146 Sin as Disorder and Asceticism as Healing, pt. 1 (Voices from the Kellia—with David Clayton)

In this episode on early Christian monasticism, Geoff and regular guest David Clayton explore how the Desert Fathers and Mothers understood sin as discorder (of all kinds) and how asceticism was a path toward freedom to love God and others. They discuss sin not merely as rule-breaking but as patterns that impair clear seeing, free choosing, and loving well. Asceticism is presented as training that frees the heart by reshaping habits, while emphasizing grace, mercy, and the hope to “begin again” each day.

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Sin as Disorder and Asceticism as Healing (pt. 1, with David Clayton)

Geoff Holsclaw: What if we are less free than we think we are? What if, rather than deserting the world and running into the desert and hating the body, what if the early ascetics were looking for more freedom? And not just any kind of freedom, but the freedom to love the way God loves, the freedom in God's kingdom.

We're not gonna be talking about that freedom as much, but we're gonna be talking about sin and the things that keep us unfree. So that's what we're talking about today. Again, we have joining us for our series in monasticism, where we are looking at the Christian, roots of asceticism as a resource for discipleship and spiritual formation.

Today, we have, again, our regular guest, David Clayton. He is our field reporter of sorts, fro- a voice from the skete. The skete is the monastic cells in the desert. David is a spiritual director and a supervisor of directors. He is also pushing into the neuroscience or the all that brain stuff.

He's also a trained behavior analyst, as well as a facilitator of psychological safety. David, we're so glad to have you back on.

David Clayton: Great to be here, Geoff, as ever, to be part of a conversation that is, digging into this and, in our little way, helping those others to dig into this stuff. I'm really glad to be here and being part of your listening crew, as it were.

Geoff Holsclaw: I know we, often... when you and I are talking, we often, dive deep and we're going and we're hitting, like, all these topics really high level. We're gonna try to slow it down a little bit today. But before that, as y- all of you listeners can probably tell, or if you're watching, David is, in England.

so he's five hours, I think, now. Our hours always switch depending on the daylight savings and all that. But four or five hours. So I'm here with my last afternoon coffee. But, David confessed before we hit the recording that he had to have one last late afternoon cup of joe to jolt him into finishing the day off and this podcast.

And you also had another activity to amp you up. Is that right?

David Clayton: No. No, I didn't. No, I did not use fast and loud music with heavy drums to get me energized at all.

Geoff Holsclaw: okay. So he did not use an audio interface to jolt his brain into c- clear attention for this. But excellent. All right, so we're gonna jump in. So we were batting, back and forth, what do we wanna talk about next?" and, as always, you always are a fountain of things to talk about.

And I was like, let's slim that down a little bit." so we chopped off part of the topic, and who knows if we'll finish all of this. But really, we're gonna be talking about, like, how does, the monast- early monastic culture, how did they understand sin? and how might that be helpful for us? and are there any kind of interfaces to our current cultural moment and/or some of the brain science, neuroscience, that is coming around?

And I know you're like, "There's lots of overlap." So that's what we're gonna jump into. So I'm gonna hand it over to you. Our first topic then is, as concisely as possible, maybe concise is not even an option. What is, a desert anthropology, or theological anthropology? What is their understanding of the human being and the pred-predicament that we find ourselves in?

David Clayton: I th-- I think for me, there's a balance that we're gonna talk about. So I'm going to quickly look at that snapshot, but then

pan out, as it were. I think we're, looking at what is sin, what is asceticism, why we see sin, and why we act with asceticism. Asceticism we can simply use as that term of discipline. Sin, complex idea. we could-- we'll, go into, the specific language of the desert shortly. But I think if we hold that word, 'cause it's a difficult word, people go, "Oh, sin. Ooh." So, what I wanna do is pin down some things for a start, and the key thing is, sin is a social construct. It is a cultural representation of social expectation. Freudian taboo kind of mentality. It is where we behave in this way, and if we don't behave in this way, then you are not part of our society. Quite a pointed statement in this day and age, 'cause that's all shifting. That's all changing. the idea of how we behave, who we are, how we turn up, how we engage socially is, radically changing, and has radically changed over, say, in the last fifty years. But I, think in many traditions, sin is not just doing bad things.

It is, becoming the kind of person who cannot see clearly, who cannot choose freely, and who cannot love well. leaning into the desert, there would be that aspect of a person who cannot love well. And to be able to love well, you need to be able to choose freely. To be able to choose freely, you need to be able to see clearly. So it's about being a kind of person. a- and, looking at the other frameworks, and I'll just throw that together quickly. so Plato, Buddhism, sin is ignorance. Augustine, sin is disordered love. Desert Fathers, slavery to the passions, those logismoi that we've talked about before. Aristotle, habit and character sin. Modern psychology, compulsion and addiction, inability to control the self, which is interesting 'cause we will look at are we controlling ourself or are ourselves being controlled to perceive that we look like we're controlling ourselves so that we feel safe as a social control, as a construct of controlling sin. Sin in y- your kind of world, attachment theory, disordered attachment. In behavioral science, sin is a behavioral pattern. w- wh- when somebody is w- being analyzed, I suppose the thing is looking for psychological distress grouping, and patterning. Joe Navarro, presents that clearly in his work. just to quote one guy. so, it would be, what is this person doing off their baseline that presents that they are acting out of psychological distress, which presents that their limbic brain is kicking in more than their frontal cortex. This all, fits in with, sin because it's a disordered behavior.

