Shattering the God's Within
Chapter 6
The Sacredness of the Affect

The Quest for "Feeling Good"

"Feeling good has become a predominant value in our culture.  In the wake   
of the nineteenth century romanticism and twentieth-century psychological   
reductionism, feelings have become a preeminent concern for nearly   
everyone.  In fact, we have developed what may be described as the   
morality of the affect:

I feel good, therefore I am good;
I feel bad, therefore I am bad. "

"Our primary concern is not duty or commitment.  It is "What do I feel   
like doing".  I'll do it when I feel like doing it.  The truth of the   
matter is much of what we have to do in life we really don't feel like   
doing.  But it has to be done anyway.  The desire to feel good, or what I   
call "the sacredness of the affect" has a number of manifestations in our   
culture."

"Feeling good" is given priority because it is assumed to be good.

"Adults deal with feelings every day.  When we have something to look   
forward to, life takes on a new edge and we feel energized.  The danger   
in catering to this kind of high experience is that when we  have nothing   
exciting to do, we feel a dull low.   When kids complain that they are   
bored, we should simply say "Yes, you are right!"  Mommy and Daddy feel   
the same way.  You know, life sometimes is boring.  So, tonight, since   
there is nothing to do, lets all feel bored together."

"If we cope with our feelings of boredom, accepting them as easily as we   
accept good feelings, I suspect that boredom would lose its ability to   
upset us.    Nevertheless, whether old or young, we all have a tendency   
to seek exhilarating experiences."

"We've all heard friends or family say something like "When I get upset,   
or stressed, I grab the credit cards and go shopping!"  Sometimes we   
compensate for our feelings of being down or hurt by buying things.  When   
we are discouraged we may turn to food.  Food becomes just another way to   
fill the "void."  We may choose more daring ways of lifting our spirits.   
 Perhaps skydiving, bungee jumping, or scaling dangerous pinnacles is how   
we satisfy our need for a high experience.  In a very real sense, such   
experiences may overcome sensations of unimportance or inadequacy.  The   
drive to seek high experiences is so powerful that it gives an illusory   
perspective to reality.  We forget to count the costs, so mesmerized are   
we by the promised euphoria.  Young people are especially vulnerable to   
this."

"Relationships are one of the most common means we use to feel good about   
ourselves.  Romantic love is clearly a dominant pseudo god in our   
society.  The feelings romantic love generates are akin to the sense of   
bonding a child feels shortly after birth when he is held by his mother.   
 Just as there is a fusion between the mother and child at birth and in   
the baby's eyes he and the mother are one.  The same sense of fusion   
occurs in romantic love.  It is like a chemical high.  Romantic love is a   
powerful phenomenon.  However, even in the closest relationship,   
eventually some depolarization takes place.  It has to.  The feeling of   
fusion breaks down, and we fall back into our individuality.  M. Scott   
Peck in his book "The Road Less Traveled" defines love as "the will to   
extend the self for the nurture of one's and the other's spiritual   
growth."

"Once the excitement of romantic love begins to fade, we question whether   
we're in love anymore.  The feeling of love is displaced, and now we have   
to make a decision about love regardless of our feelings.  When that   
occurs we feel depressed or dejected.   If men and women are not willing   
to **choose** to love, they continue to search for another high in a new   
romantic relationship.  Many people use continuous romantic infatuations   
as a defense against a sense of inadequacy or as an antidote to   
depression.

Because we are made in the image of God, there is something unique about   
each of us, something special and individual.  When we are in the right   
state of mind, we realize that we are persons first -- persons who may   
have romantic love for another person.  Problems arise when we only feel   
complete when we are involved in a romantic relationship.  Romantic love   
becomes a pseudo god when we give up our meaning, dignity, identity, and   
value to romantic love or to the object of our affection.  Once we give   
up sense of self, the end of a love affair feels like the end of our   
lives."

Getting High on Religion
When we seek God, it is important to differentiate between God and mere   
religion.  Sometimes our high experience-seeking tendency is manifested   
in church involvement.  We might find ourselves jumping from fellowship   
to fellowship, from one service to another, looking for some kind of zap.   
 Sometimes religion is about feeling good rather than about true   
spirituality or understanding.  On the other hand, a total lack of   
religious experience can be a negative situation too.  Some churches take   
pride in having a dry, cognitive approach to worship.  It seems that the   
most meaningful form of religious experience is somewhere in between.   
 When churches only emphasize "feeling good" obviously this is   
incompatible with suffering.  Any real meaningful spirituality must   
relate to the issue of living.  And suffering is certainly a part of   
life.

Jesus and His Emotions
The transfiguration was a pinnacle experience for our Lord.  On the   
mountaintop, Moses and Elijah appeared along with Jesus, and all three   
were glorious in their appearance.  Peter wanted the awe-inspiring event   
to go on forever, much as we long to continue our high experiences."

