Several years ago, Daniel Goleman wrote a book entitled, Emotional Intelligence, that challenged our preoccupation with IQ, especially high IQ’s. He wrote that IQ, or high IQ, in general, is only part of being an effective human being. Goleman said there is another dynamic that powerfully influences our success and happiness in life; he calls it EQ or Emotional Intelligence. Emotional Intelligence refers to understanding one’s self, one’s feelings, empathy toward others’ feelings, the ability to demonstrate listening and understanding to others, effectiveness in communication, insight into and intuition regarding relationships, and insight into and intuition regarding different kinds of relational situations. Very bright people can be short on EQ, resulting in personal unhappiness and relationship problems.

I would like to suggest another category of skills that is crucial for wholeness, happiness, and effective living. I call it Spiritual Intelligence. Faith is vision, a way of seeing, a way of doing life. This is in part what I mean by Spiritual Intelligence. In Proverbs 9:1-6 and Ephesians 5: 15-20, the virtues of wisdom and understanding are praised. The scriptural emphasis on wisdom and understanding is also what I mean by Spiritual Intelligence.

Spiritual Intelligence is lived and living spirituality. The book of Proverbs portrays wisdom or spiritual intelligence as a personified force inviting us to come and eat and drink of her resources. Proverbs says, "Wisdom has built a house with seven columns or seven pillars." I have a friend who is a pastor that has made this passage foundational for his community. He regularly challenges them to seek out "What are the seven pillars or the seven columns of wisdom or Spiritual Intelligence?" I would like to suggest what I feel are the seven columns, or the seven pillars, of wisdom.

The first is having a Christ-influenced self-concept. Jesus believed that he was God’s beloved, and that gave him courage for life. He wants us to see ourselves as God’s beloved, not resulting in arrogance or pride, but rather in courage, confidence and peace as we approach life.

The second column of wisdom, is having a Christ-influenced concept of other people. Jesus believed that all people were and are God’s beloved; therefore we are brothers and sisters. Being brothers and sisters is not determined by blood ties. Rather we are all united as brothers and sisters, in God. Having a Christ-influenced concept of other people results in a radical respect for the dignity of every person, from conception to death. Having a Christ-influenced concept of other people challenges us, motivates us, to seek being in communion with one another as community, as family. This pillar or column of wisdom motivates us to seek out even strangers as our brothers and sisters.

The third pillar or column of wisdom is living a life of stewardship. We live in a culture of accumulation that seeks security in materialism, wealth, things. An attitude of stewardship in life knows that all things are God’s. Our responsibility is to see that God's resources and gifts to us are shared as thoroughly and equally as possible around the world. Spiritual Intelligence involves a perspective of social justice for the use of our gifts of time, talent and treasure for the common good, for the world and for our church communities. The stewardship dimension of spiritual intelligence involves a sense of servant leadership in our careers and in our vocations that prompts us to use our gifts not just for self aggrandizement, but for the common good and for the glory of God.

The fourth pillar of wisdom or spiritual intelligence involves developing a balance between contemplation and action. Jesus is a wonderful example of this for us. Jesus had a passion for solitude, but he was also an activist. He was an activist who regularly retreated to be one with Abba, to be filled with Holy Spirit. Then he would return to the reality of his life. Our lives ought not to be all busyness. Our lives ought not to result in the "hurry" sickness that we see in our culture. Overly busy people become emotionally spiritually depleted. So many people live with this syndrome. We need at least 20 minutes a day for oneness with ourselves and oneness with God. We need to become people of discernment, responding, not reacting to life.

The fifth pillar or column of wisdom involves developing a paschal attitude about life. Spiritually intelligent people see life as paschal in nature. All of life is about life, death and resurrection, over and over again. All of life is about passage, over and over again, until the final experience of death, releases us into the fullness of resurrection. Having a paschal attitude about life leads us to a profound sense of meaning in the face of life’s deep, mysterious questions about sickness, suffering and death. This paschal attitude toward life also involves the discipline of living with attempted moderation in life, or as our tradition teaches us, death to self (self-denial), that we must rise to new levels of freedom and new life.

The sixth pillar of wisdom is living the way of forgiveness. Living the way of forgiveness, involves taking inventory and engaging in the practical steps of saying "I am sorry" or "I forgive you" innumerable times throughout a lifetime. The anger and hostility that prevail in our culture, I believe, is a toxic build up of the unresolved hurt and guilt and shame that is part of not working and living the way of forgiveness. The way of forgiveness can relieve us of so much of the burden we carry around with us each day.

The seventh and final pillar of wisdom or spiritual intelligence is finding a groundedness in God. Spiritually intelligent people are sacramental people, seeing, sensing God in most of the people and events of life. This groundedness in God is had by practicing all the previous pillars, or columns, or steps that I have talked about already. Hardly a moment goes by that Spiritually Intelligent people do not sense God is with them. This groundedness results in a peace, a comfort and also a challenge, a challenge to live the way of life taught by Jesus, which he referred to as the Reign of God. Key to living groundedness in God is simplifying our lives, moving away from materialism and a preoccupation with stuff.

