Are you a dedicated follower of (emotional) fashion?

Fashions come and fashions go. Fashions in clothing immediately come to mind - styles, colours, hem-lines.  Within the realm of fashions, we may also take in particular activities that seem to arise from nowhere and then just as quickly disappear.

But have you thought of emotions as being fashionable or unfashionable?  I admit that these fashions don't come and go in a single season, but think back...

In the 50s and 60s it was fashionable to be happy, carefree, frivolous and joyful - but it certainly wasn't acceptable to be depressed - the most anyone would admit to was 'feeling a bit blue'.  Whereas, in the last couple of decades its become totally acceptable to respond to the question "How are you feeling?", with "Depressed!"; so much so that it sounds a bit naff to respond by saying "I'm really happy!".  Equally, it is not only acceptable to be 'stressed', but if you are not stressed the implication is that you're not trying hard enough, not working hard enough; in fact you are a loser!

There are several factors in our changing use of emotional language.

National and world events are clearly influences: the 1950s were a time of (comparative) excitement and exuberance coming after the strictures of war; the 60s were full of confidence in scientific progress, and so on.  Now, we are driven by money and efficiency, are cynical about whether real change is possible and shifting international power catches us (Westerners) off balance.  So it would be surprising if the prevailing national mood wasn't reflected in our language.

Another influence comes from the fact that it is in the interest of huge pharmaceutical companies to medicalise our normal experience.  Anti-depressants and medications for anxiety, to name but two major groups, are routinely taken by the unhappy and the worried, and not just by those who have real mental health problems.  The 'pill for every ill' culture is well established!

But this also further encourages the changing meaning of emotional words.  When most people say they are 'depressed' they aren't implying a clinical diagnosis of depression, merely that they are feeling unhappy, a bit down at the moment, rather discouraged or fed-up.  The growing acceptability of talking about depression may be a good thing for those who really are clinically depressed, but when it is merged or confused with unhappiness we have a real problem.

It is a problem for those who really are clinically depressed, who are often assumed to be simply unhappy, for this quickly turns into: 'they should stop making such a fuss about it - everyone's depressed!'. But it is a real danger for the unhappy too, who too often don't recognise that our self-descriptive words are self-fulfilling prophecies.  Describe yourself frequently enough as 'depressed' or 'stressed' when you are unhappy or busy and it's not surprising that you increasingly feel depressed or stressed.

Words have real power; we should choose them with care!  The words we use of ourselves and our mood are not just descriptive, but also become prescriptive.

Happiness is much under-rated these days; it's become a childhood memory, an unfamiliar and under-used emotion. Emotions, like muscles, need exercise.  Your depression and stress muscles are probably well built; what about getting some practice with satisfaction, happiness and joy?

This isn't to imply we should pretend to be happy - pretence is a slippery slope. Nor is it about denying the real sadnesses and difficulties in life. Rather it's about noticing and enjoying the (maybe small) bits of happiness that are in our daily experience already, usually unnoticed.  Don't think you have any? Look closer!  All the emotional colours are there in some measure - from blue to joy. Focus on those you want to develop and give those emotional muscles some practice.

Fashions are optional; we can choose to buck the trend and to 'do different'.

Lots of people, from drug companies to insurance salesmen try to sell us happiness.  Why buy a lie?  Why not practice and enjoy the real thing?

Whatever you do, don't love me

Please tell me you love me and be nice to me. Tell me that you care, and that you'll look after me. Please tell me that I couldn't help it and it wasn't my fault; please take responsibility for me. Shield me, pamper me, and say that we're in love. Make me the centre of your world, hang on my words and worship the ground on which I walk.  Give me the good life, a little bit of what I like, and why not just a bit more? Say that it's okay for me to have it all now and not have to wait.

Please offer me everything and tell me I'm special - simply at the cost of my soul.

But, whatever you do, don't actually love me. Don't confront me with my many failings, however gently. Don't ask me to take responsibility for my actions, or let me go through struggles or difficult times in order that I grow up.  Don't ask me to commit or expect anything in return. Don't tell me that I've hurt you, or let me know how costly love is. Don't tell me I'm loved and precious when this says nothing about me, but all about you.