"The other pole is the Gethsemane pole.  No one can study the life of   
Christ or have a deep sense of knowing God and not be aware that there   
was a suffering pole in His ministry.  In Gethsemane, we see the Lord of   
glory, the Creator of the universe, pray, "Oh, God, if it be possible,   
let this cup pass from Me."  Bowed in  prayer alone and sweating   
profusely, He wrestled with the possibility that there might be some   
other way for humankind to be redeemed, but he quietly submitted.  "Not   
my will, but Thine be done."

"As we move into spirituality, we will experience both poles.  We will   
have peak experiences where the world throbs with beauty, where our   
hearts are filled with dancing and singing, where life is joyous and   
meaningful.  But, if we seek a deep spirituality, we will also pass   
through the valley of the shadow of death.  In the dark times, we will   
stand naked and alone before our God, stripped of all our hopes and   
aspirations.  Such moments are never easy.  They are painful.  They are   
difficult.  But they are real and a necessary part of spiritual living.

Churches tend to "shoot their wounded".  As Dr. Allen says, the feel good   
mentality is responsible for this.  Those of us who are ex-corporate or   
hierarchical COGers can probably relate to this in that problems were not   
tolerated well in those organizations.  If you had a problem, you were   
either told to not discuss it with brethern or outright kicked out of   
church.  Also, if our kids got into trouble, it put a stigma on parents.   
   


We were well accepted in the church when things were going well with us.   
 But the minute we make a mistake, experience a loss or in some other way   
no longer fit into the corporate headquarters scheme of things, we ceased   
to belong.  "When we are troubled we don't seem to fit in.  Thus,   
sometimes the church is the last place we go to find comfort, empathy,   
and community during the painful experiences of life."  (This fits so   
well our experience, I know the ministry was the last place I wanted to   
go when I had a problem}  "People who have problems don't have the right   
"image", and their presence counteracts people's need to feel good."

Dr. Allen talks about a woman whose husband suffered from severe   
depression for many years.  He was very active in their church.  He ended   
a severely intense episode of depression with suicide.    After his   
suicide, his wife expected the other believers in her church would rally   
around her since he had been so active.  She was shocked to find she   
found more solace and comfort around non-believers.

Jesus showed he identified with the sorrow of Mary and Martha when he   
wept before he raised Lazarus from the dead.  "He participated with their   
woundedness.  Isn't this the proper resonance of life, to rejoice with   
those who rejoice and to cry with those who cry?  Is true empathy not the   
building block of community that supports, encourages, and moves us   
toward deeper meaning?"

Guilt as an Idol
"It is possible for an individual to become so adapted to his or her   
guilty feelings that guilt becomes a reason for living.  This is a   
particularly common dynamic among people who have strong religious   
convictions.  Some failures are socially "forgivable" in church circles;   
others are not.

"Guilt feelings are particularly strong because there is a gap between   
our actual self and our expected level of performance.  In the religious   
sphere, that means there is a breach between how we actually live and   
that which we aspire.  Guilt causes inner turmoil when there is a failure   
to measure up to one's own ideal of faith or tradition.  All people,   
whether they are believers or not, seem to have certain standards by   
which they measure performance and maintain their self-esteem.  When   
there is failure in one of these areas, the results can be devastating."

"No matter what our failure may be, we have to choose to receive God's   
forgiveness and to forgive others.  Mature spirituality requires the   
dethronement of guilt and bitter feelings as we recognize the total   
forgiveness provided through God's love.   That means emptying our   
negative feelings daily at God's throne and allowing the grace of God to   
fill the gap between the real and ideal  levels of our life.  We are   
encouraged to be kind and compassionate to each other, forgiving each   
other as Christ has forgiven us (Ephesians 4:32)

Worshipping the God of Fear
"Fear has become a powerful pseudo god, robbing us of our sense of   
commitment and courage to utilize our talents and our potential."  Fear   
in our life usually relates to the kind of hurtful experiences we have   
had.  For example, it is natural for us to want to be loved.  Love is the   
thing we all seek.  But in many cases, where we expected love we received   
hurt.  That is not surprising because, as we know, life is wounded."

Love and pain are closely related in our hearts.  A kind of protective   
situation develops as a consequence of this.  "When we begin to think   
that we would like to be loved or to express love, we remember that we   
were hurt when we thought we were loved.  So we step back and resist love   
in order to avoid feeling pain.  When we resist love, we actually move   
from the house of love to the house of fear."

What does living in the house of fear mean?  Dr. Allen describes a woman   
whose husband divorced her.  She was so hurt by the divorce that she   
stopped living, but she kept on performing (going to work, church, etc.).   
 "As the years went by she did well on her job, at church, but her zest   
for life was gone.  She was on automatic pilot."

"In the house of fear we tend to cover our tracks because we lose trust.   
 We have learned that when we trust, we get hurt.  So we try to test   
everything.  What that does is produce a quasi-functional state of   
paranoia.  When we nurse a lack of trust, we also find it hard to   
forgive.  We harbor our anger, and it becomes resentment.  Once it   
becomes resentment it collects other negative feelings like fear and   
hurt."

