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What would life be like without those feelings?  Feelings of happiness, of wonder, of sadness and delight… We humans are feeling creatures, not just brains in meat sacks. God has made us to feel, and while life shouldn’t be spent pursuing feelings, we also must be sure to enjoy and relish the little moments, little inklings of bigger things, little feelings of humanity.

Here are just a few…

Apparently there is a scientific reason for this phenomenon, something to do with chemicals and the way our brain works. That’s fine. But sometimes there are those moments of awe, of splendor, of dumbstruck wonder that you can’t just explain with facts– you can only experience the feeling.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. – Helen Keller

When I was a kid, something about the moon just didn’t make sense. My teacher tried and tried and my parents tried and I tried, but for some reason I just couldn’t comprehend how it worked. But then one day, I understood. And what a sweet feeling that is, to come to a point of realization of something big, like your life’s purpose or who you want to marry, or even something small, like how the moon works.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.– Henry David Thoreau

I absolutely love that feeling I get when the Eagles arrive or Mrs. Weasley screams “Not my daughter you —-!” or John Carter arrives in the nick of time– those moments when all that we know (things go wrong, people die, evil wins) is turned upside down and redeemed. It’s a cup of mirth that overflows into giggles and chuckles and pure joy– and I can’t wait til the world outside the book is also made right…

A book is a gift you can open again and again.- Garrison Keillor

I think a movie is a media that is evoking feelings.- Ang Lee

Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.- Ingmar Bergman

I like sitting in the front row at a theater. I hardly ever do it, though, because the people I go with rarely want to do it as well. But when I watch a movie, I become truly absorbed in the story, the characters, the plot, the world within. I like to lose myself in the moment (but not like Eminem), to imagine myself in a different place, a different life, an adventure of the mind and heart. But when the movie ends, it’s like saying goodbye to an old friend, like going home after a week of camp, like opening the last Christmas present. Eventually it comes to an end, and that feeling of loss and dissatisfaction is overwhelming.  Still it reminds me of this quote from CS Lewis:

If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world. – C.S. Lewis

 

The hard part of Facebook is that you are constantly in a mode of “Connected but not Known” with dozens or hundreds of people. Friends from high school or college or work can stay updated on your life, but they don’t really know you. The occasional comment, wall post, or message might change things, but you’re still in a state of Neither-Nor. Neither true friends nor disconnected. What’s real special about reuniting with old friends is picking up where you left off, updating each other in person, testing the ground between you and finding that it is still solid as ever. You just can’t do that online.

People will forget what you said, People will forget what you did, But people will never forget how you made them feel– attributed to Maya Angelou

The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.- CS Lewis

We can still experience this in higher education, but with less class time and finals, the end of the year isn’t so definite and concrete– it depends on each person and their schedule. We can still experience this in the workforce, but 5:00 on Friday is nowhere near the same stellar event that is the last moment of the school year. I remember the last few minutes of my senior year of high school– we watched the clock and laughed, cried, chattered, and celebrated when it finally reached 3:15. Though school is not really a prison, though you can enjoy parts of school life, there is nothing that can compare with the moment you are released into the wide open fields of the holidays.

Except, I believe, that moment when Christ returns and we are free from the bonds of sin, we are reunited with our closest friend, when one world ends but another begins, when all is made right, when suddenly we see it all and everything finally makes sense.

The feelings on that day (and yes, I believe that in our transformed bodies we will still experience emotions and feelings [after all, Jesus seemed to be joyful, peaceful, happy when he returned to his disciples]) are beyond what we can comprehend right now.

So for now, let us live lives of purpose and meaning, all the while enjoying each moment, the good and the bad and the in between.

 

Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.- St Augustine

To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. Jesus listened. In John’s Gospel we are told that Jesus was moved with the deepest emotions (11:33)… The gospel portrait of the beloved Child of Abba is that of a man exquisitely attuned to His emotions and uninhibited in expressing them. The Son of Man did not scorn of reject feelings as fickle and unreliable. They were sensitive antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action. – Brennan Manning

Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.- Psalm 37:3