Brendan Graham Dempsey: How Meaning and the Sacred Evolve Over Time

What if meaning is not something we find once, but something we learn to make more deeply over time? In this Lectern conversation, Ethan Hsieh welcomes Brendan Graham Dempsey to introduce his upcoming course, Matters Over Time: How the Sacred and Significant Evolve in Self and Society. Brendan is Director of Research at the Institute of Applied Metatheory and director at Sky Meadow Institute, where his work focuses on meaning-making, significance, the sacred, complexity, and systems-based thinking. The conversation begins with Brendan's own encounter with a meaning crisis and the question that followed from it: is there an order to the way our frames of meaning are constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed? From there, Ethan and Brendan explore why meaning is not merely private preference, why growth often requires discomfort, and why expanding our meaning-making does not have to erase what already matters to us. They then move from individual psychology into culture, history, and the sacred. Brendan argues that our forms of meaning-making develop across personal lives and across human history, and that the sacred itself can be understood as evolving, complexifying, and widening our participation in reality. The course is presented not only as an intellectual framework, but as a contemplative invitation to understand ourselves as part of a larger learning process. Join Brendan Graham Dempsey for Matters Over Time: How the Sacred and Significant Evolve in Self and Society. Course page: https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/courses/matters-over-time Chapters 00:00 Welcome to The Lectern 00:30 Introducing Brendan Graham Dempsey and the course 01:30 Brendan's work on meaning, significance, and the sacred 02:00 A personal meaning crisis and the study of meaning-making 03:30 John's influence and the meaning crisis 04:00 Matters Over Time: course subtitle and frame 04:40 Why meaning-making is necessarily complex 06:00 What if life already feels simple and meaningful enough? 08:20 Seeing patterns in how people make meaning 09:30 Meaning-making as a meta-meaningful process 11:40 Does expanding meaning threaten what already matters? 12:30 Complexification as widening rather than negation 13:20 The ethical need to widen beyond the self 14:40 Widening and deepening interiority 16:30 Meaning-making is shareable and correctable 17:30 What if I have not found what is meaningful yet? 18:40 Growth, discomfort, and the learning process 21:10 Comfort, hollowness, and the "so what?" question 22:40 How do I know my life is meaningful? 23:00 James Fowler, interview data, and faith development theory 24:50 Different forms of meaning-making 27:20 Case studies and the first course session 28:40 Is meaning just my private construction? 29:20 Worldview bubbles, relativism, and value nihilism 34:10 Finding order in pluralistic chaos 36:40 Ethan on recovering from nihilism 38:10 The psychological and sociological dimensions of meaning 39:40 Understanding our epoch in relation to human history 40:50 Moving from individual meaning-making to cultural evolution 41:40 Similar patterns across personal life and human history 44:00 Meaning-making as a cosmic complexification process 46:20 Are we already connected to something larger? 48:10 Taking the framework on board as a lived worldview 50:20 Against the "cosmic fluke" story of human insignificance 52:40 Human consciousness and meaning-making in the cosmic story 54:00 Responsibility, wisdom, and the call to grow 57:40 Meaning-making and the sacred 58:40 Brendan's faith crisis and the question of the sacred 59:40 Meaning as knowledge that enhances viability 01:00:30 Awe, wonder, and the sacred as transformative encounter 01:02:10 Tradition, symbols, and cultural transmission 01:03:10 Prophets, sages, and updating the sacred 01:04:00 From tribal belonging to common humanity 01:05:40 How the sacred evolves and complexifies 01:06:10 God, cultural evolution, and changing images of the divine 01:07:40 The sacred as liberating and confronting 01:09:30 The course as deep contemplation 01:10:20 Seeing oneself within the process of meaning-making 01:12:30 Re-homing ourselves in relation to the sacred 01:14:40 Participating in a new movement of the sacred 01:17:00 Course page invitation 01:18:10 Brendan's closing note on humility and dialogos 01:20:20 Final thanks Follow John Vervaeke: Website: https://johnvervaeke.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke/videos X: https://x.com/DrJohnVervaeke Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke