Episode 333 - Curt Thompson, "Sacred Attachment"

Welcome back to another episode of Restoring the Soul. In today's special episode, we flip the roles a bit as Curt Thompson graciously takes the lead to explore the profound impact of Michael's new book, Sacred Attachment. Drawing from their personal stories, deep professional insights, and the latest in attachment theory, Curt and Michael delve into the book's central themes of spiritual exhaustion, divine love, and the transformative power of embracing our brokenness. They discuss how embodied experiences, like a long embrace, can reveal our deepest needs and longings for connection. Through their heartfelt conversation, you'll gain practical insights on nurturing your attachment to God and others, as well as the healing power of authentic community. 

Join us for this enriching discussion and discover how you, too, are an artifact of beauty in the grand mosaic of life's journey. Stay tuned!

Transcript

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Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Restoring the Soul podcast. I am here today talking with my friend and colleague, the dear and special to me, Kurt Thompson. Hi, Kurt. Welcome, Michael. Thank you so much. It is a privilege, as I said before we started to record. Oh. That it were as easy for me to, in the language of Harry Potter, disapparate and apparate into Colorado as quickly as this virtual contraption allows us to do. Because I would love to be, I'd love nothing more than be sitting with you in your office and drinking coffee or, and, and just being in each other's presence. It's always just such a joy. So thanks for inviting me to be part of it. Oh, you're welcome. It's my treat. And today's special because we're going to flip the roles a little bit. You have your own podcast, the Being Known podcast, but you graciously agreed to come on and talk to me about my book. And the reason why that's special, because it's special because so much of my book. Yeah, so much of my book was influenced by you and by the thinking of Dan Siegel and attachment and of course, the four S's that you wrote about in Journey of Detective, Desire or the the Soul of Desire and that Dan has talked about, seen soothe, safe and secure. So I just want to kind of hand it over to you and we'll, we'll jump in and meander around regarding the topics in Sacred attachment. Yeah, well, I mean, the first, first of all, I, I want to, I want to say to our listeners, if you don't have the book, I, I, I want to encourage you to buy the book. I don't. I want to encourage you, by all means. If, if you're a, if you're an auditory listener and it better for you to listen, by all means. It's better to listen than to not listen at all. It's better to read on a Kindle than to not read it at all. But I would really encourage you to buy a hard copy of the book because I think, first of all, University Press has done a beautiful job of putting into. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna hold it up here. I see it in the background over your shoulder, but I'm gonna hold it, I have my copy. Because in so many respects, if you, if you were to just sit with this book like you were to sit with a lovely piece of art and just meditate on what you see, not thinking about, just meditate on what you see, this what, for me, feels like A river of movement of all these different parts that, where there are fracture lines that are joined by this gold and you have this beautiful artwork of Kintsugi that is sitting right in the middle of it. But the physical element of the book itself, Michael, is a, is an embodied expression of the content. I think that what I, what I just an over. The first overarching reflection I have is that the content of the book is reflected in the physical presentation of the book as, as how beauty in our world through attachment and through attachment that we receive through the story of the biblical narrative, through the story that is centered around Jesus and how Jesus comes together, comes to bring all these broken parts together in such a beautiful way centered around him. That is the central theme that your book points to that this is we, we serve a God who imagines beauty already he's ahead of the curve imagining beauty emerging out of the very last place we would imagine it coming from. And that being the places where our trauma has lived within us for such a long time. And so that's, that's the first thing that I just an overview comment of the beauty of, of the book. And for our list listeners that where you have places in your life. I was with a friend at breakfast this morning. We're having a conversation and he made a comment about a particular element of his life where he cannot imagine things ever being any different in a certain domain of his life. And we talked about this notion of how that is so related to not just the facts on the ground as he sees them, but it's related to attachment. It's related to this way of how my embodied experience in life, like I don't have a way of even connecting to the God of the Bible that can subsume that. And I think that one of the most effective, beautiful things that you do in your book is that you bring to the pages not just the concepts of a Jesus who meets us in the quagmire of our worst places, but you provide practical, applicable ways of going about doing that. Whether it's the imagined visionary exercises that we talk about, whether it's the, you know, the embodied exercises that we talk about. And