Jump in. 

Geoff Holsclaw: is-- Okay, so I wanna go back to that first statement of sin as a social construct. Now, were you saying that's, that's because sin as a social currency, and so we all kind of use that word differently? 'Cause... And then, 'cause you just li-listed a whole bunch of different ways that we interpret sin.

Is that right? 

David Clayton: Yeah, just for fun. 

Geoff Holsclaw: as a social-- Okay. But we want the biblical concept of sin, 

David Clayton: Yeah, but I don't think we can look at the biblical concept unless we can framework in a context of the world we live in at the moment,

and to get into biblical, then we'll get into the etymology of, if you want to look at that specifically, then you'd need to look at Yetzer Hara, which is the Judaic, excuse me again, not a lang- linguist, not an expert, not an academic, just a little doodle. So Yetzer Hara is the, The, human congenital inclination to evil. So the very nature, and that's coming from the Judaic, so that's why I apologize sincerely for my linguistic lack of skills. We would, in English, potentially lean into there's a parallel here in concupiscence, which is, due to the fall, that's original sin embedded in human nature.

So, there's some soothe on it, but across many spiritual dirish- traditions and psychological frameworks, sin is not primarily understood as rule-breaking, these are the points I'm trying to make, but as misalignment, ignorance, or destructive patterns that lead to suffering and disconnection.

Geoff Holsclaw: and some, like the Eastern Orthodox would think of sin as like a disease, so it's, ill health, or something of that fashion. Yes. So for us, 

David Clayton: not nature. Let's be clear on that. They, the... With absolute respect to the Orthodox, I'm not an expert on Orthodox theology, but as I understand, like you say, it is like a disease, it is not like nature,

because their aspect is based around, and theology is based around Mount Tabor, which is more towards the, Desert Fathers rather than the cross.

Geoff Holsclaw: okay. So just, you used, just to circle back, 'cause I know we have, some therapists or s- mental health professionals who listen too. and you used the word "sin," and, I was too curious because I was like, I don't know if mental health professionals even talk about sin as much, at least not secular ones, right?

They don't talk about sin. They're just... So m- we are using it equivalently, but they would talk more about, maladapted behavior than sin. they have all these... Or an unfortunate decision is, or, a less than flourishing trajectory, right? They have all these other words rather than, sin, is c- we agree, sin in that, in those contexts have actually s- has been lost as a word, as a con- It's no longer a social construct for a lot of people.

All right. All right, so I did take us a little off, No, you didn't. 

Baptist. I'm a good fundamentalist Baptist, so I had to bring up what's the biblical doctrine of sin, which is super important, but we're actually wanting to look at how is it that the Desert Fathers and Mothers, talk about sin.

And I, I really liked this idea of seeing freedom and loving. so could you unpack that a little bit? You said sin was not being able to see properly, not being free, and then not loving well. Is that kinda how I heard it?

David Clayton: we can hold that with the concept of, Modern psychologic, modern psychology, the equivalent concept of maladaptive patterns, habits of thinking, feeling, and behavior that harm ourselves and others, such as addiction, avoidance, aggression, narcissism, anxiety-driven control. Across the different traditions, though, the common theme is remarkable. The human problem's not simple. That's why I'm trying to hold a big gray space for a start before you start defining down with specifics and etymology. We do things wrong. but the thing is, we become shaped by patterns or desire, fear, habit, and ignorance. These make us less free. So this, formation aspect of sin or maladaptive behaviors, which Judaic Christian pattern take us away from God, yet to harm, towards evil, destruction. So how do we move towards God?

That's the point of the asceticism and the Desert Fathers, which we'll come onto in a moment. But I w- I do want to make it quite clear that we are dealing with, from my understanding, let's be clear, this is my, limited theological psychological understanding, that human beings are basically violent creatures.

and,

I'm gonna specifically start with, Margie Hewitt Cuti's work on Fault of Violence, which emphasizes that point, and social structuring around that, choices and social structuring. But also, if I remember rightly, holding into the behavioral science side of things, Gavin de Becker and his Gift of Fear, which, a quote from that is that we're all monsters.

We all have the capa- capacity to do monstrous things, so we can't look at somebody who's done something sinful and gone,

"He's a monster." No. Human beings have the capacity in their brain to be monsters. It just takes the right sort of programming, and that's what we're looking for. So the asceticism and the desert was a way of, excuse me, my analog notes.

Geoff Holsclaw: I love analog 

David Clayton: I, I just have to work from notes. I'm really basic. so sin from this kind of desert thing is whatever enslaves the heart and prevents love. Asceticism is the training that frees the heart so that love can become possible. And let's hold that in the context of the Desert Fathers stepping aside to become martyrs Because they wanted to live a holy life close to God, more loving to God. So it's literally instead of one red death, one death, they chose the desert to take small deaths daily

 disciplined, to become more loving,

Geoff Holsclaw: Okay.

