June 12, 2022: Heart & Soul: Fear
Heart & Soul: Fear
Psalm 69:1-5; 15-18
Rev. Rhonda Blevins
Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
I am weary with my crying;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
with waiting for my God.
More in number than the hairs of my head
are those who hate me without cause;
many are those who would destroy me,
my enemies who accuse me falsely.
What I did not steal,
must I now restore?
O God, you know my folly;
the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.
Do not let the flood sweep over me
or the deep swallow me up
or the Pit close its mouth over me.
Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good;
according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.
Do not hide your face from your servant,
for I am in distress—make haste to answer me.
Draw near to me; redeem me;
set me free because of my enemies.
______
It’s wonderful to be here after a two-week family vacation to the American Southwest. It’s wonderful to be anywhere, really. It’s a miracle my family didn’t kill each other during two weeks in a 32-foot RV. 32 feet is big for a car but let’s just say it’s pretty small for a house!
We visited national parks: Zion National, Bryce Canyon, and the Grand Canyon. We did lots of hiking, including a river hike through the cold mountain waters of what they call “The Narrows” at Zion National Park. We saw amazing scenery, incredible wildlife, and enjoyed some wonderful family time.
We concluded our trip with a stop at the Hoover Dam—this was a highlight of the trip for my kids because they got to say “dam” a lot without getting in trouble. I never knew there were so many dam jokes! I’ll share my favorites with you:
What did the fish say when he swam into the wall? “Dam.”
What did the dam say when the fish swam into it? “Dumb bass.”
I want to thank you for allowing me some time away with family; it’s good for the heart and good for the soul.
Which leads me to the beginning of my summer sermon series: “Heart & Soul,” inspired by King David’s words to the people of Israel as they prepared to build a Temple for God in 1 Chronicles 22:19: “Seek the Lord your God with all your heart and soul,” he instructed them. “Heart” and “soul”: in the Hebrew “heart” is a masculine noun and “soul” is a feminine noun. In ancient Hebrew these words “heart and soul” meant something a bit different than our contemporary usage of these words. The ancient Hebrew word for “heart” (lebab) means “mind” or “will” and the ancient Hebrew word for “soul” (nephesh) means “passion” or “emotions.” In other words, David was telling them to bring everything—their whole being—into alignment around one purpose: seeking God.
Our charge is no different today.
How do we do this? How do we align our “heart” and “soul” in one, united God-centered purpose? How do we sync our mind and our emotions when too often we find ourselves internally conflicted? When our mind wants one thing, but our emotional self wants something completely different?
We’re not alone in this struggle. The Apostle Paul articulated this perineal internal struggle between “heart” and “soul” in his letter to the Romans. He confessed to them: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Romans 7:19)
Can you relate to that?
During this summer series, “Heart & Soul,” I hope to shed a bit of light on how we can seek God with our whole selves: our rational selves and our emotional selves; our Sunday selves and our Monday through Saturday selves. And because our generation has placed so much emphasis on the cognitive aspect of faith—belief or right thinking—I’m going to attempt to bring into focus the emotional aspect of faith.
To help us explore the emotional aspect of faith more deeply, we turn to the Psalms for this series—this collection of 150 songs, poems, and prayers—some written by King David (who was known as a poet), some written by other named individuals, some have anonymous authorship. These songs, poems and prayers were from different periods in Israel’s history; they were collected into an anthology when the Israelites were captive in Babylon and leaders were desperate to maintain Hebrew culture and identity. Many of the Psalms were sung.
What I want to draw attention to about the Psalms is the raw, human, emotion expressed throughout this collection. The Psalms fall into two broad-stroke categories with Psalms of lament, in which the psalmist articulates pain and confusion and names what’s wrong in the world, and Psalms of praise, where we read of joy and celebration and finding out what’s wonderful about the world. Within the broad categories of lament and praise, I think you’d be hard-pressed to name a human emotion that isn’t expressed somewhere in a Psalm.
The psalms are these poems and prayers that express raw emotion. They cry out in anger. They rage against their enemies. They ask God for help. They weep and mourn. They blame God for not showing up soon enough. The psalms remind us that God can take it all . . . there is no need to tie a bow around how we feel or make ourselves more presentable to God. Nothing is off limits. We can let it all pour out. [1]
So during this sermon series, the invitation is to “let it all pour out.” We’ll look at eight emotions in particular: fear, surprise, anger, joy, sadness, trust, disgust, and anticipation. We might throw shame in at the end (just for fun).
So for the remainder of our time together, let’s explore the human emotion we call “fear.” We’ll include various forms of fear like a more intense version we call “terror” or a more subtle form of fear we call “apprehension.” The chronic experience of fear we call
“stress” or “anxiety” which, in its mild forms, can help us do what we need to do. For instance, a healthy anxiety about an upcoming Sunday prompts me to study and read and write and prepare a sermon. Unhealthy anxiety can be crippling, preventing us from health and wellness and life abundant.
It may be helpful here to distinguish the difference between a “feeling” and an “emotion.” A “feeling” is always present tense. Feelings live only in the moment. Emotions, on the other hand, live somewhere besides the present moment. Emotions can live in the past or the present, but never in the moment.
Let’s say, for instance, that some loud, startling sound happens behind me. I’ll experience the feeling of fear. I’ll have some physiological responses that I don’t choose, they’re automatic, directed by my autonomic nervous system. My blood pressure and heart rate increases. My breathing will quicken. Blood will flow away from my heart and into my limbs to prepare me to throw a punch or run for my life. When I quickly turn around, I see that it’s one of my kids playing a joke on poor ole Mom. Then come the emotions. If I am emotionally mature, I can choose what happens next. On the more reactive end, I can be angry and snap at them. If I am less reactive, a little more emotionally mature, I can laugh with them at my startle response. More reactive: I can brood or be passive aggressive and do the same thing to them an hour or two later. Less reactive: I can let it go and be at peace.