so it is a book of deep and embodied, like tangible, real, earth bound hope. And it is a book that also for our listeners who wonder if God takes you seriously, this is a book that will show you that God is a God who takes you far more seriously even than you take yourself. This is a God who suffers so much more deeply with your worst anguish than you do. This is a Book that reveals a God who has not just come to find us, but is coming to find us continually. Okay. Let'S close in prayer after that. Wow. I feel like somebody just like. That's the eulogy that I want, Kurt, because, you know, this. This book took four years to come together. And it came out of my story. Not just past redemption, healing, but present healing and redemption and struggle. And I wanted nothing more than to help heal people's image of God, but more than that, to help heal people's experience of God. That. That suffering that you talked about, that. That God suffers far greater than we do for our anguish. That. That he's not suffering because he's disappointed or frustrated or yearning for us to get our act together, but it's because he hurts for us. And, gosh, what you said about he has not just come for us, but that he's coming for us and that he always does. That's the hope of the book and the subtitle is Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love. And some people I know think, well, I'm not spiritually exhausted. I'm doing pretty well. But there's a spiritual exhaustion of even deep inside living in such a way where we think we have to obtain God's affection or earn his embrace. You know, we'll say that we're saved by faith, but we're sanctified by working our butt off or that we love. But your words were just so profoundly gracious, and they deeply move me. Well, I. You know, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna jump right in here, Michael. I want to go back to something also. We mentioned right before we started the recording back in. We're recording this in. In January of 2025, back in the fall of 2019, I had the privilege of your having invited me to join a number of people to help shepherd one of the weekend retreats that you sponsor and that are so profoundly beautiful and moving for. Have been for so many men over the. Over the years. And there was a moment in that weekend where, in the course of the work that we were all doing, you know, shepherding folks like, I also found myself in a space where I was having a part of my own story, kind of the curtain pulled back and touched and so forth. And there was a moment that we both recall in which, you know, I mean, you know, dudes in that space, like, we hug each other, right? But you and I embraced, and it was. I will not how you held me. And I. I can't remember how long it was, but you know, it was many seconds. And of course, if you're not used to this, you're assuming like, okay, I think we're done here. Oh, oh, apparently not. Oh, okay, now we must be done. And. And it just, it continued. And I, as I said to you earlier, that that is a. Well, to which I routinely return. And this. This notion. So several things. One that it created for me, it provided an episodic. And like we talked about episodic memory. We talk about this notion of real time time travel memory. Right? Explicit memory that you've got to have, you know, you've got to have a hippocampus, you've got to have a functioning prefrontal cortex. You have to have some sense of being comfortable and confident enough, safe enough to allow it. And you provided that for me in a way in which, like, that's an. That's a. That is an embodied experience. And I would say that what you've done in your book is, is create opportunity for people to imagine this and instructions for how people can do this, to have real time, real world, physical world experiences that help us understand, like in that moment. That's an example of what I mean when I say that Jesus didn't. Hasn't just come, but is coming. There's a sense in which an embrace that lasts for about 90 to 120 seconds, which, until you actually do it, you're thinking, like, that's unusual. Yes, yes. And the embrace, it was an example of like, I think we're done, and you're telling me, like, no, we're not done yet. It's like in somehow you continued to come for me, and it was long enough that it will now live in my memory. We embrace people briefly and we don't remember that it happened, but these are the kinds of events that we need and that we long for and that I would say that in our culture, I have so many things that are distracting me, first of all from myself. So you mentioned, like, you know, those of us who think, oh, I think I'm in pretty good shape. And my being in pretty good shape is really my being distracted from myself until, you know, you offer me an embrace that is not just your average embrace. And the embrace itself is not just healing, but it continues to be revealing in the very same moment. Right. So intimacy is not just comforting, it's also convicting. Yes, convicting in the best way. It is like pulling the curtain back on this abscess and that laceration and that room in my house where I have long ago and effectively buried something that, like, I don't even know the room exists in my house, let alone that there's something in it. And I think that what your book is getting at is this. You're introducing people to a Jesus who is intentional, who is thorough, who is moving at a certain pace that is not hurried, who is unapologetic in his posture. And so there's a certain