"The waters of a river give joy to God's city, the holy place where the Most High dwells" (Psalm 46:5). This line captures the joyful aspect of the waters of a river. "Save me God for the waters of a river have reached up to my neck" (Psalm 69:2). Again, "I have gone down into the watery depths; the flood overwhelms me" (v3b). These lines capture the anguishing aspect of the waters of a river. Whereas on the one hand the waters can uplift a soul with joy, the waters can also drown a soul with anguish. Water is the symbol of emotion. Its courses, undulations, crests and tides; the way it sometimes comes with a rush like a flood, or flows smoothly like a brook - the waters of a river are always changing, unstable most of the time, like emotions unchecked.
"God is for us a refuge and strength, a helper close at hand in time of distress, so we shall not have fearful emotions though the earth quakes and the mountains tumble into the depths of the waters; though the seas rage and foam and the mountains totter at their surging. The Lord of Hosts is with us, our citadel is Jacob's God" (Psalm 46:2-4). In dealing with the surging seas that shake the mountains and the earth, God is for us a "refuge and strength." What this means is that when we are beset by emotions we ordinarily cannot control, we turn to God for support. If the emotions are joyful, we give thanks with song and praise. If the emotions are sad, we supplicate or petition. "Is anyone among you in trouble or suffering? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise" (Jas 5:13). We are like the mountain and the earth. The waters of a river are like our emotions. These waters sometimes cool the mountains and the earth. At other times, they rock the earth's very foundation. Similarly, our emotions are sometimes joyful, sometimes sad. Whatever they be, we should consult God. If joyful, as James says, we should thank God; if sorrowful, we should render the divine our supplications and intercessions.
On a certain day, we can experience a number of emotions. We may start off feeling joyful, and then something may happen to make us feel sad. Or we may start off feeling sad, and then something may happen to make us feel joyful. We have a large supply of potential emotions, and we deal with them in the courses of the days. Emotions are the language of the soul and belong to the realm of psychology, but also of spirituality. Remember I have already argued that spirituality can deal with anything psychology can deal with. In an earlier post, I relayed what Descartes recommends for handling human emotions, especially the negative ones. Let's recall. He said that the first of three steps in dealing with human emotions is consciousness. Descartes insists that we must always be conscious of our emotions. We should have emotion-sensing antennae that are swift to pick up any emotion that creeps up in us. As soon as we feel something, pronto - we become conscious of it. This is the first step.
The second step is to allow the emotion which we have become conscious of to travel from the place where we felt it - the heart - all the way to the head, so we can think about it. There in the head, we dissect the emotion - I'm sure you recall your high school biology days, when you must have dissected guinea pigs and rabbits and the like. Similarly, you dissect and analyze the emotion. Why am I feeling this emotion? You ask yourself. Is it because of so, so and so reason? Why am I feeling it today? What is the source of the hurt? You ask yourself as many questions as necessary to understand the emotion. But you don't just try to understand it, you also assess the sort of behavior the emotion is tempting you to embark upon. You say to yourself: This emotion seems to want me to smash something, or throw a tumbler against the wall, in the case of anger. Or you can say to yourself: This emotion is tempting me to steal, in the case of greed. You look at the proposed behavior and analyze it. Then you move to the third step.
The third and final step is applying the power of reason. You say to yourself: But if I steal, I could go to jail. Or, if I act violently, I could hurt myself and others. You weigh the cons of the behaviors, and see whether it were not better for you to refrain from acting in the ways the negative emotion suggests. You also speak positive words to yourself, such as: I will be calm; I will forgive; I will keep my cool, and so on. Gradually, the emotion fades away. I guess you can similarly apply this method to even positive emotions, so as to regulate the otherwise positive behaviors they suggest. You may want to jump up and down with joy for example if you just won the lottery, but if you jump too high, you may break the ceiling, or you may be feeling ecstatic or euphoric after hearing that your wife just birthed a baby, but if you jump into your car and try to hurry to the hospital, you may have an accident. Either way therefore you should think through your emotions - positive or negative - and the behaviors they suggest to you. All this is in the realm of psychology.