Feelings, we have little control over. They’re automatic, part of our evolutionary development that helped us survive as a species. Emotions, on the other hand, we can learn to control to some degree. Like most things worth doing, the more we practice, the better we get. Both feelings and emotions can inform us, telling us something about the world around us, and especially about the world inside us.
Take Psalm 69. The psalmist compares his or her emotional state to that of someone drowning:
Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
Have you ever thought you were going to drown? It’s a terrifying feeling! (Feeling, not emotion.) I’ve only experienced it once. I was on a whitewater rafting trip on the New River in West Virginia. Our guide invited us to hop out of the raft in a calm, slow section of the river and float alongside the raft, which I did. But I apparently waited too long to get back in the raft, the current picked up speed, and the raft got lodged up against a couple of big rocks with the river rushing past it, pinning it briefly in place. I found myself underneath the pinned raft in the same predicament for what felt like an eternity (it was probably only seconds). But being underwater without a way to swim up and breathe was (note the feeling words) terrifying and panic-inducing. Obviously I didn’t drown. The raft was freed, and I emerged from underneath unscathed apart from a rapid heartbeat and quickened breath.
That’s the kind of anxiety the psalmist is experiencing. The feeling of drowning has moved from acute to chronic. The psalmist makes it perfectly clear his/her emotional state in verse 17: “I am in distress.” With foes all around, even brothers and sisters, the psalmist seems to live in terror of what may come (notice this is future thinking, an emotion as opposed to a fleeting feeling of fear). The psalmist is simultaneously experiencing loneliness and isolation and fears his or her very life at the hands of enemies.
What does the psalmist do in the midst of this anxiety? Puts pen to paper. The psalmist expresses all of this emotion in a healthy way that endures as a beautiful piece of poetry throughout the ages. “I am in distress,” the psalmist writes, clearly articulating the emotional state being experienced.
As it turns out, naming our emotion is just what the doctor ordered.
Author and psychiatrist Daniel Siegel coined a phrase “name it to tame it.”[2] There’s a video of him teaching a group of lay people about how the brain works. The cortex (upper part of the brain) is where you do thinking and planning. This is the seat of reason. Underneath the cortex is the subcortex, the limbic area and the brain stem. You may have heard this part of the brain called the “reptilian” brain—the part of the brain responsible for things like emotion and fight/flight/freeze/fawn response. He tells participants that when the subcortical area of the brain is on high alert—“I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared”—studies show if you (via the cortex) can name the feeling or emotion, that soothing neurotransmitters are sent to the amygdala, and you will calm down. “Name it to tame it.”
So the psalmist names it: “I am in distress.” (You can almost see those soothing neurotransmitters being sent to the psalmist’s right amygdala, can’t you?)
So the angel appears to Zechariah and Mary and Joseph and the shepherds, saying: “Do not be afraid.” The angel knows to name it to tame it.
Here’s the thing about fear: we can’t get rid of it. Fear is a feeling that’s necessary for our survival as individuals and as a species. Last week I was terrified my kids would fall off the side of the Grand Canyon. “Ten feet!” I barked at them over and over again as they got a little too close for mama bear’s comfort. I intentionally put fear in them about people falling over the edge. “Ten feet!” Because of that fear, they’re alive today. It’s true. I saved their lives. I’m a hero! J
We can’t get rid of fear, nor should we want to.
But we don’t have to live in a state of fear. We don’t have to live with anxiety or stress. We don’t have to be on edge all of the time.
We can engage our cortex (what the Bible calls our “heart” in 1 Chronicles 19) to name our fear, anxiety, stress . . . to bring calm to our subcortex/limbic area (what the Bible calls our “soul”) . . . seeking God through both our mind/will and emotions/feelings. When we grow more adept at this practice, we can become less attached to self-serving emotional responses and patterns, we can become less reactive, and more emotionally healthy.
Why does this matter in terms of our faith?
Peter Scazzero suggests, “It’s impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.”
So here’s your homework this week: I’ll give you two options and you can choose to do one or both assignments.
1. Like the psalmist, write about your emotions. Journal how you’re feeling. You can use Psalm 69 as an example or freewheel it. It can be prose or poetry. If you are musical, set it to song. But take a situation that’s making you anxious or afraid or upset, and write about it. Just like the psalmist.
2. Like the psalmist, name it to tame it. Notice yourself feeling something in a big way. Example: “I feel angry that there is no Mayfield’s Moose Tracks ice cream at the ice cream social.” Or, “I’m terrified there will be no sprinkles left by the time I get to the social.” Notice the feeling. Name it. Three times in a row. “I feel scared. I feel scared. I feel scared.” (Pro tip: doing this in the third person is even more effective. “Rhonda feels scared.”) Name the emotion, and pay attention to what happens to your body. You might just be able to observe your shoulders relax, your face muscles relax. Less noticeable is your breath and heart rate slowing.
The more you practice naming your emotions, the less reactive you’ll become, and the more emotionally and spiritually integrated. And doesn’t that sound like something we could all use more of?
I close with this thought:
What did the bass say to the dam after the dam called it “dumb?” Nothing. That dumb bass wasn’t so dumb after all.
[1] From Good Enough by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, p. 173.