Protect Your Noggin

Discover what makes others tick and you'll be people smart. Understand your true self and you'll be enlightened. To confront others is gutsy. To confront your true self is heroic.

The sage learns that seeking goodness in the world isn't so much a matter of willpower as much as it the proper tuning of the senses to taste and see that good is good.

Here, Jeff isn’t saying he’s sorry for what he said in Part 1, rather he’s providing an apologia for his perspective on academic freedom within church related schools and universities. Check out the previous part, at least the first ten minutes, before heading to this part, which is more technical and deals especially with the epistemology of William of Ockham and it’s resonance with Lutheran epis...

If an academically free space is possible in society, it can only exist at a Christian University.  Some folks mistakenly think that the Lutheran Confessions represent a constraint on an individual believer's freedom, or a way to give churches conclusions about Scripture that allow members to bypass the important work of engaging directly with the Bible. While recognizing that the Lutheran Confess...

Storms blow across hills in the morning, then give way to stillness. Rain bursts from thunderclouds in the afternoon, then the evening sky enjoys silence.

Feeling a deep love for all living beings, the sage is uninterested in besting them at a verbal fight. If others ask for help finding truth, the sage is generous and obliging. If they want to feel superior, the sage is generous and obliging. It’s not that she’s a pushover; it’s that they can’t harm her. She’s not playing her enemies’ games so they can’t possibly win.

How deep and how unfathomable!

Instead of theories and concepts, this chapter explains how Taosurfers behave and why they are misunderstood by others. 

A discussion of the concept of minimalism as understood by Lao Tzu, especially in chapters 59, 44, 48, and 80. 

Lay down philosophy and theology, so everyone can be blessed a hundredfold. Lay down virtue signaling and legalism so everyone can recover genuine compassion and begin to really care for one another.

18. When men lose touch with the Tao, they focus on legalism and charitable giving. This leads to scheming; then great hypocrisy ensues. Genuine love breaks down in a family; then relatives start to insist on family obligations. The nation falls into chaos, then people insist on partisan loyalty. 

17. The best leader goes unnoticed. Second best is the one who’s loved. Third best is the leader who’s feared. The worst is the leader who’s loathed. If you don’t trust people, there’ll be a lack of trust all around. Great leaders choose their words artfully. Then, when they  achieve something great, everyone owns the endeavor as if it were their idea from the start.

Bournes is a poet, hip hop artist & singer. He discusses his experiences in Long Beach public schools and later a conservative Bible college, laments some of the important elements that were lacking, and offers provocative but timely reflections on ways to reimagine education and other systems of society. This was recorded in front of a limited group of Micah at the Honors Living-Learning communit...

The galaxies blast out from the center of the universe; wait for their fall back to the center.

How internalizing virtue, and cultivating virtue in cultures is better than legalism, and how transcending legalism helps us to surf the Tao and evade religious and ideological manipulators. The three chapters we focus on for this lesson are 18, 27, and 38.

This chapter offers a vivid picture of what it looks like to surf the Tao. This isn’t about mere appearances, façades, or false egos. It’s about the way in which a person of integrity acts as if he or she is being witnessed. The way we treat a delicate flower or helpless baby bird who’s fallen out of a nest, or our neighbor’s lawn when we walk our dog says something about our alignment with goodne...

Look, but you can’t see it: it’s vague. Listen, but you can’t hear it: it’s silent. Reach, but you can’t grasp it: it’s intangible.  Yet these three longings to perceive lead back to the One. There’s no heaven more wondrous than this. There’s no shadowy world darker than this. It’s everlasting and nameless. Wave upon wave, threads of energy spool out from it. Then everything drifts back into the v...

The ancient Taosurfers were cool cats. They had poise. They demonstrated balance. They exuded integrity and compassion. But today, Taosurfers seem like bums to some. They seem not to be players. But maybe they’re playing a different game altogether. We discuss chapters 15, 20, and 67 of the Tao Te Ching . Jeff discusses how some racists in his world led him to lose his cool; Stacie applies Lao Tzu...

What does it mean that praise and shame invite anxiety and fear? Praise puffs you up; shame tears you down. Trying to stay on top brings fear that you will fall. Fear of failure keeps you from rising up.

12. Focusing on flashy things  blinds eyes to beauty.  Listening to a cacophony of voices makes it hard to hear the truth. Too many spices will dull your taste buds. Lust for luxury will drive you mad. Riches entice men to evil deeds.   Therefore, the Sage attends to essential nourishment instead of mind-numbing diversions. She selects healthy food, ignoring empty calories.   Reflection This chapt...

This show is dedicated listener question about what to do when you detect that a future pastor is a wolf pup, that is, a potentially dangerous clergy person in the making. How do we nip in the bud potentially abusive behavior without being too intrusive or outrageously in people’s business? We explore the value of asking the question: What are the wrong reasons I’m doing what I’m doing in my vocat...

Thirty spokes meet at a hub.  The empty space at the center is what lets the wheel go ‘round. 

Can you balance your mind and body and grasp the unity of everything? Can you soften your breath and become like a sleeping baby? Can you rinse from your eyes whatever is clouding your vision?

This episode is dedicated to a question from a listener who works in Christian education. They ask: How do I help change the culture of a church so that it's life giving & not authoritarian? In other words, how does one practically apply some of the themes we care about at Protect Your Noggin for the wellbeing of our kids? After minute 30, we give our actual interpretation of the Tower of Babel, &...

For this episode, Jeff asks Stacie (a death doula, AKA, end of life doula) to take over the episode and offer comfort and wisdom to our whole society the way should would work with an individual who was facing his or her mortality. This comes from our realization that, while we want to promote hope in our times, we also don't want cheap hope, or the sort of shallow positivity that covers over inju...