sense in which he's not milquetoast, and he's not treating us like we are either. He's also a bit demanding in the sense that I am. Yes, I'm demanding that you be open to me. I'm doing it with no condemnation. I'm doing it with no violence, but I'm doing it unflinchingly. And that, like, okay, I'm just saying all that and, like, it was encapsulated in that embrace that we had in 2019. And that's. And so much of that is. Is for people who. Who are wondering, who are thirsting and hungering for a felt and episodic in your chest sense of what it means that he's seen by the King. This book really gets. It gets. It really gets close to that. Kurt, thank you, as always, so much more than just information that you're conveying right now, but your heart is coming through visually in your voice and your experience. You know, you're not. You're not giving me experience that you learned in medical school. You're giving me the experience of the vulnerability of that moment in 2019. I want to ask you to back up and to reflect on something you said. You said that that embrace for you in that moment revealed something. And that when we experience those kinds of embodied moments, that it reveals something in us. And here's what. Here's what it revealed in me as I offer that embrace and as I've experienced other embraces like that. And. And for listeners, it may not just be a physical embrace. It could be a gaze that someone has upon you where their face shines, which is why Moses prays, you know, may God's countenance shine upon you. Right. That's an attachment phrase. And isn't it beautiful how when we. When we have a lens of attachment, we start to go through scripture, we start to see attachment everywhere, like, even. Even in passages that seemingly make God look not so good sometimes? But when I was embracing you, I too, thought, okay, we're done, you know, or. Or, okay, we've just crossed the line of socially appropriate length of a hug. Right. Right at this Point, this becomes awkward. But for me to follow what was deeper in my heart than in my nervous body, where I can be unsafe in the presence of healthy touch with other men simply because of my history, I had to breathe and relax into that deeper part of me which said, no, I have love to offer. I have something of, of God's mercy to offer. I'm an instrument at this moment. And none of that was cognitive. You know, it was all nanosecond. But what it revealed in me was, gosh, I, I still have work to do. And my work became surrendering into offering love. So talk a little bit about that idea of how embodied embrace reveals us. Well, you know, the closest metaphor I have to it is I am, I'm in a dark movie theater, and then I step out into the daylight, into bright sunshine. And at first my eyes hurt. And in some respects, there's a certain sense in which intimacy can feel like this. It, it's like I, it, it, it, it's hard. It's hard. But something about having been in the dark for long enough, like, I, I, I, I can't, I can't live in the dark anymore. And so, as we like to say, people, human beings change when they. Not just when they've suffered, but when they've suffered enough. And we come into the light and the light is not always immediately comfortable, but the other thing that begins to happen is that pretty quickly it may not be immediately comfortable. Kind of like, oh, there's the socially appropriate amount of time for the hug. But very soon after this, you also notice that you see things much more clearly because there's just more light in the room. Yes. And initially we see this happen, you know, in our confessional communities frequently, where someone is being captured by somebody else's gaze across the room. And you see the, the first sense of, like, pullback, of flinching, of like, I don't know if I can take this. And yen, like you said, like, you, you ha. You do have to engage a part of you that is willing to stay in the room, that is willing to like you. As you were following the lead of the spirit, you followed with me, you followed something that was saying to enough of you, this is okay. Hold him yet longer, hold him yet long. And the whole time you're having to calm the part of you that was like, yeah, we're done. But as you do within me, what's happening is not only am I feeling increasingly more comfortable and relaxed, I'm also becoming aware of the ocean within me that, that has Been longing for this without even knowing that I've been longing for this. And so there is a certain revelation of the intimacy. Yes. Becomes something I have to overcome. My initial. The part of me that really longs for it, yet is afraid of it. And as soon as I cross enough of the threshold, I began to realize that there's more and more and more of me that is hungering. And like, I didn't know all of the space. You know, the light comes a little bit into the room that is dark, and then it comes a little further into the room, and you see more and more of the room that has been dark. And then I want more and more of the light to come as far into the room as it can come. And so it is revealing in that way. Now, you know, we like to say that. I mean, this is the other thing that I think that you do a really lovely job of in this is, you know, you talk about evil. You have a chapter on a section on evil in the book. One of the ways that, you know, evil is not going to go quietly into the night. It does not approach that. That memory of 2019 with me and say, well, I guess we lost that. I guess there's nothing we can do about