Don't ask that I give myself entirely - or I might have peace, and joy, and life.

Love is a choice.

---

I am reminded of a poem which is a favourite:

If Love

If Love should count you worthy and should deign
One day to seek your door and be your guest,
Pause! ere you draw your bolt and bid Him rest
If in your old content you would remain,
For not alone He enters, in His train
Are Angels of the mists, the lonely quest,
Dreams of the unfulfilled and unpossessed,
And sorrow and life’s immemorial pain.
He wakes desires you never may forget,
He shows you stars you never saw before,
He makes you share with him for evermore
The burden of the world’s divine regret.

How wise you were to open not and yet,
How poor if you should turn Him from your door.

by SR Lysaght

I'm a Christian - no more and no less

Over nearly 40 years of being a Christian, I've belonged to Methodist, United Reformed, Baptist, interdenominational and Anglican churches; some have been charismatic, some evangelical and some somewhere in between.  I've only changed churches when a new job took me to another part of the country and then had to find a new church home.

I've met people from all these and other Christian denominations who seem to me to be Godly people, and others who don't look at all Godly to me; but I'm not the authority on their Christian standing, and I know that I often look like the un-Godly ones myself.  (What grace that our standing in Christ is NOT dependent on whether we look Godly!)

But I'm struck by how often Christians identify themselves first by their denominational membership or theological stance: 'I'm a Methodist', 'I'm an evangelical', or 'I'm a charismatic'.  And frequently it's clear that even such labels are insufficient and so become: 'I'm a Strict and Particular Baptist', or 'I'm a conservative evangelical'.

I'm afraid these labels have always left me puzzled.

Are the labels intended to indicate which personal preferences one has as a Christian: 'I'm a Christian and prefer organ music and stained glass to guitars and choruses'?  But in which case the latter is trivial and our shared identity as children of God must encompass those who have very different preferences to ourselves!

More likely they are used as a shortcut to indicate which specific belief-set one holds as true, so that we can find others of like mind.  But even here I have a problem.  If we are in effect saying 'I believe these particular beliefs and, though I accept you are Christian, I disagree with some of your beliefs', then this is only a cause for discussion in brotherly/sisterly love, recognising that we may still end up disagreeing - but the bond between us as brothers and sisters in Christ far outweighs any such disagreements, which are trivial by comparison.  Hence the label is really of very little consequence.

Or are we actually saying through our denominational and theological labels, that 'I am right and you are wrong; I therefore do not accept you are a Christian'?  Well, you may have privileged (though 'read-only') access to the Book of Life, but I know that I do not. And dividing up people as 'in' or 'out' based on their labels - for example, evangelicals are 'in', but catholics are 'out' - absolutely must be wrong.  If you do that you're bound to end up surprised at how many evangelicals end up 'out' and how many catholics end up 'in'.

You may feel strongly that your particular set of beliefs are 'right', but from where I stand it looks more like one set of imperfect beliefs being compared with another set of imperfect beliefs; one forgiven sinner feeling superior to another forgiven sinner.  Isn't that arrogance and a sin?  (Of course, if you do have a perfect understanding of the perfect Word of God, then you ARE right and this doesn't apply to you.)

You cannot add anything to one's position as a Christian.  How can you sub-divide Christians by anything that actually matters?  And if we hold more dear the particular label that appeals to us than our position as Christians, then this begins to look rather like idolatry...

You can keep your labels if they matter that much to you.  But me?  I'm a Christian - no more and no less.

Craving certainty

How alluring it is to be totally and really sure of something; how difficult it is to admit it when we don't know or even that we're not quite sure!

The commonly used solution to this discomfort is to make up some certainty!  A trivial example  would be the (probably male) driver who doesn't know the route but won't stop and look at a map.  A much more significant historical example: when faced with not knowing our place in the universe, the religious answer was to state with certainty "right in the centre, of course, because God made it that way.  The Sun and everything goes round the Earth".   Over time various constructed arguments by eminent experts bolstered the 'fact' and when it was challenged this led to ever more extreme and hideous measures to defend their certainty from total collapse, because the whole credibility of Christendom was felt to be at stake.

