The Anatomy of an Emotion

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
September 20, 2009; 16 Pentecost; Proper 20, Year B
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(James 3:13-4:3, 7-8) – Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
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Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? (James 4:1)

In Gerald May's seminal study Will and Spirit one of his chapters explores the anatomy of an emotion. Where does the energy and content of an emotion come from? What is the nature of these "cravings that are at war within you"?

May tells about a nun who was mature enough in contemplative matters to be able to observe her own emotional processes all the way back to a place of origin. She was going on retreat, but her mind was "filled with busy-ness," she said. "I was depressed and angry about some of my relationships at work, and I was even more distressed by some sexual feelings which had begun to stir within me in relation to a man I had to work closely with." (Now, that might not fit your caricature of a nun, but monastics are just as human as the rest of us.) She said her prayer time had been distracted by "thoughts about work and images of this man." She had lost touch with "the quiet center" which was such a home for her. So she went on retreat.

Now listen to how she processed and observed her interior life, those cravings that were at war within her. She said during the beginning hours of her retreat, she experienced only turbulent, mental noise. But she sat with that long enough, until things began to quiet down.

As the bombardment of thoughts and images began to disappear, she noticed another layer of turbulence beneath them. This was emotional turbulence. Again, she didn't do anything with it. She just watched it.

She said, "Watching this (emotional turbulence) very quietly, I experienced the whole gamut of emotions coming through my mind one after another as if on parade. Sadness, anger, frustration, sexual desire, guilt, fear, hope, and now and then some peace, lightness, and humor. First I recognized all of these as feelings. ...They seemed to originate very deeply, and for a while I became fascinated with seeing how they came into being." (Now that fascinates me. How do our emotions come into being?)

She said that as she "moved more intimately toward that point of origin" for her feelings, "it seemed as if there was a level at which a kind of diffuse dynamic 'percolation' was taking place." What she described was like a boiling cauldron of stuff that percolated, bubbled up with spurts of activity, like the firing of energy from the bottom of a cooking pot.

Then, she said, this diffuse, percolating energy became "attached to certain mental concepts or words or memories or images. When this attachment took place," she said, "I could immediately identify that 'spurt' or 'spark' as a feeling; an emotion. And with just a little more discrimination I could label the feeling as anger or sadness or whatever." She had observed the origin of an emotion.

What she described is similar to the experience of contemplatives from many traditions, East and West. They tell us that emotions begin as energy deep within us – diffuse energy without content. Then we attach to that energy some content – mental concepts or words or memories or images. At that moment, the energy sparks into a simple emotion – anger, fear, sadness, whatever. If we just watch the emotion, not adding anything to it, not reacting or doing anything about it, it just goes off – like a hot bubble coming up from the bottom of a deep pot of sauce, which comes to the top and pops. A burst of emotional energy bubbles up from within us, spends its energy, and leaves. The nun described how it was possible for her to watch all of this deep emotional activity with a present awareness, "totally unruffled, watching it all with complete serenity. There is something deeply reassuring about that," she said. (1)

But most of the time we don't just watch our emotions, do we? Most of the time we add energy to them. A lot of energy.

Here's the anatomy of an emotion. First, simple, undifferentiated energy percolates out of our depths. A simple emotion attaches to the energy, say anger. Then we add to that simple emotion of anger, the image of a person who has angered us. He tried to embarrass me, we think. He hurt me, we remember. Then we begin to add energy to the simple emotion. We begin to play our old emotional tapes of all of the times that person embarrassed or hurt us. The neurological pathways in our memory know this stuff. We've built neurological pathways as wide as interstate highways for these afflictive memories and emotions. We've thought about that person regularly, with passion; we've relived all of the times he's embarrassed or hurt us, over and over. There's an internal four-lane highway that has practiced saving and transporting all of that emotional content, which barrels down the acceleration lane, and dumps into the emotional system, pouring a truckload of energy into what had been originally a simple emotion. Old tapes of the former hurts begin to play. We remember in technicolor and full-volume stereo, and all of the old emotions of the past churn more and more chemicals into our system. Before long, we've created what my grandmother called a hissy-fit. Our cravings are at war within us. Instead of a little soup bubble of emotion, we've got a massive fireworks display.

Yet, even at that, there is still a part of us that can watch the fireworks. Feelings, emotions, compulsions, memories, passions explode within us. We can watch that, serenely unruffled, from another place in our psyche. "Wow! My chemicals sure are putting on a good fireworks show today!"

Our emotions are important. They are the background music that set the tone for our life.

The other day Kaye Bernard told the Servant Leadership II class on Compassion about a video called Atmosphere. It begins with movie images of busy New York streets. Crowds are hustling back and forth, jostling and hurrying – pedestrians, cabs and cars. Crowds emerge from the subway tunnels, steam from under the sidewalks. The music soundtrack underneath the images is driving urban rap music. After watching for a few minutes, it is over, and the convener asks what you felt as you watched. Rushed anxiety and tension. Steeled energy necessary for fighting your way through the pushes and bumps of the driven crowd; even a touch of angry defensiveness.

Then the video is shown again, but now with a different soundtrack. The background music is Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, one of the most lush, beautiful, poignant pieces of classical music. The experience is strikingly different. Now the crowd movement looks like a dance, each person moving in concert with the whole, interconnected in the vibrant creativity of life's energy. Beauty, wonder, transcendence. Same video. Different music. Completely different experience.

For most of us, the emotional background music that interprets our life was composed in childhood. If we were loved and life was generally good, the underlying emotional music tends to play in an upbeat, hopeful key. But if we were threatened, hurt, unloved, that music is more likely to be in a minor key, filled with dread and foreboding.

Part of what religion offers is a new composition – a new soundtrack. It is the music of a love song. It sings, God loves me. Life is good. All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. It is the hopeful music that emerges out of all of the darkness and tragedy of Christ's crucifixion and death. Out of darkness, comes life. The Holy Trinity sings, "Let there be light!" And we are invited into the dance. With feeling. So we dance. And feel.

At some level, feelings just are. They percolate deep within us. Emotions happen. There is a place from which we can observe our emotions, like watching fireworks go off within. Chemical fireworks of energy transformed into feelings. From a place of inner observation we can watch, unruffled and serene, as powerful emotions explode within us. Wow! My chemicals are putting on quite a show.

We don't have to add to the show. We don't have to start the old tapes, replay the emotional memories, add fuel to the fire. Instead of releasing our reservoir of indignation, we can change the soundtrack that provides the emotional background to our experience. We can embrace the music of the heavens.

The music of the universe is a love song. Music that sings, "You are safe. You are loved. You are the beloved, infinite child of God. Look! God is moving in all things everywhere. God is bringing everything to newness. Resurrection is what God does: Life out of death; light out of darkness. Relax. Breathe. Watch. Live. Life is good. All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. You are alive. Be free. Listen to the music. Dance. Enjoy. Love it all. It's all love."
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(1) Gerald May, Will and Spirit. p. 175f

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