In decision making, it is not enough to think in order to be. It is also necessary to feel. While you and I can operate quite well if some parts of us are missing or even replaced, each thing we do involves our whole body - our brain, our viscera, our glands, our flesh and our skin. We bring it all to the decisions, particularly the personal decisions, about the things that matter to us most - care for ourselves, our partners, our families, our friends and our community - the spiritual issues of meaning and worth. Those decisions are made with our whole selves. And it is important that we not forget it.

Already I have given my entire thesis away. And I am just getting stated. But this is not a Sunday morning short course in decision-making. Frankly, it is not my objective to tell you one thing this morning that you do not already know. And I have invented or created none of the ideas associated with the thesis offered. But I do want to offer a few reminders. They are perhaps more reminders to me than they are to you - for I have blundered most powerfully when I decided with the emotional or feeling aspects of my being. And I have blundered just as badly when I relied unilaterally on the rational, so-called objective portion of my being.

I want to review what some others have said, directly or indirectly, about decision making, as it is related to personality type, brain structure and genetics. And I want to touch on freedom. And last, about consequences, particularly when things don’t turn out so well? What do we think and feel then?

Now, as you already know, I just finished my work for the Master of Divinity degree at Wesley Theological Seminary. I have traveled the world. I am surrounded by family and friends who care for me. I have stood on the shoulders of all those who have come before me. And I am within 4 days of being 63 years old. I am, indeed, a very fortunate fellow. So I keep telling myself that by now I ought to have begun to figure some things out - to have arrived.

I know something of the physical world and - after theology school - I have a pipeline - a direct, toll free connection - to the divine. Right? But here I stand to tell you otherwise - just about the time I think I have the answers, - the questions change. And they will change even more rapidly as we go into the future. From week to week the issues that my grandchildren see and confront are different - and if I am to be of any use to them in their development, I have to try to adapt at least a little, to see those issues, too. And so it is with decision making.

Down through the ages philosophers have encouraged us to clear our minds of emotions - to think rationally. To still our emotions so that we can think things through. And we have been encouraged to think in terms of head-heart dichotomies. The logic of the West and the mysticism of the East. Mind and soul. Intuition and reason, gut and brain - as if these regions are separated by mountain ranges or oceans or otherwise not connected.

Some of us say that we depend on our heads - reason and logic devoid of feeling. We are absolutely clear that the only good decisions are the ones that are made with clear assessments of the facts, stochastic probabilities and consequences. We work to drive that into the heads of our teenage children - we do this during the very years of their lives that some researchers claim that the rational part of their brains are not only not growing but are, for those few years, actually shrinking a little. In the midst of testosterone explosions and blossoming estrogen, we propose, as we must, clear thinking, lists of pro’s and con’s and consequences.

But the emotions are still there and the stakes are high.

So others of us say we listen to our hearts. Still others say we rely on intuition. Some of us actually pat our stomachs when we make a decision that really feels right. Or we place our hand over our heart when we arrive at a decision of the heart, almost as if the basis for the decision emanated from inside our chest or stomach. Sometimes we say we did a particular thing just because it felt right. What is going on here? Do two sides meet? Do they meet in your house? Do they meet in my house?

Having made some pretty good decisions - and some pretty awful ones, too, I wonder, at the center of my own being, how can I make better ones - ones that I can live with - sleep with - even when I learn later that they didn’t turn out so well. For example, my marriage to Lynda and the decisions I made to entice her into it, 23 years ago, I am very pleased with. But some of the decisions I made as I ended my first marriage, years before that, were poor.

We know that different people approach decision making, even personal decision making in different ways. It seems reasonable then that those different ways might be related to the differences among us - individual styles or personality types. Now, as much as I dislike using categories or classifications of people - probably because I don’t like being categorized myself - the subject of decision making lead me inexorably in that direction - so I went with it. I found myself in good company, for the earliest clear classification of temperament types that I could find was by Hippocrates in the 5th century BCE. He named four kinds of human temperaments. I say the earliest "clear classification," because, as David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates point out in their book entitled, Please Understand Me: Character & Temperament Types, ancient myths are shot through with the tension between one temperament type and another. For example, Apollo and Dionysus reflected, at least metaphorically, the temperaments of spirit and joy that myth makers saw in the humans around them.

