. It is widely regarded by scholars as being the most boring thing ever written.

 

[BartholomewB]

There’s a very early Paul Newman movie called Left Handed Gun, about Billy the Kid. Any resemblance to the Ehud and Eglon episode in Judges is purely coincidental, or maybe not.

 

[Pat_Albertson]

It seems like it’s challenging for me as an extremely emotional person of faith to interact with cerebral people of faith. I just am not not at all intellectual and have bare bones formal education of any kind. I probably expect all believers to be compassionate in their communication but some just are not… Does this make any sense to YOU?

Don’t worry about it, you’re ahead of the game. Just make sure that none of your spiritual experiences are demonic in nature and you’ve got it made.

 

[HopkinsReb]

Makes perfect sense – people simply work differently. I’m the exact opposite; my recent shift towards Catholicism has been entirely guided by intellectual pursuits. I was exposed for the first time to Catholic writings on salvation, and I found their arguments to be stronger than the Protestant arguments. My solution is to read and read and read. Of course, I do pray, and I try to listen for God, but the bulk of my efforts are dedicated to reading apologetics.

But then, I’m an engineer raised by an engineer, so data in/process data/data out is sort of my default mode.

 

[HeDa]

Some are coming to the Church via the brain and some through their hearts. We are all wired differently. I studied Theology in a protestant school and realised I was Catholic.

 

[dochawk]

If you think saying a prayer at a family gathering was “fun”, try doing a spontaneous prayer at a Thanksgiving dinner where everyone else is LDS…

At the lunch after may sister in law’s funeral I was asked to offer the prayer. I turned to the gal next to me and noted that I felt kind of odd being a Catholic being chosen for the funeral of a Baptist at a Methodist church . . . she shrugged and said “Don’t ask me; I’m Mormon”

:crazy_face:

I definitely was the cerebral type, with eight years of Jesuit education. But some time in the Eastern church has kind of spun me about on that . . .

Numbers, on the other hand, cannot be assigned as penance, since the United States Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment.

A few years ago, chatting with a visiting priest after liturgy (and in the days before I refused to watch the NFL until they decide my country is good enough for them) , he mentioned that he’d been asking people to pray for the 49ers, until it occurred to him that it sounded like it might be part of their penance.

"Father, I replied,= still a long time 49ers fan, “This year watching them has been penance!”

hawk

 

[CelticWarlord]

Understanding a wide variety of personalities can be a daunting undertaking. Yet it is essential if we wish to accept people as they are and not allow our own hubris take over and try to change them. We may never fully understand why some people are as they are, but accepting that God created a very wide selection of psyches and character traits makes it much easier to get along with them.

 

[RoseScented]

Numbers, on the other hand, cannot be assigned as penance, since the United States Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment. It is widely regarded by scholars as being the most boring thing ever written.

As a “cerebral” person, never before have I related emotionally so much with a statement about Numbers. First horror at the thought of having it given as penance. Then joy when I read cruel and unusual punishment is forbidden. “The book of Numbers, bridging the intellectual and emotional gap since its writing.”

As for the most boring thing ever written, I might have to put it up against Hitty, Her First Hundred Years and see which one personally is more of a slog to get through. Though at the moment I’d rather read Numbers again than read Hitty again.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

edward_george:

one who follows the rules and one who is creative and spontaneous, i.e. your “cerebral” and “emotional” categories

The Lego Movie is probably a good movie, but I can tell you it’s wrong and stereotypical to assume “emotional” always equates to creative, spontaneous rule-breaker and “cerebral” always equates to rule-following and uncreative. To give an example, many scientists and engineers are highly creative and think outside the box daily. However, they are not emotional. And many office staff are highly emotional, but couldn’t creatively think their way out of a paper bag.

 

[edward_george1]

Oh I don’t equate them. My point with the Lego Movie is that about complimentarity, how ever it shows up.