Wanting 101: No Desiring Allowed

How the neuroscience of dopamine can help us navigate the Ten Commandments and why how "covet" doesn't quite get the point across.

In August of 2024, I started a doctoral program in spiritual formation at Friends University. I was thrilled when we jumped on a video call for our onboarding day, meeting with the lead mentor, and getting introduced to the process of doing theology that we will ultimately contextualize in our research.

I had never thought that sitting on a Zoom call could feel like a dream come true, but I had wanted to start a doctoral program since the fall of 2010, during my second semester of undergraduate studies. As I sat in that classroom with 40 or so other students and listened to the professor lecture so dynamically and prophetically all those years ago, I knew that I wanted to teach. I don’t know if it is a calling, but I don’t know that it isn’t, either. All I do know is that I want to teach. I want to ​​wrestle with complex ideas. I want to do original research. I want to read page after page of dusty-looking books that people may or may not have read or even heard of.

I also know many pe…