I am happily married to an amazingly sweet, understanding and beautiful girl named Jess. I'm also a daddy of a cute little girl named Cadence Rose; who's got, quite possibly the most effective, infectious smile I do believe there can be. I suppose I'm pretty healthy. I'm not "in shape" by any means. And you sure won't see me working out or jogging or anything crazy like that. But I'm not dying of any disease either, at least, not that I know of. So I'm pretty well off I guess. Blessed, if you will. Happy, content, however you'd like to say it. All that being said, I don‘t mind admitting that, despite all the properties of my content life, I still get down. There are those times when, for no good reason, I am completely overwhelmed with sadness. I don't know why, I just do. In the evangelical milieu I was raised in, being sad was looked down upon. Not that it was necessarily preached against from the pulpit; you'd just never admit it to others that things weren't ok. It was something you didn't tell other people about, the dark secret you hide behind pretty smiles. To be sad was almost like a sin. And I suppose there may be times when that is the case. My mom used to say that, just as your body tells you when you should eat, your spirit will tell you when you've deprived it of spiritual food. But then what about those whoes lives seem to be a perpetual spiritual feast? What of St. John of the Cross and his “Dark Night of the Soul.” What of the blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta? St. Teresa of Lisieux had a nameless sadness come over her as well. She described it as slipping into darkness. And what of me and my friends? Is it ok to be sad sometimes? What are we to do if we find ourselves or another “slipping into the darkness?” And yet, to be strangely still in, what Christianity (indeed, Christ himself) calls, “the light?” Some theologians suggest that the “Dark Night of the Soul” is just a step closer to God ‘though it may feel as though one has been abandoned by God. I certainly don’t claim to be any kind of a theologian; but I do believe that it’s ok to be sad sometimes. It may not be normal… but then again, things haven’t really been normal since Eden. The last thing I need when I’m down is someone trying to “fix me.” I’m never anymore broken than I always am. No amount of “just give it to God brother” is going to straighten that out. That’s not to say we don’t need each other. On the contrary, I am reminded of the love of God for me more often than not by my friends and family just being there. But the constant antidotes for the soul are just no good. Sometimes you’ve just got to be blue for awhile.
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”
- St. Augustine
The Art of Whimsy
- Jessica Emmans, Kyle Booterbaugh, and Nathan J. Emmans
- The Art of Whimsy is a rootsy, organic folk-rock experience, a memorable collision of foot stomping grooves with meaningful melodies. Using a soul-stirring synergy of earthy acoustic instruments, peculiar percussive devises and gripping harmony they hope to both inspire and entertain with songs that retell the age-old stories of the human drama, the struggles of life and love and the good news of the Love of God .
11 comments:
Well Nathan, I would have to agree. Agree that sadness is alright and even necessary. It seems (from the knowledge in my head as well as from the example of the saints you've listed) that sadness plays a large role in a sacrificial life against the worlds wishes. The ultimate example of that could be Jesus crying tears of blood the night before he surrendered to the cross.
I'm not sure if you heard/read this, but I believe it was time magazine that printed some letter from Mother Teresa (to perhaps the Pope, I can't remember)speaking of a deep darkness and sadness, a long time battle with doubt and no sense of God. The article tried to present it as a lack of faith but I didn't see it that way. She was expressing her internal battle but she never gave up on obeying her calling despite her doubt- to me that is ultimate faith.
Yes, I did read that article from Time and I came to the same conclusion you did.
i would have to say that i only partially agree with you. and here is why:
first, obviously there is nothing wrong with being sad. i have never really been to a church or anything that says it is bad to grieve, it happens all the time, it happened to jesus and many people in the bible, so i am sorry that you got that growing up. i think sadness is in a way a blessing because it always incites change and for me is a reminder of how broken i am and how much i need god.
i do think that the only way to respond to someone who is sad is to tell them to turn to god. i think there is something so complicated about grief that the human mind and human emotion can never really understand or fix someone elses grief. again, another blessing. no matter how much i tell someone that i understand their sadness and no matter how much i try to fix it, i cant. once again, another blessing. as humans, we cant understand or fix anothers pain, only god can and for us to tell someone something other than "give it to god" per se, we would be wrong. there is something beautiful about the fact that when our heart is breaking, when we are at our lowest, the only thing that help is god. could you imagine if this was not the case? if another person could heal our pain, would anyone turn to god when they most need him? i dont want to live in a world like that, even if sometimes life would be easier.
that being said, i dont think anyone is wrong in truly saying and truly meaning give your heart to god, as your saint's quote said below. rest can only be found in god, and to think otherwise is silly.
to finalize, i have heard the song, obviously, and i think the story behind the song (the friend with the problem) is a great story and you turned it into a great song. but i do believe that staying sad, just to be sad is wrong. i think it is selfish. if we are to always turn to god when we are sad, to choose not to and remain sad would be ignorant and selfish. so, yeah, being sad is a state that we as humans can not avoid, but to dwell in that sadness without looking toward a positive future is wrong. there is a blessing in sadness, and giving it to god does not mean it will be fixed immediately, but you can be confident in knowing that god will rest your soul, he will eventually remove this sadness and no one else can do it. so dont just be blue, reach out to god to rest your soul and seek the blessing and growth that the sadness will bring.
Collete Ashley, thank you for the indepth comment. I was not talking about the individual who is choosing to be sad, nor the person who is going through the grieving process; but the sad person who IS seeking God and remains sad despite the fact. Ironically, your comment reminds me of the very Christian cliches that I was talking about. I know from experience that saying "dont just be blue, reach out to god to rest your soul" is the last antidote the sad person wants to hear.
I really appreciate your song. I have known that type of sorrow, where well-meaning comments like, "cheer up, Jesus loves you!" do feel like salt in the wounds. Not that it's not true, but you can know that Jesus loves you and still go through viciously deep struggles. We live in a society that molds us into thinking something's wrong if you're not happy, the repercussions of this are such tragedies as divorce ("I just wasn't happy with her"), such burdens as credit problems (“but that BMW/snowboard/pair of shoes made me happy”) and such atrocities as abortion. What happened to "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted"? When I was a young Christian, I thought that people would know I was a Christian because I was so darn chipper, but there is a difference between happiness and joy--one is circumstantial and one is not dependent to circumstance. Look at Jesus in the garden. He was in the depths of despair to the point of crying tears of blood. Can you imagine one of the disciples coming up to him and telling him, "give it to God brother"...
Just exactly.
"Like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar on soda, is he who sings songs to a troubled heart"
~Proverbs 25:20 (NASB)
(Side note: it seems as though they did the volcano experiments back in those days as well...)
Hey brother, I resonate with your post. I'd just like to echo Margaret I. and say "Blessed are the poor in spirit."
And concerning your new music, I call it awesome.
i think you missed my point completely.
Thanks for writing this, Nathan. I've found that the times of melancholy make life more beautiful. When I suddenly (after sadness) notice the hills, or my nephew's laughter, or the wonder of the sky, I remember what it means to be alive. It always takes something cosmic, beyond human words, to bring me back to a place of joy.
I believe that there are no detours around the Valley of the Shadow of Death (or the Valley of the Shadow of Depression etc...) on the proverbial road of life. Coming out on the other side of one of these experiences always renues in me passion and love for Light and the Beautiful.
So, I agree and appreciate your insight. -nje
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