David Clayton: closer to God, to become free, to become, in their desires, attentions, and loves rather than constrained in them. So that really we have an internality going off here, which affects the externality.

Geoff Holsclaw: So it sounds like what you're describing is a little bit like a therapy for the soul, is that they wanted to love like God loves, to be close to God, and that's a positive project that they're aiming toward. 'Cause a lot of times people can have this negative view of asceticism and maybe monasticism as this, "I'm against the world, I'm against the flesh, I'm against all these, I hate the body.

I don't even like other people. I'm just a grumpy guy living on my own," or something like that. but this is... You're trying to describe this positive vision of what the desert, was supposed to be doing. Is that right?

David Clayton: Yeah. you did a great description of me there. So yeah,

Geoff Holsclaw: I wasn't trying to get personal, 

David Clayton: I know. I liked it. I think, yes, the, It's, not as, as... It's not a moralistic kind of thing. This is a simple system of human formation based around their comprehension of what it was to be Christ-like. You're talking fourth century, so the understanding of what it would be to and, just coming out of the oppression of the Roman Empire and, being...

It meant to be a Christian, you were dead,

because you'd be killed. 

 So there's this, context of... And again, this is understanding the social context, social constraint. under the oppression of a, an empire behavior, people will choose freedom in certain ways, and that may mean stepping aside. there is the joke that I say sometimes that why do people go into desert?

tax avoidance. One of, one of the, classic texts explaining monasticism does actually say that. It says, "Some of these people stepped aside because of tax avoidance." Does make me chuckle. so what are we saying? We're saying there is a reality To their choice to become formated within the context of their understanding towards an eternal or an eschatological understanding of who they are. So identity is key to this, choice is key to this, changing their context so that their behavior can be in line with what they would call holiness, separateness, rather the constraint to, it's like, in one way you could say they turned around, they saw the church becoming denigrated into, unholiness and commonality and worldliness, and they went, we're stepping aside."

 that's

happened time and time again within, in s- social behavior, let alone within ecclesial behavior, 

Geoff Holsclaw: to zero in, you had, written in our outline that sin begins in thought. And I think we've circled around that a little bit with the seeing and the freedom and the loving well. Could you... Could we spend a minute, to do that? to t-talk about that for the desert, the sin begins in thought.

Because, some people really agree with that, and then some other people maybe don't agree with that.

David Clayton: W- well, w- how else do people behave?

Geoff Holsclaw: I don't know. 

David Clayton: where, are they getting their behaviors from?

Geoff Holsclaw: have implicit brain keeps them breathing. their, limbic system brings in survival patterning, and their frontal cortex enables them to think every now and again, slowly. The rest of it's

David Clayton: all 

Geoff Holsclaw: thought in this definition's not just conscious thought, it's all operations of the brain and the mind?

David Clayton: Oh, what's thought? Oh,

Geoff Holsclaw: asking 

David Clayton: philosophy w- philosophy majoring we're entering

into. 

Geoff Holsclaw: That's right.

David Clayton: I think, to, take an, a starting point around that be- is to look at the sense of how the, sin is seen by the Desert tradition. and we look at that philologically, 'cause it'll keep us honest in the way we see that. So hamartia is the Greek word generally used, meaning failure, sin, fault. Ha- Hama- hamartano, I

don't know if I did that, my Greek's really not the best.

Geoff Holsclaw: That's all right. You just say it 

David Clayton: We... Yeah. Then means to miss the mark, to fall short. So there's this falling short. But if it's about thinking, what, are we missing the mark on? What are we forfeiting? Why are we forfeiting? And is discipline or social ordering necessarily, necessary? And is religion necessary as part of this holding this social construct of living together necessary? Because there's a key question also going around at the moment, is religion necessary? 

Geoff Holsclaw: Right.

David Clayton: would say yes, since we've developed a construct for living together since agriculture, and Tepe Gediz in Turkey, would hold to, hunter-gatherer time and development of civilization through that, pre to early Chaldees and the development of the, sage in the Middle East. We'll not go down that rabbit hole today. I have read books on it. So there's a thing about sin missing the mark. What is failure? I've, just got a paper published on failure and I've got another one being published on failure, which is between times journal, so secularization of failure. Nice little read. So plug, So it comes down to this point of particularly from the Judaic Christian aspect of concupiscence that we as Christians believe that there is a fall, that there was a change. There was a break in relationship from something to where we are now,

which leads us to a behavior which needs reconciliation and restoration.

Hence the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one, bring about a restoration of that God to man, to God, because man to God can't do it. So Christ was and is necessary. even just in our thinking, in our very base being. So there is something of this original sin concupiscence, let alone the wonderful Judaic understanding of Yet Sahara and that mankind has a, a leaning towards doing evil.

Geoff Holsclaw: So in Romans 12:2, where Paul exhorts us not to be conformed to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed in the renewing of our minds, is the pattern of this world that concupiscence, that disordered desire, and that's the structure of our thoughts? Is that kind of, 

David Clayton: That's exactly where concupiscence hits, renewing of the mind.