that, right? No, it is going to double and triple and quadruple down with every move that God makes. And so part of what I have to do is once I have that experience, I then have to go back and I have to practice it. I have to practice remembering it. I have to go back and on purpose remember this, because there will be all kinds of other moments. I can't just live in that embrace 24 7. I have to, like, you know, I have to, like, do charts. I have to do other stuff I don't want to do. I have to work out things with my marriage. I have, like, other. Other moments where shame will want to show up and evil want to double down. And so I. And so this is what evil wants to do. Evil wants to disrupt my memory of these moments. And therefore, there is work that is required on our part, both communally and individually, when we have these episodic moments of earned secure attachment, as we would like to say, where we are being seen, soothed, safe, secure. When those moments happen, we then want to do everything we can to remember it. So, Kurt, once again, there's so much you said there, but I want to just touch on this idea of practicing the images of attachment in our experiences. Another word that's often used for that is rehearsing those practices. And back to this idea that as we begin to understand attachment and look at our own story, how oftentimes our lens with scripture begins to change and we begin to see things that we didn't see before. And our mutual friend and colleague Andi Kolber said to me once as she was literally walking out the door of our office after a podcast, she goes, michael, I'm just starting to see that all theology is attachment. And I couldn't help but think when you were talking about practicing that image of the embrace, about how the book of Deuteronomy is the book of remembrance and how so often in the Old Testament we're called to remember, O Israel. And the Shema that Jews recite is this call to remember God's goodness. But that's not just a cognitive thing. It's as if they're saying in this broader context. And this is where we're invited in scripture, to use our imagination with scripture, which is not to say that we're making things up, but to see that we're actually internally representing what scripture is saying. For listeners that are wondering, okay, this is getting woo woo. But what if all those calls to remember were as if the writers of the Old Testament are saying, okay, Israel, okay children of God, okay followers of Jesus, be intentional about calling to mind God's affection, God's embraces, God's seeing you, Israel, of looking down and not just leaving you alone, but bringing your presence. And I just think this is something that I've seen in my work, and I certainly have to practice this in my own life, that one of the most powerful things we can do is to help people see in their story those moments of being seen, those moments of being gazed upon, those moments of embrace, physical or otherwise. Well, you know, Michael, it what's so spell binding to me about all this, what's so intriguing is this is so much a reflection of normal human development. There is a sense when a newborn comes into the world, we are with that newborn, the newborn is with us. And most of the newborn and infants waking hours, most of that time, not all of it by any means, but most of the waking hours is spent with our being attuned to this newborn in some way, shape or form. There's lots and lots and lots of contact where in which they are storing. Literally they are storing up memory in their body of what it means to be seen, soothed, safe and made secure. And so in this sense, memory is a thing that they are, as we all do. Still, most of our memory work is Embodied and implicit. Most of the neural networks that are designed for memory are not about explicit, conscious, left hemispheric, analytical remembrance. It's all the stuff that my body is remembering to do all the time. And then we see, though, that we like to say that memory is first we sense. We sense things in the world, and then we make sense of what we sense. But what's really striking is that the very process of making sense also creates its own weather pattern of sensation that I then sense again. And then I have to make sense of what I've sensed, of what I've made sense of. And this pattern just continues over and over and over again. And one of the beautiful things that is not unrelated to what Andy said. This whole sense of all theology is attachment is grounded in all theology. All biblical writing is first a material world experience. We don't just first start with the biblical narrative first. We start with people who've had real experiences in the material world, and then we make sense of them. I mean, those Hebrew Bible scholars who are in, you know, Mesopotamia, who are making, you know, in. In the exile in Babylon, they're. They're collecting and collating and they're deciding, right, this Minority Report that Tim Mackey likes to talk about, they're. And they're deciding how are we going to arrange this? They're not just. They're telling a story on purpose. They are making sense of things that an entire nation has sensed over the years. And then we discover that the way they have made sense of it is in and of itself a story that is being told that they want us then to sense. And our challenge, of course, so often is that especially with modernity and 500 years of the Enlightenment and kind of logical linear processing that Ian McGilchrist talks about kind of being this