Our culture holds IQ as very important. We have discovered EQ is important also. Jesus, in the Scriptures, reminds us of the ultimate importance of spiritual intelligence: wisdom, understanding, lived spirituality. How do we acquire Spiritual Intelligence? The New Testament portrays Jesus as the embodiment of spiritual intelligence. In the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus referred to himself as bread for our lives. This Johannine reference to Jesus as bread for our lives must be understood in two ways: He is Bread for our lives in that he wants to enter into a life-giving relationship with us. We learn his wisdom by prayerfully reading and practicing his Words. He is Bread for our lives, also, in the sense that when we eat the Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper, we become one with him and one with his Spiritual Intelligence. Jesus is God’s wisdom, he is the embodiment of Spiritual Intelligence. The promise of John’s Gospel, is that if we allow Jesus to feed us with himself, the Bread of Life, we begin a life of oneness or communion with God here on earth. And Jesus promises us that we continue that oneness in eternal life, on the other side of death. Let us work on developing our spiritual intelligence, our oneness with Jesus, the Bread of Life. If we just rely on IQ and EQ, our lives are incomplete. We need to come to know and live Jesus, and his Spiritual Intelligence.

Interview with Patrick Brennan
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Floyd Brown: Fr. Brennan, always a delight to be with you. I know the wonderful work that you have accomplished at the church and the relationship you have with a marvelous congregation. I’d like to know is there any correlation between IQ and EQ in what you were talking about?

Patrick Brennan: IQ, EQ, and Spiritual Intelligence. In my training as a psychologist and also as a priest, I have come to see the human person as a bio-psycho-social—and what I tag on—spiritual being. So we come with a given set of genetics. Social, we come from families. Psycho, we have all learned approaches to life. I think the dimension of human beings that really is not getting enough attention these days is the spiritual. So we all develop psychological selves. In that developing of the psychological self, I think an awful lot of us learned wrong. We grew up with some private logic and distorted cognition. I think bringing in Jesus or bringing spirituality, that spiritual component, can be such a powerful corrective on our emotional self especially. So many folks are walking around with anxiety and depression and stress.

Brown: Absolutely.

Brennan: If we go through the scriptures, Jesus is constantly challenging us to change our thought patterns. And if we can change thought pattern, that can begin to change our feelings. I gave a course at the parish that I entitled, Jesus Christ: Lord, Savior and Cognitive Therapist. I mean by that Jesus is challenging us to try to think in a new way.

Brown: Along that same line, you mentioned not reacting, but responding to life. Give me the difference, if you would please.

Brennan: If you drive the highway around Chicago or any big city, you just see so much anger, hostility and stress on the faces of people.

Brown: Absolutely.

Brennan: Or even how they drive. They are like Kamakazi pilots sometimes in their cars and trucks. I think part of that is due to this build up of hurt and stress in us. It’s causing us to react to people in situations. I characterize reacting by impulse. Often the impulse is grounded in anger, rather than responding. I think responding is characterized by reflection, discernment, thoughtfulness. If I sort of know what I am going to say or do in a situation. I’m not acting on impulse, I’m acting on reflection and discernment and thought.

Brown: I’m so close to that. I see that "road rage" and things that we have. And reacting is what is happening out there. How do we live a life of forgiveness?

Brennan: I wrote a book on that last year: The Way of Forgiveness. I lined up steps to take on a regular basis, both to say, "I’m sorry," and also to say, "I forgive you." And part of the steps are taking inventory on a regular basis. Whom have I hurt? How am I hurt? And part of the process in each category, whether I’m trying to say I’m sorry or say I forgive you, is to make a decision and to take action. But we always have to do inventory, decision, and action. And we have to keep in mind, also, reconciliation doesn’t necessarily mean everything is going to be nice and fixed up. Reconciliation is spiritual work that we are never done with. It is a process that we need to be working on throughout of lifetime. And again, it doesn’t mean that everything is repaired, but it means we are sharing in the victory of Jesus Christ over sin, suffering and death but engaging in this work of sorrow, forgiveness and reconciliation.

Brown: How does one become grounded in God—I think, was one of your expressions?

Brennan: I think groundedness in God, the last pillar or the last column of wisdom of Spiritual Intelligence, comes from practicing the previous six that I mentioned. But I think the key is what I call that twenty minutes a day. Actually I borrowed that from William Glasser, who wrote many years ago, Positive Additions. We is the father of reality therapy. And Glasser said if you don’t make twenty minutes—and he is not even writing from a religious perspective—if don’t make twenty minutes a day for yourself and to do something of a spiritual nature, you are going to be a pretty stressed-out individual. So that’s foundational that twenty minutes a day.