Geoff Holsclaw: And could we just take, just a couple, practical layer, like how, might sin as thought, manifest in us? is it always a conscious thought, or is it sometimes like a impult- implicit impulse? is it, I don't know. Am I taking you off script 

David Clayton: No. 

Geoff Holsclaw: off, off your notes? 

David Clayton: you're just going right in, right into the nature of humans. I think it's 

Geoff Holsclaw: That's right.

David Clayton: wonderful. Humans are im- predictively influenceable, So we have this

nature-nurture kind of presentation, but I would say, and again quoting, I don't know if to drop

Geoff Holsclaw: All right, you said predictably influenceable. Now, there's-- And we're gonna go into how that's problematic, but I would-- I just wanna say it in the positive. We're made to be social creatures who belong and give our, in a sense, give our heart to others, right? and, in that sense, we can also be mutually influenced by one another.

We're enmeshed in our relationships. And that doesn't have to be a negative thing, 'cause I think sometimes the psychological sciences will start laying out how easy it is to manipulate humans, and it's "Oh, that's a shame." But the re- the result of that is not to, just live by yourself, that every man's an island.

All right? so I just wanted to throw that out a little bit so that it doesn't sound like this is all negative. Our human nature is to be in relationship with others, which makes us predictably influenceable.

David Clayton: that's Girardian memetics, isn't it? what you've just come out with there. That's, I think if you're to look at the base biopsychological nature of human being, it is to survive. Everything, pans down to survival. That's why Christ is so amazing, because every point of survival was given up for love, and th- and therefore, as a, as someone to be imitated in a religious, And taking religious as in, not in a social structuring, a cohesive kind of view, but in the religio, bound to God, in a way of, connecting with and being like, theoria, as it were, to become like, I think that's the Orthodox premise and All re- all of that requires grace. I don't, yeah, I think if... I think people are grown to develop, interactions, and it would depend on their predispositions, their personality type. there are these weird personality types like the INFJ that are really rare and, really annoying and a bit weird.

Geoff Holsclaw: Good thing that's not me. You got me off by one letter.

David Clayton: but there, yeah, what am I trying to say? I agree, but I disagree. I think the being nice and the being social, I think is a development from the survival pattern. We, gather together to hang out together and live together because it's easier to survive that way. and in the monastic, that would be the monast- the hermits would've gone out on their own to live in a cave and pray and done their best to survive for as long as they could. Paul of Thebes, was like that until he was found by Anthony and then, Anthony was there for a day and he died, So two lions buried him, as they do. but, the development of that, getting into just the Cap- Caphcomius and the Cassian and the Virgius, and all of that, the, development of the cenobium, of working together, of living together

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah.

David Clayton: so that they could formate and be influenced by the desert, the scripture, the spirit, each other, these are-- Now these are the... You're getting into the positive things of why they moved into the desert. But I cut you off, and I apologize. So you had talked about being predictably influenceable, and maybe that just means something like we're highly tribal. maybe it doesn't mean that. So what-- Did-- Was there more?

Geoff Holsclaw: 'Cause I jumped in when you said that. Is there more that you wanted to say 

David Clayton: Yeah, there was. 

Geoff Holsclaw: influenceable? Okay, let's 

David Clayton: that.

it is into the, it is dipping into the ascetic side of things, the discipline, because if, we, don't have some form of structure, of social constraint, then, S- so there's external constraint and internal change, and the Desert Fathers are nepsis, so it's watchfulness, so it's internal change primarily towards apatheia, stripping away of the negative. So that if we look at reward and punishment structures, if we look at group norms, and if we look at authority pressure and environmental cues, these, according to social sciences and, psychology, would be control patterns. So the religious, this is why is religion necessary? These point to, if you want to go deep, you need that structure to hold you. You, hermits don't go out on their own. Solitaries don't become solitary until they've been able to overcome the negative thought processes, the legismoi, to a degree within themselves so that they can go out alone and face the legismoi alone. Now, some would say, and Theophan the Recluse is one of them, that, it's easier to deal with the legismoi within the cenobium, within the monastery than to be alone. When you're on your alone, it's more in your head. It's very much internal. But when you're in, a cenobium, you're dealing with people, and therefore there's a, deeper processing around the heart that goes on. You have to deal with your behavior. You can't, you can't rant. You can't get violent.

Geoff Holsclaw: Right.

David Clayton: allowed, let's be clear, in the monastery, that wouldn't be allowed. In

certain societies and in certain cultures, different levels of violence and, behavior and even communication, have you spoken to somebody from Paris recently? They're a bit aggressive. No offense. No offense, but, there is that

Geoff Holsclaw: I don't know how many Parisian listeners we have 

David Clayton: No, I've been studying culture re- the interaction between cultures and the difference in, in hierarchical understanding and in communication dynamics and

things like that, and I think there is something in that that, we're looking at today,

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. So well, really quick, you said the sno- cenobian. so for those of you who don't know what that term means, oftentimes when it comes to early monasticism, there was a difference between the cenobites and the anchorites. Am I right on that? And the anchorites went off by themselves, the hermits or the solitaries.