In any case, Carl Jung, 2300 years later, at the dawn of the study of psychology and psychotherapy, created his own models of temperament or personality types. In the 1950's, Isabel Myers and Katheryn Briggs (and others) built on that work.

Let’s do a quick review and see if we see ourselves and our decision making style represented: According to the Myers-Briggs typology, we are told that our character preference is marked by our tendency to behave within four pairs of traits. We are either introvert or extrovert. And either intuition or sensation types. Either feeling or thinking. And either judging or perceiving.

As you know, each of these words has a special definition so they don’t necessarily mean quite the same thing they would mean in day to day language. For example, in day-to-day conversation, we often use the term "judging" or "judgmental" to describe a person who decides based upon pre-conceived notions - it’s often a pejorative term in the post-modern world. But in the Myers-Briggs typing, it is simply a person who seeks closure; while the term ‘perception’ reflects a temperament type who prefers open-ended situations.

In any case, combining these four sets of characteristics, we end up with almost three dozen different combinations of personality types. For example, one might be an extrovert, intuitive, feeling, perceiving type. And we apparently can change as we go through life or even go through a bad day at work. You can see where the issue of decision making style - and conflict - is going. If I am a thinking type and you are feeling type - I like impersonal analysis and you prefer the personal - you see me as heartless - a bloodless rock, or worse - and I see you as illogical - a touchy-feely air head.

Even more contentious is the tension between the sensation type and the intuitive. The sensationalist wants to experience the facts and implement the practical while the intuitive may be bothered by reality - preferring poetry and metaphor. One decides based on what is - the other on what might be. Now, these are examples of patterns of decision-making behaviors that we see on the outside of us. What’s going on the inside?

Some people have offered that the brain and mind are like a computer. The brain is the hardware and the mind is the software. I suppose this analogy will suffice up to a point but obviously it’s far more sophisticated than that. The electrochemical behavior of billions of neurons - somewhat like tiny micro-circuits - arranging and directing the sequence of firings, so that we sense, identify and react to the world around us and then decide what to do about it.

Neurological research goes on at a phenomenal pace. What is state of the art today is obsolete tomorrow. There is a description of reasonably current thinking about how the parts and interconnections of the brain work in David Goleman’s book, Emotional Intelligence. Why it Can Matter More Than IQ.

There is the old brain and the new brain - some refer to the old parts as the reptilian and the new parts as the modern brain. The old - the brain stem, the limbic system, including the amygdala, where the more basic or primitive processes are carried out - and the new - the neo-cortex and frontal lobes where the analytic, social, intuitive, artistic and spiritual consciousness are generated. Activities Descartes called thinking.

But - and here is the rub - researchers tell us that almost all of the information that comes from the outside world and from other parts of our bodies goes almost immediately to the amygdala - the part of the old brain that is in charge of the near instantaneous fight, flee or freeze responses. The part of the brain that reacts to a snake in the bushes or a saber tooth tiger crouched in a tree above us. And to make matters worse or better, the amygdala does not check in with the rest of the brain for consensus - it immediately looks for danger, directs the glands, muscles, heart and lungs what to do - NOW! Before the newer parts of the brain can figure things out and form a decision. A decision -that includes a rational response seasoned with feeling.

There are times when we need to get angry - Jesus knew when to get angry. And there are times to protect ourselves - though there are only a few snakes and no saber tooth tigers in Montgomery County. But we still get hot under the collar, we suffer road rage, we get defensive, we are ready to snarl at our partner as we come through the door in the evening - we get aggressive - or passive - immediately. This had real advantages early in human evolution, a few hundred thousand years ago, and it occasionally still does. But very often we know we’ll do better, for ourselves and for others, if we take time to calm down and think things over. This is what those philosophers were talking about. Not to crush emotion but to bring it under control so that rationality, feelings and intuition - our spiritual and religious values can be brought to bear on the situation. In other words, to give our emotions a second, more reflective, pass at our decisions.

Genetics. Fifty years ago last February, James Watson, Francis Crick and then Maurice Watkins discovered that DNA - that part of a gene that carries inheritable features - is organized in the shape of a double helix. That discovery may be the most powerful and far-reaching discovery of the 20th century. Linked to the discovery is the astounding one that all of us on earth are connected to a gene pool of folks who were walking around in central Africa more than 150,000 years ago. Mapping of the double helix, the Human Genome Project, and other research have showed the relationship between that pattern and the biological and hereditary source of both genius and defect. Biologically, some thought we would arrive at the point where if we know enough about the genetic make-up of a person, seasoned with environmental influences, then its history is known.

