When I was young

I idolized Mr. Spock

Not the child psychologist

But the Vulcan

His calm, emotionless, intellectual nature

Seemed ideal somehow

To be able to walk through life

With the emotional restraint of a Vulcan

I wanted that

Especially through my teenage years

Full of insecurity

And emotion

I didn’t know what to do with all those feelings

Someone recently told me I’m a sensitive person

And they didn’t mean it unkindly

It is true that I have always felt things deeply

As much as I wanted to be like Spock

I’m afraid I was more like Captain Kirk

Blustering, quick to act, brimming with emotion

More likely to get poor Ensign Smith killed

As a result

But looking back through older eyes

Kirk wasn’t all bad

Annoying perhaps with all that ego

But his emotions, his passions

Gave him the courage to do big things

To go where no man had gone before

I’m pretty sure Spock would have been happy

Staying at home

I spoke to my counselor

About emotions recently

My distrust of them

How much more convenient it would be

Not to have them

She, of course, being a counselor

Told me to suppress them isn’t good

I need to feel them and name them

And truth be told

The times emotions have betrayed me

It was not because I allowed myself to feel them

But because I didn’t

Stuffing them away

Pretending they didn’t exist

Pretending I was a Vulcan

Cool and collected

But they never went away

They were still there

Gathering steam

Like a dormant volcano

Waiting for just the right

(really just the wrong)

Moment to explode

The emotion I used to struggle with most

Was anger

But these past years

It has been grief and sadness

Because I’ve labeled emotions as bad

The root of all my problems

I have not dealt with them

As I should have

Allowing the fury or sadness

To dissipate before it overwhelms me

I think emotions are meant to move us

They can’t be inherently bad if Jesus felt them

“Jesus wept” and even became angry on more than one occasion

God gave them to us for a reason

Like the wind this morning

That is moving the waves

All of them going in the same direction

I wonder if we all listened to our emotions more-

Not allowing them to make decisions for us-

Never that-

But listening to the conviction and prompting they are giving us

Alongside our intellect

Scripture

And the still small voice of the Spirit-

I wonder if there would even be evils

Like human trafficking

I know those are a result of sin

But they are allowed to thrive because of the inaction

Of a great many of us too

I think of Wilberforce

Who named slavery for what it was

An affront to God

And an affront to all of us, the Imago Dei

Causing slavery to be outlawed in England

Long before it was in America

Emotion is meant to spur us to action

To spark our consciences

When we ignore it

As Frederick Douglass observed

If you shut down your conscience

You do damage to it

It will no longer function as it should

Emotion, like conscience,

Gets our attention

Teaches us, prods us

Moves us

Not just emotionally, but physically as well

I know emotion itself is not to be trusted

Too much for our sin nature is tangled up with emotion

But if we pay attention to it

What might we learn?

Why don’t I like that person?

Is it because they are truly unlikeable?

Or is it because they set off my insecurity?

Do I dislike them because the emotion I am feeling is jealousy?

In which case repentance is called for

Repentance and a change of heart

Other times our emotions are more noble

Tears spring to my eyes when a friend unexpectedly dies

I should send flowers I think

Send a card to my dear friend who had just lost her dad

Not out of a sense of obligation

But because I genuinely feel empathy and sadness

For her loss

Perhaps the joy I feel

When I hear about my friend

Leading a loved one to Christ

Should spur me to share

The hope of the gospel more often

No, emotion is not all bad

And even the “bad ones”

Can clue us in to the state of our hearts

Perhaps the sadness and anxiety I am feeling

Are signs I need to stop

And rest awhile.

Say no to that engagement

Give “my soul a chance to catch up to my body”

An African proverb

The wind was so strong and so cool this morning

As I sit here on the dock

I had to go inside for a sweater

We’re in the middle of a heat wave

Most of the country hotter than usual

But here at the cottage

At least in the early morning hours

The wind compels me to put on a sweater

If I had not done it

I would have sat here

Feeling cold

Unable to think of little else

I think emotion is like that too

It needs our attention

Needs us to ask

What is it?

Why am I feeling this way?

Why does that phrase always trigger me?

What memories is it unlocking?

What emotions hide beneath the surface

Needing release?

Today I am releasing a few

With tears and with my pen

As I sit here allowing myself to feel

Both the good and the bad

The joy of time with family

And the grief of my parents’ inevitable aging

Both there at the same time

As Screwtape tells Wormwood,

“The more often a man feels without action,

The less he will be able to act,

And in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.”

Isaiah 30:15 says

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,

In quietness and trust is your strength

But you would have none of it.”

Am I shutting down the work of God in my life

When I shut down all emotion?

What if emotion itself is not the enemy?

What if the stoicism that refuses to feel

Is the real danger?

At times my emotions

Have felt like a tsunami

But what if they were meant

Like these lapping, undulating waves

To be felt little by little

As they come

To be examined and responded to

Before they become a torrent

I’m unable to control?

Potential energy meant to fuel

Our purpose and our repentance

What if the act of self-control

Is not, as I’ve always assumed

An act of holding in,

But rather an act of letting go?