And the cenobinites or cenobism or, it would be those who gathered in early groups in monasticism and things like that. so okay, let's roll it back. So sin, is in the thoughts. It can affect our perceptions. it can affect-- it can bind our freedom so that we're no longer than able to love the way God Wants us to love.

In some traditions, this is concupiscence or disordered desire. And our social, our worldly, our world social systems, can-- You said we're, predictably influenceable. someone like Charles Taylor would say we're, we have a porous self. there's, we are always being influenced by the physical, regions around us, as well as the social, and then certainly, the spiritual, moral.

so all these things are affect- and sin takes advantage of these things the way Paul talks about, like in the law in Romans 7, all throughout the... sin is taking advantage of these things that God made as good. Survival systems, social systems, as well as spiritual systems. sin takes advantage of those things.

And so are you saying something like the desert, those who went out in the desert were, in a sense, trying to create a whole different s- entire system to be influenced in a different way? So they weren't trying not to be influenced, because that's impossible. They weren't trying to deny their predictably influenceable selves.

They were trying to create a whole new social system to be formed and shaped and influenced differently. D- is that... That's Geoff ways of summarizing it, but h-how's, are we... Am I missing the mark? did I harmart-harmartinize, the, summary there?

David Clayton: Oh, I think the desert's a diagnostic. So they went into the desert to diagnose, their sin. A pressure cooker, to look at

their passions. 

Geoff Holsclaw: though, weren't they trying to heal it? Or d- wasn't there... 'Cause I, used this word already. I was trying to get you on the hook. I was trying to, But, 

David Clayton: Oh, healing sin. Who can do that?

Geoff Holsclaw: isn't it like a therapy, of the soul, where the great physician, otherwise known as Jesus, comes, by the power of the Spirit, drawing us?

is this, is this

David Clayton: But that's, great, isn't it? 

Geoff Holsclaw: Yes.

David Clayton: There we go. It's all grace. Trees of Avila, all

Geoff Holsclaw: do they have to go out into the desert? Just receive God's grace, wipe your hands, be done with it. We could be good Lutherans or something like that. Just pr- just, receive God's grace. There's no work.

David Clayton: you can. Yes. You could be, Lutheran, Catholic, Orthodox, or y- within the context, your social construct doesn't mean that everybody should go out to desert. That was their context, their construct, their calling. they wanted to know the passions. They wanted to understand the thought patterns and the interior movements, that precede the action. many of them were criminals. h- high reputation of being, it Moses 

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm. 

David Clayton: was a leader of a criminal gang, if I remember rightly And there's the recent film that's been released and a kind of, similitude to it, a modern version of that. And I, haven't seen it yet. Hopefully I'll get a chance.

Anyway, so we're, looking at temptation, attention, and desire. And again, so there's that word attention and, the sense of desire. So what is drawing us? So if you take away all stimulation, you hear a lot of internal noise. This is the point of silence. This is... I train people to go into silence, and they go, "Oh, my brain's all noisy."

And they go, there you go. Welcome to the human race." It happens, it's part of going into silence and, learning what hesychasm is, what... Learning what silence, quiet, the internal quiet is. and when I say the word hesychasm with the utmost respect for the Orthodox tradition and those who practice it, advanced stuff. Actually being a human being that's quiet internally. if you think about how much, mediation, how much information we have impacting our noodles and trying to program us, and affect our emotions and cause fear and things like that, So, Evagrius would say, sin begins not with behavior, but with thought, so logizmoi. So a thought appears. You entertain the thought. You dialogue with the thought. You consent to the thought. It becomes a passion. It becomes a habit. You become captive. Gotcha. This is how information control works.

Geoff Holsclaw: All right, can you go through that process 

David Clayton: Oh, 

Geoff Holsclaw: So it starts... No, just, repeat what you just said. It starts as a thought, and then... 'Cause I think it's just... no. 

David Clayton: Yeah. No, no, Next paper. on that 'cause it fits in with this. I've got papers

Geoff Holsclaw: wanna kinda go through that progression because it's it-- 

David Clayton: thought, appears. 

Geoff Holsclaw: but it ends with captivity. It ends with a lack of freedom. But there was multiple steps, I think, that was really 

David Clayton: Yeah. Okay. So a thought appears. if you were to give a, that could be watching a newsreel on the television, okay, or reading the newspaper, or being told some information by, an institutional body.

That gives you a thought. You entertain that thought. You start going, "Oh, that's making me worry." You start the dialogue with a thought going, "Oh, now why should it... Oh no, what can I do? Oh no, oh, and the world's ending. Oh, I'm scared." Okay. So at that point, you're consenting. Your limbic system is starting to kick in. Your brain has gone into la-la land. You're not thinking properly. You are thinking, "How am I gonna survive?"

And your brain is telling you how to survive. I'm using quite an extreme example to all you good listeners out there so that, just to make a point. at that point it becomes a passion. So the gizmo are the passions. I don't wanna have to go through them again. Do you want me to go through them again?