We are our genetic inheritance, our physiology and our nature, shaped by our environment and our sociological construct. And our decision-making styles are outgrowths of this waltz of nature and nurture.

But I do not believe it stops there. If I am to believe in the worth and dignity of individuals - then I can’t stop there. We believe in freedom and the requirement to act responsibility. This implies to me that we believe that we can, at least sometimes, influence, freely, for good or ill, how things turn out. These are not the beliefs of a formulistic, clockwork, or instinctual humanity.

So the burden is sometimes a very heavy one. Some of our decisions are poor. And some of us don’t think we have a Heavenly Father or an Earth Mother to pass the burden on to. How can we carry the load when our decision was the wrong one? Certainly we are going to try to set it right. But sometimes it is to no avail. The cup has been dropped. We can’t put the pieces back together.

Conscience and guilt are heavy taskmasters. Perhaps all we can do is, as in the Jewish tradition, ask the forgiveness of those we have hurt or treated poorly. We can do that even if they are gone from us. We can make amends and work to do better. And it’s tough work, but we can forgive ourselves.

We become better decision-makers intentionally. Practicing that initial control of the instinctual response - the fight, flee or freeze response. The anger, the dismissal, the submissiveness. We can gather information, and focus the power of our rationality on it. We can take the time to bring our intuition or judgment to bear. And we can call on our moral and spiritual values. What do our principles call upon us to do? Can we be empathetic to the styles of others?

Most of the time there will be conflict between competing interests. We are, and need to be competitive, some of the time. We have to tussle with those issues, don’t we? The lengths of the Talmud, the New Testament and the Koran and philosophers from Confucius to Whitehead to Etzoni suggest to us that the answer may be a little more difficult than just simply applying the Golden Rule.

What can I do? I can know that I am sometimes strong but sometimes weak, too. I can be aware of my decision making style and my response to the styles of others. And I can be aware of how my heroes make decisions - and know the limits of them. I can work toward patience (this is especially tough for me).

I can work hard to learn what is important. I can accept that some of the messages that I absolutely did not want to hear became some of the most important ones of my life. I can ask others, and work hard to take inside what they tell me. I can be aware that awareness itself, and self-actualization is often exciting but sometimes sad, lonely and even scary.

One other thing I can do is reconsider. I can get up the courage to change my mind. I recall a conversation with Virginia LeMarche, the lay minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville where I had the great privilege of serving my internship among people that supported me. Virginia was the chair of my intern committee. She was a wonderful person, of course, before she assumed that role. But I think you can understand that once annointed, she became to me, supernumerary. Anyway, one day she said to me, "Archie, you make up your mind about people very fast. And almost all of the time I agree with you." Well now, as a lowly intern, that really made me feel good! Then she said, "But I have something to ask you. Do you ever change your mind?" Well, I had to think that over. We had better be willing to change our minds.

This morning I have offered that there is a sound basis for accepting that the way we make decisions is strongly affected by our personal make-up - our temperament. I have offered that there is a strong evolutionary, biological and genetic predisposition to the way we make decisions - and these are significantly affected by environmental and social factors. But the responsibility, and the joy, the fun, and the burden, goes out of life if we accept these as determinates. They are not. We, you and I, are the determinates.

The key is to strengthen and round out the ways we make up our minds. To temper our emotions, to step out of our own self interest, and to stay in it as well. To refine and sharpen our rationality, to plug into our feelings, to call forth our intuitive strengths and to incorporate our spiritual power…. And encourage them all to dance together in the quest and music of our lives.

To offer gently to the memory of Descartes, these words, "I think - and I feel - therefore I am a better decision maker."

Amen

Bibliography

David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates. "Please Understand Me. Character & Temperament Types" (Del Mar: Prometheus, 1984)

Abby Donnelly. President, Strategic Choices. Personal Interview, August 6, 2003, Greensboro, North Carolina

Antonio R. Damasio. "Descartes’ Error. Emotion, Reason And The Human Brain" (New York: Quill, 2000)

Daniel Goleman. "Emotional Intelligence. Why It Can Matter More Than IQ" (New York: Bantam, 1997)