I was recently introduced to a model of the human mind called The Chimp Model, or sometimes the Chimp Paradox, created by Dr Steven Peters. This is a mind management model which views the human mind in three parts: the inner chimp, which is the animal part, the sudden response, the part which acts without permission, impulsive, emotional, plausibly eats bananas; the human part, which uses logic, the rational and hopefully kind part but it’s the slowest part of the brain, and the computer, which is a reference bank, but also probably covers advice from the past, and can be trained to run its algorithms pretty fast. Chess players, muscle-memory, knowing how to ride a bike, and much more.

If you’re at the physical peak of sports, you can, and should train this part of your mind, says Dr Peters, as much as your body. If you’re cycling at breakneck pace, better for unexpected issues, decisions or circumstances to be handled by a well-trained computer brain than by an emotional jolt from the chimp, or a slow decision from the human. The army will drill you to make those decisions with trained instinct rather than human-brain decisions to get the gun going as soon as the danger is registered, which admittedly comes with its own problems. If you play a lot of any game your computer brain will learn the usual rules as instinct, rather than taking contemplation every time.

I like to call this model the Chip, the Chimp and the Chump. The chip is the computer, the chimp’s the chimp, and the chump is the human. If you’re more philanthropic you’re welcome to go with ‘the champ’ instead, but that’s less fun.

The chimp is an interesting one. If you’d rather stay in bed, or feel compelled to snack, or you have issues with executive function and something is continually blocking your motivation with whimsies, requests and distractions, that’s the cheeky chimp. And you cannot slay the chimp. You shouldn’t try, and you cannot succeed, the task of silencing the impulsive part of the brain. It’s here to stay. Find a way to pat it on the head, placate it, scratch the itch de temps en temps, but you will never be free of it. Even Jesus had distractions and temptation. God knows the human mind, since he made it and lived in one for thirty years.

I find it’s a fascinating model of the mind. My question is, which part do we pray with? People rarely blend psychology and the spiritual - and I’m not asking for pseudoscience here. Prayer is spiritual but it’s surely done with the mind first, as much as it’s conscious. Sometimes the chip, the computer, the revised prayer like liturgy to be read out or the Lord’s prayer, which one can pray as easily as one can walk, plausibly in your sleep. Sometimes the chump, the human, and I would dearly like to think this is the main root of my prayers - a conscious, deliberate choosing and bringing, not just an automated email on repeat.

And the chimp, the impulsive, impetuous one? Can prayers come through her? I say yes! A spontaneous cry of ‘oh my God’ might be precisely this, if it comes with some faith behind it. A howl of pain in the night, an incoherent prayer with anger and tears - Hannah’s prayer at the start of 1 Samuel, and chimp-prayers with passion over politeness feel like they belong in this camp. Did Jesus pray from his chimp? I’m convinced he would as much as any Peter, Mary or Dorcas! When he wept! He wept at the death of his friend, at the knowledge of the future of doomed Jerusalem, and crying from the cross, eloi, eloi, lama sabacthani. This was not a cool cucumber Christ devoid of human emotion as he was wracked in pain. This was the animal human Christ, where at last Biblical literalist genealogists and evolutionary biologists can agree that Jesus came as the culmination of a long and esteemed list of ancestors. The chimp says ‘why did you forsake me’. The chimp gets in quick. Despite this, the human and the divine can look down from the cross, and with reasoned care say, ‘father, forgive them. They know not what they do’.

Listener, you have a chimp and it wants what it wants when it wants, and you will never excise it. It is right to cry out in sorrow, pain, anger and hunger. Don’t treat that part of yourself as a monster. It’s you. We’ve all got one. Sometimes you are and sometimes you aren’t right to react strongly and internally, but it’s then up to you how you’re going to externalise that, how to rationalise that, and bring it forth as anger, humility or forgiveness. Treat others well. Treat yourself well, and sometimes just treat yourself.