dominated, left hemispheric way of seeing the world at a distance. You know, it invades our theology, it invades our churches, it invades our sermons. It's like all the. So as long as I, like, know something, you know, in the abstract, as long as I have information somehow that will magically be enough. Without remembering. There's that word again. Without remembering that we were first mud long before we had words. We were first bodies in Genesis 2. And so again, one of the things that I love about your book is like a person could pick up your book, and I would say when you buy this book, you would rightly approach the book seeking information that is not untrue. But if you are open to it, you are going to encounter an Encounter. When you read the book, you're going to have an encounter, not just with words, not just with information, but with you, Michael. People are going to have an encounter. And yes, you are asking your readers, you are placing a demand on your readers. You're asking them to come to the table and be ready to go to work. And some of that work is what you're saying right here. Like, we're asking people to do the work of imagination, to do the work of remembrance, to do the work of when you have those embedded embodied experiences that you then put your memory to work to strengthen it. And in this way, we see a recapitulation of human development. Newborns, as we said, they come into the world, they are just with parents, but at some point, as they grow older, they are going to have to remember their parents when they go off to preschool, when they go off to college, when they are having their own children, and they are going to have to purposefully do the work of remembrance, which in many respects, again, is a reflection of the first two pages of the Bible, where we see a God who has made us and who takes us so seriously that he expects Adam to remember the commands that he has given him. He wants Adam to grow up and behold, God is not walking. He is not with him right by his side the whole time when the serpent. No, because he's taking Adam and Eve seriously, far more seriously than they were taking themselves, taking us far more seriously. Which means, like, I want you to, like, really partner with me. So I want you to do the work of remembering in the same way that when we are doing, you know, when good parenting happens, we are actually giving our kids the opportunity to remember what it was like to be loved by a father who loves you, loved by a mother who loves you, and so forth. And that's one of the other things that I love about your book, is that it gives the reader the opportunity to not just be more well informed, which it will, but gives the reader the opportunity first to be formed. It will give the opportunity for the reader to first sense. And that's what I would invite our readers to really pay attention to when you're reading. When our listeners are reading your book, I want to invite them first to pay attention to what are you sensing, what are the images that are coming to mind? Where is your imagination being taken? And what is it like for you to imagine that when you're going to these places that Michael is with you, he's not talking to you from a distance, that you are with your Reader. And how does that make a difference? And how do you then, Michael, who's with people in this book? How are you very much like Jesus is in the Scriptures? How are you becoming a vessel whereby. Which through the Holy Spirit, Jesus comes into the room and is forming us in the ways that we sense things? I realize I'm talking a lot here, but I just can't, I can't. There is just so much in this gift that you've given to us. Again, I keep saying this, but this is not unlike when we've sat at breakfast or a meal or spent time together face to face. And the conversation just kind of ping pongs where we never necessarily close any of the loops, but it just keeps expanding. You know, as I wrote the book, I wanted readers to feel embraced, to really feel that sense of that I'm here with them. And I did that by sharing a lot of my story, both past and present, but also to offer a kind of compassion that would almost feel dangerous, like this is too much. Because God, of course, wants to pull in the sails and rein things in. He can't be that good. So thank you for just the words that you keep referring back to the book as well as the conversation. Well, you're welcome. I. Let me just let me, let me, let me go. Let me continue and say throughout the arc of the biblical narrative, even with Moses, Moses does not. I mean, he, you know, I think about Deuteronomy

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4 times in 1 chapter. Remember, remember, do not forget. But he doesn't just give us words. The Hebrews had the tabernacle. The Hebrews had their daily rhythms. The Hebrews had tangible material world actions and objects whose purpose it is to serve, to remind them of things. To remind them. Like God doesn't just say, oh, I'm with you. No. He comes in a pillar, a cloud and a fire. He's giving people a material world way of being embraced. He gave me, he gave me a material world thing I can remember on that September day in 2019 with you. And I think, like, again, I'm going to hold this up because you can see it like I'm holding this in my hand. The very paper like this itself have become an Ebenezer when to your readers, I would say when you, when you buy the book and you have the book, I want you to take care of the book. I want you to keep the book