Psychology Professor Richard Mullis rejoins Mark to discuss the role of originality in identity. Together Mark and Richard examine the writings of Adrian van Kaam, a mid-twentieth century, Dutch, catholic priest who wrote extensively on the topic of identity and spiritual formation. His unique definition of originality guides the episode and grounds a proper understanding of our uniqueness and our Divine origin in God.

TRANSCRIPT

0:08

Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host, Mark Moore. And back on the show is Professor of Psychology. Richard Mullis. Richard, welcome back. Thank you, it's great to be back, you know, it's good to have you back so soon to so soon to, to kind of do a little, little part two of our, in our last episode together, we talked about identity in Christ. And we're going to kind of build on that today. But remind me kind of how we looked at identity in Christ, how do we define identity in Christ?

0:40

I believe that our deepest core sense of identity is as being made as a child of God being made in the image of God. And so that is, like, deep and fundamental, and, and irreplaceable, and other other forms of identity that aren't kind of grounded in that I'm suggesting might be problematic for the human person. And yeah, maybe we'll talk about some of that. But

1:05

yeah, cuz we did, we referenced kind of when you when you look at that identity at your most profound level, right, and grounding that in the imago, dei, the image of God, and understanding yourself as a child of God as your, as your most your most fundamental core identity, that also brings up that we have all these false identities, that that these false sources of identity that we find ourselves in and we referenced, are one of our favorite writers and renowned and he talks about kind of three false sources of identity that I am, what I do, I am what I have. I am what other people say about me, which every time I say those three, I realized that those are three that I still struggle with. Oh, yeah. That that even though I've read him and read that a million times from him, I can still read that and be like, yep, I still find my identity in all three of those things. Sometimes at the same time.

2:04

Yeah, that's right. And, and I think we briefly spoke about it. But sometimes we have to get clear on that. And almost like, say out loud, least for me, I have to say out loud or put it in a journal like okay, right? Well, these things are important, you know, what I do or what they're important, what people say, and etc, etc. But they're also not the deepest core fundamental thing. So sometimes I have to have renunciate or runouts. Yeah.

2:32

Yeah. And I think and you kind of we talked last time, either about those practices of either journaling it out saying it out loud, like really negating those things. And, and I think that's just so important. And it's something that you don't just do once, we have to keep, you have to keep doing, but kind of Henry now in will transition into kind of another writer that I want to focus on today. He is also a mid 20th century, Dutch Catholic priests, psychologists. Awesome. Yeah. Which is just bread and butter. I'm seeing a trend here. Yeah, just his name is Adrian Vaughn calm. And, and he's among like, numerous spiritual formation topics that he has written on. He writes a lot about identity and originality. And he has this great little book from the early 70s. It has a beautiful 70s cover to love oranges and yellows. Yeah, it's beautiful. And it's the title is great title is very good. Early 70s. Title two, on being yourself. Yeah, I love that. It's kind of you know, I mean, cuz I think a lot of people in the late 60s kind of lost their minds, and maybe lost themselves themselves. And so early 70s is like a is nice for this book to come on being yourself. And he makes a really good connection. And I think a really good contrast, actually, between what we mean when we tal