My two year old daughter struggles to make complete sentences. My wife and I see her searching for words to match her desires. She experiences something, like hunger. Her feeling of hunger feels like a banana. The sensation needs translation: “Mommy, I want a banana, Mommy.”
Words are the translation of the revelation of emotion, pointing to the object that will fulfill their desire.
Having forgotten this time in our lives, we take our words for granted, as if they are our original language. But crying is our native language---Feelings without words that are very real. We feel. But what do we feel? When we find the perfect words for our desires, we experience bliss, in the words of C.S. Lewis,
“Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.”
Musicians, artists, poets, and dancers desire what we desire: To say what we really feel. To be raw.
Babies don’t know how to hide their feelings. They don’t know which feelings are right or wrong, good or bad. Is there such a thing as a good or bad feeling?
It depends on the object desired.
It is written, “Abhor evil, cling to what is good.”
So, if we feel good about what is good, and feel bad about what is bad, our feelings are right and good. But initially, our feelings are neutral. Simple facts experienced. Until we investigate what they are and why we feel them, we cannot judge them.
What should we do?
1. Feel what we feel.
2. Tell the truth to ourselves and God about our feelings.
3. Share them if necessary for intimacy, connection, or correction.
4. If we find our feelings are wrong, then we change our focus, because a wrong feeling means a wrong focus on a specific object.
Objectless feelings are of the devil. Satan hates because he is hate.
But God is love.
Therefore, all feelings should have love at their root, even our anger, even our displeasure.
May we be love like God is love, so that we may be free to say what we feel.
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