clean. I want you to keep the book. Well, yes, okay. If you've got to have a copy where you are dog earing it and you were underlining it and all the things like, go at it and then get yourself a second copy that you can keep with you. And I'm like, I'm not even kidding. I want you to have something that you can see. Like, you have it on your car, on the seat of your car. You pick it up and you take it with you in the office and you put it on your desk, and you have a way for you to remember. I mean, it is replete with this. And of course, it culminates for us as Jesus followers. It culminates with the Eucharist that we take in his body and his blood. For many of us, certainly weekly, some of us every day, I mean, multiple times a week, we are, because we so desperately need a material world representation, a material world reality that tells us that God is not messing around. He is deadly. Like, crucifixedly. I don't even know if that's a word. We'd have to talk with Brad about that. Like, who's, like, he is that serious about us. And then with the resurrection, this sense that his, like this, this body and blood become our life. And I, I again, just am, I'm struck with the beauty of the book, such that even it can become this, Ebenezer. It can become this thing that reminds us of the content that you're reading about it. This, your second copy of the book, because you're just reading the living daylights out of the other one and doing with it what you will and then buy a third copy and give it to one of your friends. I just, I feel a sense of honor as you're talking about the book. And I feel gratitude. And I also feel excitement, Kirk, because as I said earlier, it took a lot to bring this book into the world. And there's an excitement as people hear this message. It's a message that I believe. The clients that I work with, friends, family, colleagues, I know that it's a message that is not unique to mine. It's just my little weaving of, of this gift. But I believe that we're all far more desperate for loving embrace and loving attachment than any of us know. So thank you for today, sharing both your heart, your experience, your, your medical knowledge, your psychological knowledge as a means of speaking about the book. So I'm blessed. Yeah. Okay. I, I just want to say one more thing, and I, I, I want to affirm and just emphasize something you just said. It's true that there are, there are a number of people that are in the world that are Writing about such things these days that are. Talking about such things that are, you know, kind of becoming known on their Instagram accounts because of such things and so forth. I am. I am. I am inspired by the work of N.T. wright, in which by. By a lot of what he says. But one of the pieces, one of his. One. One of the things that he emphasizes, really captured my imagination is this idea that the work that we do right now as we are practicing for heaven, the work that we do in and of itself is in some beautifully mysterious way going to be made manifest in the new heaven and earth that's coming. We're not just doing work right now that only applies to this present age, but we are doing work in the age to come that has not yet arrived in its fullness. But when it does, the works that we are doing now are going to show up then and will contribute in significant ways to the new heaven and earth. And I'm. I'm. Okay. I. I'm sorry. Can't stop. I just want to. I'm looking at the COVID of your book, and I'm looking at these different, you know, these. These different colors, these different shards, these different portions of what could be a river, could be a piece of art, whatever that is. And that piece of artwork is only as beautiful as it is because of each portion that is in it. And this is your particular portion. And yes, at the same time that there are other people who are saying, talking about these things and so forth, your part is exclusively and particularly necessary. And the new heaven and new earth is not going to be what it could be if you don't do this. And that's one more thing I want to say to you, but also I want to say to our listeners that each of our listeners, you also have work to do through allowing yourself first to be healed and then become a channel of healing. Amen. And that work, also the work of your receiving, healing, and then providing healing, becomes one of these portions of this grand mosaic that God is creating that's coming in its fullness. And so that's also just one more way in which I'm just so grateful that this artifact of beauty that is in the world. So thank you not just for the book, but for the years, the decades, and in particular, you mentioned four years. But I know it's been more than four years of the hard work that has preceded what we find on these pages. So thank you. I'm going to take that phrase with me today. An artifact of beauty. And I received that about the book, but it also makes me think that we're all artifacts of beauty. Well, it's a blessing to receive your words, your comments, and it's always just great to be with you. I can't wait to see you. If not before then, but next September, you and I and Andy Colber and Allison Cook and Ian Cron will be speaking about mental health and spiritual formation at the apprentice gathering. And I'm so excited for their vision to bring together people that are thinking in this kind of way. So. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. All right. Until next time, my friend. All right, my brother. Indeed. My pleasure.