Geoff Holsclaw: just keep on going. So then it becomes a passion, and then you become enslaved.

David Clayton: so then if you're engaging with a passion, so a strong emotion such as, oh, to cope I'll turn to greed, and I will just make lots and lots of money, and that will make me safe and survive. yeah. Which kind of dehumanizes you. and that becomes a habit, 'cause you keep doing those things to make you feel like you're surviving. so you are captive of your habit and your behavior. you could, say, I, said money, but you could say drugs, you could say drinking, you could say sex. You could say all sorts of things that would relate to that term sin. It could just be not yourself, which would be sin. And then you're a captive of something that isn't yourself.

Geoff Holsclaw: So those first, four steps

David Clayton: Yep.

Geoff Holsclaw: don't e- don't necessarily become sin. They just become the seed and the watering bucket and the sunshine for sin, but they don't necessarily become sin, right? Having a thought is not a sin. Even entertaining the thought and dialoguing with the thought is not necessary...

It could be sin, but it's not necessarily sin. and at any point, you could short-circuit that thought. You could be like, "Nope- you could turn your attention, and I o- I, was trying, I- we're gonna try to... I think our next podcast is gonna be very much on attention, but you could turn your attention away from that thought to a different thought, or you could open yourself to God's grace in some fashion.

But then if you make it all the way through, you- a thought appears, you entertain this thought, you dialogue, you consent with the thought, your body becomes activated by this thought. You have passions that then become embroiled. That passion becomes a habit. The habit becomes an enslavement. Now, all of a sudden, you're living life, and you don't even think like you're thinking.

All these things are just happening semi-automatically because the habits are ingrained. So we're s- now we're stuck in sin. We're stuck in that situation of maybe, Romans 7. I see and want to do the good, but there's something inside of me that does something else, and the things I want, I don't do, and the things I don't want, I do okay, I think we're familiar with that. And this is not just a solitary formation. This is also a social formation. So can we get then to, as- ascetic practice? I will just tee this up, and maybe this is not where you wanna go, but the whole idea of, neuroplasticity, changing our brains and our bodies, and ascetic practice, is that something like, under the guidance of grace, we're trying to undo all that work and then set a different trajectory?

David Clayton: Bit oversimplified, but yeah. Of course. That's my spiritual gift of 

a bit over... Because what you're dealing with is not just good or bad behavior. we are looking at the right ordering of love, the right ordering of behavior. I can't remember that wonderful quote I came out with. so sin is whatever enslaves the heart and prevents love.

Asceticism is the training that frees the heart so that love becomes possible. That is what you've just described and what

Geoff Holsclaw: There we go.

David Clayton: talking, So yeah. So Abba Poemen would say, "Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart."

complex thing. You also said about, the thing I want to do, I don't do.

The thing I don't want to do, I do. You are human. This is why humility is so necessary. and one of the things I love about the Desert Fathers is the reality of putting the other above self and humility. we've talked a little about humility before. We could do eons of work around that, because that's the key. Can't judge somebody because they've done something wrong. Why did they do something wrong is the question, 'cause it could be we could get into all sorts of contentious reasons now. and Gavin De Becker comes, top on my list on describing how and why, and the brain does this, that, and the other.

there are lots of people who'd look at the criminalization of brain behavior,

some- sometimes that person has thoughts they've entertained dialogue with, consented with, become a passion, become a habit, and become captive Whilst they were very young. So we're talking one to seven programmable, nought to 14 critical thinking development, with the brain. You can't even start understanding how to think. but younger, without the right sort of social constraint, and external constraint does not necessarily bring about internal change. Internal change comes about enabling a person to think. This is the difference. The desert enables that process of transformation to happen because it enables gnepsis for them to learn to think. What... One thing that's come up recently, just a slight tangent, is metacognition. Now, I do a bit of training on metacognition and stuff like this through the contemplative side of stuff. a few clients on that. Love it. I love getting people to look at their thinking. And that's what we're talking about.

That skill which, high-end business and all of that are looking at the moment, was actually knocking around in the desert back in the day. where these, I was gonna say scruffy little old boys sat in caves. Th- there is something in that is, is part of becoming a human being, and I think what we're dealing with currently is a dehumanization and a, denigration of thinking. people argue with me, go, "Oh, you, need to l- lower, lower the tone a bit." I go, "No, you need to teach people to bring up their thinking to higher, gently, lovingly, with mercy."

understanding where people are at. And I think that's, what we're looking at. So I would say, and I'll just round up with this little bit before we get into maybe habit formation or something like that, or behavioral stuff. So psychology says thoughts, emotions, behavior, habit, identity. That would be what your psychological therapeutae healing of the soul people who work from DM5 and it's just gone onto DM6, and that's supposed to be healthy. yeah, I think, was it Maslow or Erickson disagreed with that? Said unless a person's actualizing, they're not actually healthy. Anyway, desert fathers said thoughts, passions, habit, character, destiny. I love that, 'cause that gives hope.

It's not about self-improvement, 'cause there's that old story, and I think you and I have talked about this at length before, of the monk on top of Athos. It's okay to use that one, the drink monk? Yeah? da, I'll tell it. I'll tell it and see how we go.

