Reluctant Emoter(s)

Rabbi Zusya, when he was an old man, said, "In the coming world, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me, 'Why were you not Zusya?'" The true vocation for every human being is, as Kierkegaard said, "the will to be oneself." ~Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church, p. 141.

As some of you may know, I describe myself as a "reluctant feeler." When I first took the Keirsey Temperament Sorter in seminary (yes, I am more-than-slightly obsessed with those four mystical letters, but that's another story), I was devastated when the test told me I am an "F," not a "T." In my mind, "F's" were weak, captive to each and every wave of emotion, certainly not qualified to study academic theology in the highest echelons of the British educational system. I wanted to be a "T," one of those dashing intellectuals, firing off spontaneous brilliances with perfect logic. I clung to the rationality and academic prowess I was proud to have built over the course of my up-teen years in school.

But God has shattered that false self-identity. By drawing me into an actual community, teaching me to pour into and draw deep from other people rather than hide beneath the brittle shell of books, studies, fear, shame, and deep loneliness, God has forced me to come to terms with my own inwardness. My fears of captivity to every emotional whim have not materialized, but I have begun to trust my emotions to tell me about reality--a different sort of reality than my intellectual synapses validate, perhaps, but reality nonetheless. Funny--my head knows that as whole people, permeated by Incarnation, our emotions are no less important than our cognition, but in practice I too often live entrapped in the Enlightenment, crowning rationality as the prince of all faculties.

Too often, I suspect, the church does the same. Too often, the church surrenders concern for engaging emotion to a few (charismatic?) denominations rather than seeking the healing, redeeming power of Christ for our emotions as part of our lives. For one of my classes, I am reading The Emotionally Healthy Church, by Peter Scazzero, and I can already tell that this book is going to affect me deeply. Scazzero argues that one of the primary reasons the church in the U.S. is in such dire straits is because we neglect to teach people how to mature emotionally as a necessary part of spiritual maturity. Right now, I can barely begin to process such an idea. But if my own experience is any indication--emotional and spiritual deepening blossoming as two roses on one prickly stem--beware, church! Emotions will out.

Interested in learning more about Peter Scazzero's ministery? Check out http://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/.