by Bonnie Schultz

There’s a point at 7000RPM where everything fades.

The machine becomes weightless.  It disappears.

 All that’s left, a body moving through space, and time.

At 7000 RPM that’s where you meet it. That’s where it waits for you…

It creeps up on you close in your ear, and it asks you a question.

The only question that matters. 

Three small words.

Who are you?

-Ford v Ferrari (2019)

Everyone has an identity. Even car companies.

Identity: noun

1. The state or fact of remaining the same one or ones, as under varying aspects or conditions. 

2. The condition of being oneself or itself and not another.

It’s 1962, and Ford wants to update its identity: making cars that appeal to the first seventeen-year-olds who have money to spend. These teens don’t want to drive their parents’ fifties cars; they want sportier, faster, sexier.  Designer Carroll Shelby has an identity and has no desire at all to change it.  

I’m Carroll Shelby, and I build race cars.

His father told him when he was ten,

It is a truly lucky man who knows what he wants to do in this world. But there are a few that find they have to do it. Something, that if he can’t do it, it’s going to drive him out of his mind. 

Shelby is that guy. And he knows one other man who is that guy too- Ken Miles identifies.

Ken’s nickname is Bull Dog. He can be difficult,  uncompromising.  But Ken doesn’t fit Ford’s image, and he knows it. 

Ford hates guys like us.

Ford’s representative Beebe says of Ken,  

He may be a pure racer behind the wheel, but he is all about himself.

A beatnik. Not to be trusted to put out the wrong message about Ford. At least that is Ford’s opinion of him. 

Are you what others think about you?

Ken’s son Peter gets who Ken was to Shelby. 

He was your friend.

It’s true, these two identify with each other. You might even say they share one mind as Ken, driving in the race and Shelby watching from the sidelines, are completely in sync with each other. Shelby speaks the words that are in Ken’s mind. 

Wait for it. Wait for it. Now... 

...and Ken acts on their mutual thoughts. 

This synchronization is what Dr. Allan Schore describes in classical terms as intersubjectivity.  Dr. Schore is known for documenting the “origin of the self...what it is that makes me, me.”

This synchronicity is what Dr. Jim Wilder describes in his book Renovated as “mutual mind.” 

Thanks to recent brain research, we now understand more about how our identity is formed.  We found that the mechanism that creates mutual mind becomes operational when we are five months old and that our identity is created in relationship with others, not in isolation.  

Dr. Wilder in The Complete Guide to Living with Men notes, 

Our primary identity, at the apex of the neurological control structure of the brain, is a relational one. The human brain develops or changes character through attachment bonds. Attachment bonds are a compelling force.

We see the strength of Shelby and Ken’s bond when things go wrong, taking them through disappointments and flaring emotions. Most notably, when Shelby fails to acknowledge Ken’s anger adequately, a physical battle ensues. But in the end, they are still friends. It’s a powerful bond that “nothing can separate.” Not big negative emotions, not unrealized expectations. Apparently, they have fought like this before, but nothing will separate these friends. Ford V Ferrari looks at identity only in between human friends. 

But what if mutual mind states are not only possible between human beings? 

I had been a Christian a long time before I realized God wanted to interact with me in a very relational way. Before, prayer seemed one-sided with me doing most of the talking, leaving my expressions and requests with God, but not pausing for His response, not really expecting one.  

In the past few years, I have been joyfully experiencing His responses, seeing His activity in the daily details of my life. I think it began when Jesus highlighted to me, John 10:27, “My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” (I didn’t recognize that it was His voice speaking to me then, but I do now).  I started asking Him to help me to hear His voice, to know His voice. And He is!

Can we share a mutual mind state with God?

Can we think WITH God about who we are?

The Psalmist is amazed at God’s complete knowledge of him. (Psalm 139). God’s infinite knowledge of him is too wonderful, too high above him. He cannot reach it. So is it not possible to share a mutual mind state with God? 

Yet, Paul says in I Corinthians 2:16, 

For who has known the mind and purposes of the Lord, so as to instruct him?  But we have the mind of Christ.

How is this possible?

What person knows the thoughts and motives of a man except the man’s spirit within him? So also no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know and understand the things freely given to us by God.

-I Corinthians 2:11, 12

We might think we could have known Jesus better if we had lived when we walked on this earth. Suppose we had been one of those who followed Him then, hearing Him teach.  If we had been one of his disciples. But He really meant it when he said, 

I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him (the Holy Spirit) to you to be in close fellowship with you. 

-(Amplified) John 16:7

Close Fellowship. Dwelling with. Abiding. Connected. Thinking together. And through this connection, this knowing Him, our true identity is formed. We are becoming like Him. 

Dr.Wilder, in The Complete Guide to Living with Men, notes,  “Isn’t it just like God to design a brain that only knows itself in relationship?'' 

And Christians sing, “I know who I am because of who you are!” 

Is our identity set? Or can it be changed?

Brain research tells us the Identity Center of the brain is the one area that remains able to grow throughout our lifetimes.  Dr. Wilder says, “ We simply assume that we always know who we are. We are unaware that the brain is constantly calculating the answer to who I am now.”

Suppose it is our qualities, beliefs, personality, looks, expressions, and attachments that make a person or group who they are. In that case, when these things change, it seems reasonable that our identity would also change.

When I learn more about myself, I behave differently.  As I behave differently, I become. 

In high school, I was a mediocre student in most subjects. When I got to college, I was told what my IQ was. After I knew this about myself, after seeing myself through the eyes of the one who told me, I worked harder to become an A student.  I had been someone who tried to convince my friends there were far more important things than getting good grades. Yet, I became someone who valued them.

“For now in this time of imperfection we see in a mirror dimly (a blurred reflection), but then (when the time of perfection comes we will see reality) face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known by God.  

-I Corinthians 13:12 Amplified

Can I go on a journey to find myself?

My husband, Al, and I tried this once. He had completed a Master of Divinity degree in 1971 and started looking for a pastor’s position. But things didn’t go as planned. 

Those who searched for pastors for their congregations didn’t see who my husband really was. What they saw was the long hair, making him appear to be a hippie.  Eventually, he was hired in social services through an agency of the church. 

After periods of unemployment because of funding issues, he settled for a job in a government organization. But after a few years, unfulfilled, we decided to go in search of ourselves. We sold our house, purchased a van, and began to explore the country on our way to find ourselves.  It was 1976. Perhaps we were part hippie after all? 

A  year and a half later, even more dissatisfied with the new work he had found, we returned to the place we had lived before the journey began; the same neighborhood, same church, same job. We thought we had failed.  But now, as I write this, I realize we were not the same people who left.

I’ve heard people say about someone who has disappointed them (over and over again) “They’ll never change!”  Or perhaps even you have said, “That’s just the way I am. I can’t help it.” 

I believe there is hope. That God “has made it possible for us to determine, to some significant degree, what kind of person we will become.” (Jim Wilder, Renovated) Though, it won’t happen without some help outside ourselves. 

Three small words. Who are you?  More importantly, who are you becoming? 

Additional Reading and Resources

Scriptures

Romans 15:5, 6  Now may the God who supplies encouragement grant that you be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify and praise and honor the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Philippians 2:2  ”Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, having the same love toward one another, knit together in spirit, intent on one purpose.”

Romans 12:2  “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed and progressively changed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is which is good and acceptable and perfect.” 

Resources

Jim Wilder books and other resources can be found at www.lifemodelworks.org

Ford V Ferrari Script www.deadline.com 

Dr. Allan Schore www.allanschore.com  

Resources

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