So So there is a tale, I've got the reference, somewhere of, some tourists visiting or travelers visiting, one of the monasteries on Athos, very famous Greek site for the monastic and the birth of the hesychasm tradition. and they see a monk who sat there a bit squiffy, got a bottle in his hand, looks like he's had quite a bit to drink, and they go, "Oh my goodness me, he's a drunk monk. How can he be drunk? That's terrible. This is a holy site." And it is a holy site with the utmost respect. Sincerely, I'd love to go there. and, the monks turn around and go, "He's one of the top elders." they go, "But he can't be 'cause he's drunk." I'm getting all emotional just talking about it, 'cause it's

Humility is real. And they go, "Yeah, when he was a child, his mother gave him alcohol to send him to sleep, so his biopsychology now won't go to sleep un- or rest or be calm unless he has a degree of alcohol." He spent the whole of his life, bear in mind this guy presents as an aged individual, he spent his whole life battling alcoholism. That means he understands his internality quite a lot,

 is able to operate in nepsis to know when he's struggling, and he's learnt to fall forward. We all fall down, we all pick ourselves up. We all fall down, we pick ourselves up, but he's learnt to fall forward and to limit his alcohol, because as they said, in comparison to what he used to drink, it's hardly anything.

And anyone who's worked in, addictive behavior pattern will understand what I'm talking about.

So I think there is that kind of premise, thoughts, passions, habits, character, destiny, but understanding the journey along the way. It may look different for other people because of their experience.

 we look at That shook me up, didn't it?

Geoff Holsclaw: Shall we what?

David Clayton: So modern behavioral science from that, so shows that much of human behavior is habitual rather than consciously chosen. So when we talked about earlier, thoughts And how our thoughts affect us. It's the habits that build up over our lifetime and how our, social constraints emphasize that within our culture. 'Cause you can take a person outside, and again, I wrote something on this recently. Take somebody outside of their culture and put them in another culture, and they will notice weaknesses in their behavior that they didn't notice whilst they're in their own context.

Geoff Holsclaw: so to finish off today, 

David Clayton: Oh, gosh. 

Geoff Holsclaw: want... Oh, wow. What, you got a lot more to say here, huh? Let's... I was trying to, get into the, practices, the ascetic practices, and I know we're gonna talk about, awareness specifically, and so I wanna kinda hold that off.

But, what is then, 'cause there's, a big book here. I don't know if you've looked at it, somewhere in my books. It's called, Asceticism of the Mind. And, and this, historian of sorts was looking at basically cognitive behavioral therapy that we have now, and then looking back and saying, "They were doing a lot of the same stuff."

This wasn't asceticism of the body. They were actually trying to create a discipline of the mind, and if we go all the way back to the beginning, if sin, in a sense, begins in thought, then there has to be a disciplining of the thought, in order to then, receive God's grace and be formed by God's love.

So could we can we kinda head toward, 

David Clayton: So like cue behavior, reward, reinforcement, and habit, which will be, Anne Graybiel's work around basal ganglia habit-forming systems,

and I'm just going off the odd quote. I'm not, an expert in that area. So a habit is first like a spider's web and then like a rope, according to Abba Pohman.

Geoff Holsclaw: Ooh, explain that. I like that. It's first like a spider's web and then like a rope?

David Clayton: Yeah. habit-forming reinformation, rein- yeah, reinforcement learning. so if you do something regularly... this is how, some of the subconscious processing techniques used by I'm gonna be naughty here. Can I be naughty at the end? okay. Some of the habit-forming processes used by Special Forces and CIA programming, enable, change, radical behaviors to strengthen the individual or to give them sleep,

certain breathing techniques, certain thought processes that give a, point in the day where your brain is going into, more towards theta, so in more in a rest state and towards REM sleep where your subconscious can kick in and do the work for you.

Silence does the heavy listin- lifting. So there is that if, one does that regularly, repetition strengthens neural pathways that Ignatius of Loyola, 16th century says exactly the same thing, repetition, so that your behavior becomes automatic. it's the martial arts reality. If you're going to learn to fight, then you need to do, the training, do the move, do the... it's, I think it's something like you can... A person who can kick s- one kick strongly is not as dangerous as a person who can keep kicking 1,000 times, 'cause they will be trained.

Their brain will just do it automatically. I know that from my own martial arts training in the past, not that I'm any good at it. But so repetition strengthens the passions, and the souls become captive on the negative side, or repetition changes positive behavior to move towards a disciplined behavior, which is from a given social constraint, from, the Gospels. Beatitudes.

Geoff Holsclaw: So that's what, the desert is aiming for. Is that right?

David Clayton: the dese-

Geoff Holsclaw: why asceticism, the word just means training.