In the realm of spirituality, in addition to the concept of sacrifices for dealing with negative emotions especially, and as we may guess positive ones as well, we can also pray. As James would say, we can praise and thank God when we are feeling joyful, and we can petition and intercede when we are feeling troubled. There are four kinds of prayer, and each is suited to a kind of emotion. These kinds of prayer are: praise and thanksgiving; intercession; ejaculation, and petition. Praise with thanksgiving is best suited to joy and its sibling emotions. When you feel joyful or ecstatic, or euphoric or happy or content - when you feel any of the emotions in this family, you should give praise and thanks to God. What are some of the things you feel happy about today, for example? You should develop an attitude of gratitude for them, and for all the good things in your life and the lives of all those around you. Were you recently promoted? Did you win a fortune; pass an exam - what joyful thing happened to you? Give thanks and praise to God. You can say a short prayer like this: God I thank you for your wondrous graces to me and my loved ones today. You fill me with so much joy. I am grateful, and I praise you forever.
When you feel needy, you can petition God. Recall the parable of the importunate widow, contained in Luke 18:1-8. It tells the story of a widow who lived in a town where the judge feared neither God nor people. She kept on going to him everyday to ask for justice. The judge refused, but she kept on going until, exasperated by her resoluteness, the judge granted the widow her wish. Jesus told a few other stories, and made several remarks about asking for our needs from God. He said for example: "Ask and you will get it; seek and you fill find it; knock and enter the door. For everyone who asks always receives; everyone who seeks always finds, and everyone who knocks always enters the door" (Matt 7:7-8). But Jesus didn't stop there. He went ahead and said: "Which one of you would hand his child a stone when they asked for bread, or a snake when they asked for fish? If you then who are imperfect know how to give good things to your children, how much more will the perfect God give good things to those that petition?"(v9-11). There are many other examples in the bible about the efficacy of petition. Also, in Acts 16:25, Paul and Silas petitioned God with prayer and solemn hymns and they were freed from their incarceration.
When you feel disturbed about something bad happening to your friends or family, you can intercede. Perhaps you have a relative or a friend suffering from cancer or any other ailment. Or maybe your friend is facing a trial, an exam or something important in their life. You can intercede for them. "Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much" (Jas 5:16). James encourages us to pray for others. This is called intercession. In Acts 12:5, the bible also says: "So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him." This intercessory prayer worked out Peter's release from prison. We can intercede not only for our friends and family, but also for the sick, the prisoners, the world, and the church. We can intercede for our communities and for peace and progress in our nation. We can pray in groups too, for "again, truly I tell you that if two or more of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by God in heaven" (Matt 18:19).
And we can pray ejaculatory prayer. According to the Oxford Dictionary, one of the meanings of ejaculate is "say something suddenly." This is the meaning we are going with - believe me, there is at least one other meaning of ejaculate, which I'm quite sure you know, and so we shall not talk about here. Ejaculatory prayer is that which we say for example as we walk along the road and a sudden emotion comes into our hearts. Spontaneously then, we ejaculate, or say a quick prayer, for example: Thank you, Jesus! Or, I am healed today; or, "It is well with my soul." Or, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you." Ejaculatory prayers are short and quick, but powerful, because they are sudden outbursts of sincere emotion. A sudden and quick sign of the cross also serves as ejaculatory prayer, and some soccer players do as much as they jog onto the field.
All in all, when the "waters encamp like a flood," we can always approach God in prayer. Depending on the nature of the emotion, we can praise, petition, intercede, or ejaculate. God is always willing to answer us whenever we pray. Indeed, Jesus, in further trying to encourage his disciples to pray frequently, taught them the most classic of all prayers, which includes parts that are ejaculatory, intercessory, petitioning and praising. It is an all-in-one kind of prayer, and we say it always and everywhere at Mass. It goes like this: "Our God in Heaven, hallowed be your name; let your kingdom come, and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, since we usually forgive others that sin against us, and do not put us to the test, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, glory and power for evermore. Amen."
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