Fighting Myself

This is the second year I've been home for J-term, and I hope it's the last. Not because I don't love being with my family or just being sacked out on the couch with my cat, but I miss Taylor. I know someday I'm going to graduate and go on to other things, but right now, I miss the environment. I miss trying to balance classes with theater and noveling and friends. I miss the challenge, going to chapel, and having random theological discussions. The truth is, I feel a lot more removed from God when I'm at home.

This is stupid. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, etc. My problem is I know this -- I've learned it and experienced it in many ways -- but I currently have a hard time "feeling" it. Spiritual dry spells aren't new to any Christian, and I can't say that this is a particular low point in my life. But it's frustrating.

I'm a very strongly emotional person.  Because I can easily fall prey to feelings, I also have an exceptionally high regard for sincerity. (Lying to or manipulating people is one of the few things that can really make me unwilling to forgive.) I hate manufactured emotion, and I have a very hard time being cheerful when I'm not.

Is this a good thing because it makes me want to be sincere with God? I dunno. Is this a bad thing because I'm less willing to praise God when I don't feel like it? Almost certainly. I've heard this point argued a dozen times before. I believe emotions are useful and enhance our relationship with God, but things purely emotional are transient.

For now, I'm fighting myself. I guess it's just good to know that God always wins.

Articulating Feelings

This post was originally written as a reflection for my writing class. So far, we've talked about writing, how great it is, and how it affects us. Yes, this is a class. Cool, right?

Some of our discussions about literature and writing so far have reminded me of conversations I’ve had with my boyfriend. I am an emotional person who often relies on feelings to figure things out, whereas he is a very logically-thinking person with little emotional fluctuation. Consequently, sharing our viewpoints is fascinating. I’m also the more creative one, so I’ll go off talking about some project or story or idea, and he’ll ask questions that make me probe deeper into how I think about the story or about music, art, or literature in general.

One thing I mentioned to him about class was my professor's observation that The Lord of the Rings is possibly one of the most powerful stories ever written. Both my boyfriend and I love LotR. Both of us would agree with that statement. But, to understand what I think (and add to his ever-growing mental database of how other minds work) he started asking me questions that forced me to articulate things that usually exist as untapped feeling in my head. 

I love reading, writing, and stories very much. But my feelings about them are wrapped up in things I truly believe. Reading makes us better people. Reading expands our mental experience and our empathy. Stories give us hope and show us how faith and living interact. Even stories that aren’t “Christian.” Even stories that are dark. Some stories may not be particularly edifying, but I would argue that most of them are, at least in some way. Literature would mean nothing if it didn’t in some way echo truth.

Sometimes it takes me a while to argue these things properly, but I think the evidence is all around us. I know I definitely wouldn’t be the person I am today without books. They’ve been such a big influence on how I grew up and how I think even now that I have no idea what kind of person I would be if I didn’t love reading. And – this is a feeling I don’t think I’ll bother articulating – I have to believe I’m a better person than I would have been otherwise.

The reflections that give rise to this kind of thought are one of the reasons I love discussing literature. I wish more people would talk about these things. I wish more people could see what stories do for us. Until then, I will continue the conversations. I hope whoever reads this will, too.