David Clayton: Yeah, discipline. Doesn't... It's nothing

fancy. you could live a disciplined life in your context and all Christians should. They're called to be discipled ones. If they're not disciplined... and I remember, I'm gonna get contentious here, I heard an exorcist speaking the other day, and he was saying about, how discipline is the key to keeping out demons who have,

pe- from people who've been, oppressed or possessed, and emphasize the use of the, Ignatian exercises over the 30 days as part of that process, to keep them in silence, keep them disciplined, learn them to do that.

so I think, but the, again, we, hold the desert as that was their crucible. That was their where they went to die. So it's this, if we understand not red death, complete death, but white death or green death Dying daily, to use an analogy, if we were to operate in that dying daily within a c- cognitive behavioral therapy processing or even a neurological linguistic programming methodology and self-trancing, and we'll come onto trancing and stuff like that, and how trance affects the, cognitive transition and the way the brain processes, and how much you can learn when you trance. That's just prayer. so next time we can pick up on that. I don't know if prayer's a good Th- the desert itself is, you have a desert ... The desert is the internal space within you that you accept your death. You take up your cross and follow Jesus, to use the Judaic Christian frameworking, to learn to cognitively structure towards an outcome.

 putting others first, putting God first. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, to use a good rule.

 that, then there would be a bit more peace potentially, particularly in the church.

Geoff Holsclaw: I like that, and maybe we will need to end there, that the desert was seeking to build a social constraint against sin, because you can't do all this by yourself. We didn't fall into sin by ourselves. We're not saved out of sin, and we don't save ourselves Out of sin. I want to land, 'cause we're-- I'm a good Protestant, so we always have to land with grace and, the gift of God.

So could you wrap it up that way? How is it that this isn't just works righteousness, people trying to save themselves, but rather this is the, giving themselves over. If this is a social constraint against sin, and it's, training that we have to give ourselves to, how is it that not us doing all the work and God doing nothing?

David Clayton: Okay. All is grace. they didn't go there to achieve, I think is, partly ... Their motivation was to build relationship. I can't speak for them, obviously. How it fits in with grace. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, is a ... Yeah, heard that before. Yeah. and absolute, again, respect to the Orthodox brothers and sisters out there. That's the, premise, Lord help. we fall down, we pick ourselves up. We fall down, we pick ourselves up. Try to fall forward because we are sinners.

The other person has sinned. I think we talked about this in humility. The other person, sins against us, but we can't judge them because we've probably sinned in that way 1,000 times.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah.

David Clayton: to that transformation aspect, yes, we can do... and this is the difference between, NLP, neuro-linguistic programming or, cognitive behavior or trans training or something like that to... Or breathwork to shift, which would be basically, a becoming of God's self. So that would be magic 

in its raw form, which many, Christians fall into, unfortunately. However, the absolute reliance on, "I can't do this, but I'm gonna put myself forward and find what's wrong with me and hold that state however wretched before a loving God in my brokenness, and allow God to pour his loving mercy and grace through our Lord Jesus Christ to enable me to come close to God and have relationship with him, because that's why he came," would be more towards the premise.

And obviously there's a lot to unpack there. So that's why, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. did you just photo me?

Geoff Holsclaw: I did for the all of us. I just photoed. I'm gonna post this for the social. So, I love that, and that links back to if you didn't listen to the previous episode with, David Clayton on humility, you should check that out. But the social constraint, the project of social constraint against sin in the desert...

He's taking a picture back of me. 

David Clayton: I got you. 

Geoff Holsclaw: hopefully, we're not falling into vanity just did

David Clayton: it 'cause you did it. Yeah,

Geoff Holsclaw: I'm trying to land the plane here. is the social, the out in the desert, the social construct against, or the social constraints against sin, is really pointing us and driving us toward, humility and the need for God's mercy. So we're really just opening a space up and relying on God's love all the time.

So that's how this is not a human-focused project, but it is one that takes our humanity seriously and tr- rather than living, as opposed to those natures. So I think next time, or at least, until we bat around ideas, there is this kind of key term of awareness, of becoming aware of your thoughts, aware of where you are, aware of God.

so which is also a thought. Which is also a thought, right? yeah, and it is, and you brought up metacognition, so we're gonna press into those things I think, next time, which will be, whenever we get around to scheduling this. But thank you, David, for being w- with all of us today, for being with me.

It's always been so stimulating and generating for me. Any-- If you just, let, the Spirit sift your thoughts right now, any last exhortation or blessing that you'd want to 

David Clayton: I don't even think I have capacity to bless. God bless you all. there was... Yeah. and we didn't get onto it, 'cause we, but one of the Desert Fathers saying is e-each day I begin.

to have that hope that even in the midst of, whatever's happening, the, amount of despair that's around, that what-whatever failure a person's been through, they can begin again. There is mercy, there is grace, there is love for that to happen. I think, yeah, so just to hold that even if one feels one, and whether that's mental health or, a-addictive behavior or sin or just troubles or just fear of, the current environment that we live in. Just to get up and each day I begin with hope, and do your best. 

Geoff Holsclaw: And

to end this 

David Clayton: you all. 

Geoff Holsclaw: yes, the properly biblical correlate of I begin every day is that God's mercies are new every morning. Amen and amen. thank you again, and, and now you could, after the... Hopefully that caffeine, that boost is gonna fade off so you can have a nice relaxing evening.

I still got half a day's work left, but God bless to all of you in whatever stage of the day or the week that you are listening to this.