- Home
- Preface
- Introduction
- Three Zones and Nine Sectors
- Wings and Moves and other functions
- Biblical Journeys
- Prayer
- The Enneagram
- From the Enneagram to the Strategy Board
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Foreword
Written by a highly experienced, wise, and practical parish priest, this book guides the reader gently and firmly through a whole program of discovery and – in the proper sense – conversion.
This particular reader was forced again and again to recognize the challenging sense of the analysis offered, and hopes that many more will find the same excitement and prompting to growth in these pages.
Dr Rowan Williams
Archbishop of Canterbury
Preface
Michael Hampson trained as a priest after studying cognitive, behavioral, and neurological psychology – the psychology of the mainstream scientific community.
To Head versus Heart he brings the insights of this psychology – along with a practical, pastoral spirituality.
The result is a powerful system for understanding ourselves and the people around us that is logical and rational throughout – and where the assumptions are the assumptions of faith: that when we speak of the experience of humankind we must speak of a spiritual journey, of gifts and temptations, and of participation in the wider community of faith.
The emphasis throughout is on the practical and the positive: the gift and the potential that each person brings, and the path from where we are now to the very best of what we are called to be.
Head versus Heart rebuilds the enneagram on a single new foundation: the fundamental question of how we engage with the world.
To this task we each bring three basic resources – ‘head’ and ‘heart’ and our ‘gut reactions’. Head versus Heart is a study of the interaction of these three.
The concept of the ‘strategy’ becomes central early on, so the enneagram is recast as ‘the strategy board,’ with nine ‘sectors’ and nine strategies for the nine classic ‘points’ of the diagram.
From the top of the first page, Head versus Heart explains as it describes – something that has never been done for the enneagram before – making Head versus Heart the most important new work on the enneagram in thirty years, and the definitive enneagram text for the twenty-first century.
Reading Head versus Heart is a spiritual journey in itself. Page by page it gives new insights into our own struggles and dreams, and the gifts we take too much for granted, and the things that hold us back. It helps reveal our natural spiritual gifts and our individual calling – then plots the route toward the practical fulfillment of that calling. Along the way it also makes sense of the diverse people all around us – their weaknesses, their gifts, and the struggles and spiritual journeys in which they are engaged – making it so much easier to respect them, work alongside them, engage with them, and value their gifts.
While the language here is that of mainstream Christian spirituality – temptation and redemption, ‘the seven deadly sins,’ biblical heroes, different patterns of prayer, ‘participation in the body of Christ’ – there is plenty here for people of any faith or none. Head versus Heart is a personal journey of discovery – built on the common experience of what it is to be human in the world.