The Expansiveness of Emotion

Before jumping in (on another “too long for email post)…quick programming note -

MaryAnn McKibben Dana

and I will be returning this coming Thursday at 11am for our next Pop Culture Pastors Hour conversation. This time on the HBO series (and the book) Station Eleven. The story is rooted in a post-pandemic world but is an apocalyptic tale unlike most others that are out there. Both the book and the show are so good. So, look for the link on my feed and on MaryAnn’s.

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Speaking of books…

I just started reading a new book this week called For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional by Dr. Hanna Reichel.¹ The second chapter of the book spoke to one of my most significant growing edges...emotions. As one who is rooted at the 5 (investigator / observer) on the Enneagram, emotions are not the easiest thing for me to understand. There’s a much longer story to this but suffice to say, I’ve come a LONG way with my emotions but there’s still a LONG way to go. But there was thins in Dr. Reichel’s book in a chapter entitled, “‘And Jesus Wept,’ or Feel Your Feelings”.

Emotions do not work according to an economics of efficiency. They expand your ability to bear the world, and to transform it. Empathy is a muscle. Strengthen it. Allow yourself to be affected by the world around you. Allow yourself to sit with the discomfort and scariness of being affected. Give yourself permission to feel your feelings. Doing so requires time and space; it requires attention and some care.²

This was all in the context of engaging feelings around facing trials and injustice in the world around us and being willing to let the feelings in that arise and to not simply become numb to it all or write things off as “that’s just the way it is.”

I share this mostly as an encouragement for you to check out the book - I am literally three reflections into it and I am so grateful I have picked it up and I am sure I am going to be returning to it time and again.

Below are a series of photographs from Friday morning and also on Saturday that have a lot of emotion in them. Emotion felt as I photographed the scenes and emotion expressed in the animals present (a heron, Scout, and animals at the Cincinnati Zoo which my sister and I visited that day).

My spirit animal flying off low across the water. Flying above but also still touching the surface.

The beauty and joy of light touching life

The power of getting close and in doing so experiencing transformation. The out-of-focus (bokeh) section of the photograph may look like sunlight reflecting off the water but it was actually off the blacktop of a parking lot

Finding myself in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment for the light to be shining seemingly from the heart of the tree

An expansive wide-angle photograph. Using my new 10mm wide-angle lens, this photograph is still made up of about 20 different photographs stitched together. There's always more that connects to something bigger

Just look at those eyes of this meerkat! But for me, this connects me back to a memory of being able to hold a meerkat when visiting South Africa nearly 10 years ago. Gratitude and joy

Hippo siblings (Fiona and Fritz) showing the emotions of typical siblings - affection and playfulness

This blue penguin was swimming around while a chorus from the others were announcing their excitement (?) at the keeper bringing food into their area...(video below - sound on...) I may be reading too much into it but it sure looks like this penguin doesn't seem too excited by the noise...

These otter faces could be major parts of a feeling wheel...

And of course Scout…

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

1. Dr. Reichel is a professor of systematic theology at my alma mater, Princeton Theological Seminary.

2. Reichel, Hanna. For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional (pp. 16-17). Kindle Edition.