"All that negative energy drives our basic narcissistic tendencies toward   
a powerful competitive attitude.  In the house of fear it is easier to   
become competitive than compassionate.  As a result, we become hard on   
ourselves, hard on others, and our goal becomes winning at all costs."

Dr. Allen describes working with a wrestling coach who motivated his team   
by anger.  "When we are in the house of fear, we are motivated by things   
of fear, as a result we motivate ourselves by our anger."

This coach taught his team to think of the opponent as somebody they   
wanted to kill.  The men would go into the wrestling match tense and   
motivated focused on killing the opponent.  They gave fantastic   
performances and many times won.  When they lost, however, they were   
extremely upset.  Even after winning they would be hard to calm down.   
 The coach eventually realized that motivation through fear and anger may   
promote performance, but it diminished the ability to live life   
effectively.

We are empowered by love.  This same coach, when he became a Christian   
learned this.  He discovered that he was able to use love to motivate his   
men.  His faith motivated him to love and respect his men in a deeper   
way.  Eventually the men sensed his deep caring for them.  As a result   
they wanted to perform the best they could, but regardless of whether   
they one or lost, the men had a deep sense of acceptance of themselves.   
 When motivated by love, they were much more positive about their lives   
and their behavior.

"Living in the house of fear, we may perform well, but it is difficult   
for us to establish community.  Community can only be demonstrated   
through communion, compassion, and forgiveness. In the house of fear   
forgiveness is difficult, trust is hard to come by, and relationships are   
strained.  Living in the house of fear causes us to react rather than   
respond."

"If we live in the house of love, we have a sense of ourselves--of our   
meaning, dignity, identity, and value.  It means that instead of becoming   
reactive persons, we become responsive, or proactive."

Afraid of our own helplessness
Many of us have difficulty experiencing certain feelings, particularly   
when we are hurt.  Dr. Allen tells the story of a boy whose mother was   
always in and out of his life due to mental illness.  Often he would see   
his dad crying and this broke the boys heart.  He lived under a heavy   
weight of sadness.  "Any time a situation occurred that made him feel   
helpless, he became terrified.  In other words, he protected his   
helplessness by the fear of helplessness.  This is a common phenomenon.   
 "Although I do not like to make it gender-oriented, I find that we men   
tend to have a great fear of helplessness.  We don't want to feel   
helpless, so we use fear, anger, addiction, or unbridled sexuality to   
block out our helpless feelings.  The fact is that if we cannot openly   
face our feeling of helplessness, we cannot receive help."

"It is important that we accept our helplessness, taking it to God and   
allowing Him to be strong where we are weak.  When we let Him be God, we   
receive continuos healing for our woundedness.  But when we hide our   
pain, helplessness, and insecurity, we find ourselves at the mercy of our   
narcissistic, wounded false self with its insatiable craving for   
validation."

_________________________

Questions

1.  How many of us can relate to such tendencies as going shopping when   
we are upset, bored, depressed, etc.  Or eating to fill a void.  Some of   
these activities are hard to notice as they can be subtle and our human   
nature deceives us so easily into justifying what we do.

2.  How much have we grown spiritually in the ability to accept the   
suffering that goes with following Christ?  Do we really realize that   
there are two poles in being a Christian?  That we will have peak   
experiences and we will have a "Gethsemane" pole?

3.  Is there any inner turmoil caused by misplaced guilt.  Or guilt   
stemming from lack forgiving ourselves?  Can we see how this guilt can   
cause us to be unforgiving of others?

4.  What about fear?  Are there areas of our lives where fear resides?   
 Are we able to connect the fear with a hurtful situation?  A time when   
we expected love, but did not receive it?  Or perhaps got hurt instead?   
 Are we in touch with the fact that it is indeed fear (our anger)?  When   
we get angry, can we take the time to stop and see the fear behind the   
anger? When we may become angry at our spouse, can we see that fear may   
be motivating the anger enough to stop and say "I am angry because when   
this happens, or when you do this, or (whatever) I am afraid   
__________might happen?

5.  Are there any twinges of resentment we have toward anybody?  I have   
found, for me, resentment isn't always recognizable.  It takes some   
concentrated thinking and getting in touch with bodily reactions to   
discover sometimes that there may be resentment.  While thinking about a   
person I try to feel any changes in my breathing, notice any tenseness in   
any area of my body, sometimes this is the first clue that I need to go   
deeper into feeling to discover the resentment or anger I may have toward   
someone.  Group therapy has been extremely helpful for me in this area.

6.  Hey you men, do you feel helpless?  :-)  (Its ok to feel helpless).   
 There are plenty of us ladies out here to be with you in your   
helplessness.  You can receive help from us. ;-)   Are you able to take   
your helplessness to God?