With such a degree of distance, we can all laugh at the absurdity in this example - and it was actually only the credibility of those defending their pride which was at stake!

However, spotting our current and personal equivalents is much more difficult.  Is it our certainty over the correctness of our particular theological position as opposed to whichever our preferred outcasts may be?  Is it our certainty in our position regarding gay Christians? or women in church leadership? or ... (insert the things you feel most strongly about - it is almost certainly something we feel strongly about!)?  Note that we are not looking for areas where we are uncertain, but areas where we are convinced we are right!

Pursue certainty at all costs and we will certainly end up in one of two outcomes.  Either we'll spend a lifetime on a treadmill, attempting to nail down those doubts that just won't go away - with ever more detailed arguments and picky distinctions.  Or we find ourselves building a fake and brittle certainty, which is founded on pride and will one day be shattered and with it all our counterfeit confidence.

Am I advocating blissful ignorance, or that we don't engage with the difficult issues of the day?  No, just humility and honesty, a willingness to accept that we don't know all the answers, that the other side may have a point, and that ultimately we may never know this side of heaven.

Why do you think the Old Testament starts off with the 10 Commandments and becomes chapters and chapters of increasingly detailed rules for everything (Wondering which kinds of flying insects you can eat?  The answer is only the four-legged ones which have jointed legs for hopping; Leviticus 11v20-23), while Jesus, who fulfilled the law, summarised it in two sentences: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all you mind"; and "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Luke 10 v27).  In the light of this, our petty arguments and divisions pale into insignificance.

Let's stay with his clear commands, and not try to tie everything down to our liking, and in so doing find ourselves choosing to be 'right' rather than choosing life.

Though if any of you can tell me whether my 'neighbour' includes those who live 2 doors away from my house, I'd like to know.  And what about those 3 doors away?  But what if they are Catholics?  And what if ...

Don't trust everything I say; I don't!

The infuriating thing is that I know that some of what I believe to be true is wrong.  And yet I only believe things which I believe to be right - otherwise I wouldn't believe them, would I?

But looking back, I've changed what I believe, sometimes quite radically, at various times in the past, as I've learnt more, seen more, or understood more.

For example, I used to think that Christians were to be pitied, for they needed to believe in fairy tales in order to find any security, and so were clearly not mature enough to deal with the harsh realities of life on earth - the dog eat dog, until we die, realities.  But later on - though many years ago now - I realised that the Christians were the people mature enough to accept the reality that God existed and they were foolish and sinful, and brave enough to say "yes" when asked to submit themselves into His uncompromising hands.

Even after I became a Christian and had a living relationship with Jesus, I thought the Holy Spirit was a mysterious and etherial "it" of little relevance today.  Until I realised that He was just as much God as Jesus is, or God the Father, and we needed the Holy Spirit in order to take even the simplest basic baby steps of faith and that without Him we would be nowhere at all.

So, because I do not for one moment suppose that I have stopped learning or realising more, I know that some of my current beliefs must be wrong, or at the very least must be very pale imitations of what is right.  Of course, if I knew which of the things I believed were wrong, I would no longer believe them!  That's the frustrating part...

Hence I get very wary when I encounter people who seem so completely sure of every 'fact' that they know.  This applies whether they are Christians who - even if they are older and wiser than I - appear to have no room for questions and wondering, or whether they are atheists who are equally dogmatic about their own beliefs.

[Atheists beleving something?  Surely I have that wrong, for they are the ones who have dispensed with beliefs and stuck to the facts?  No, if they say that, they are merely confusing beliefs for facts.]

Beliefs, facts, preferences and opinions - perhaps these are topics for another occasion.

In the meantime, my prayer is that God will show me which of my many crazy beliefs are mere flotsam that I cling on to as if they will save me, and which are revealed solid ground.