By: Pastor Lars Janssen
The puppy barked and bounced as we tried to walk into the house. He danced excitedly around our feet so that we had to be careful to avoid stepping on him. As we shuffled in, one of us scooped him up and his barks turned into licks. I don’t know if dogs can smile, but if they could, this one would have worn a ridiculous grin. As we settled in for a visit with the humans in the room, I noticed that the puppy’s excitement echoed through our emotions and conversation. The reason for the excitement had settled but the associated emotions continued to reverberate through us.
Walking into another room —this one in a hospital — I remember laboured breathing, harsh hospital cleaner, grief-expectant eyes, a cold dry outstretched hand, and the uselessness of my mouth to say anything that could make such brokenness whole. The sensations passed over me in a moment, but the associated emotions settled in as we spoke and prayed through tears. After, as I sat in my car distanced from the tangible weight of that room, I noticed the emotions from the hospital room continued to echo through me. They stayed with me and coloured the rest of my day.
Why do emotions do this? Why do they echo after their cause is long gone?
It seems to me that I often think of my life as a series of disconnected moments. When one moment is past and I am on to the next, I experience surprise and disorientation because of the lasting effects of prior moments. I smile because of the bouncing dog while hearing about a sick relative. I blink back tears because of the hospital room in the middle of the best dad jokes I’ve ever heard. I misunderstand the seasonal nature of time — the duration of one moment bleeding into the next.
The great “Preacher” (Ecclesiastes 1:1) of the Old Testament said that there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). He calls the collections of moments in his poem “seasons” and “times” (Ecclesiastes 3:1) and he groups them in pairs of opposites: being born and dying, planting and plucking, etc (vv2-8). He precludes the disconnect between moments and implies the overlapping of contradictory emotional sensations in our lives. Our seasons include bouncing puppies and stifling hospital rooms overlaid rather than separated.
The greatest preacher, Jesus, put it this way, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted … Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you … Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:5,11-12). He marks no barrier of separation between the mourning and the comfort or between the persecution and the joy.
Jesus knew the emotional echo. After hearing about the death of his cousin, John the Baptist, and then miraculously feeding five thousand people, “he went up on the mountain by himself to pray” (Matthew 14:23). Did he cry sad tears from glad eyes as he talked to his father about the loss of John and the joy of the well-fed crowd?
Jesus knew the emotional echo — he knows it now. Just as seasons overlap, our emotions overflow the neat borders we’d like to impose on them. Let’s recognize that there is an echo and leave room for it, as Jesus did. As Jesus still does.
“Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
