At church yesterday there was discussion of how to communicate with people who have different views an the issues of the day in a way that honored and pointed to Christ.
While I agree that as believers we need to do a better job of representing Christ on our fallen world, and that a big part of that is things like being willing to listen, to understand, and the tone of our responses. Yet, I can't help but wonder what role Truth plays in all of this. How do we seek the Truth and seek to share the Truth, when all too many of us are navigating these times based on feelings?
I was in a conversation with someone who kept insisting that I needed to honor their feelings and emotions regarding certain things. Then they complained that my response to their feelings/emotions was to bring facts and Truth into the conversation. Now, I'll own the fact that I probably didn't do a good job of communicating the Truth in a manner that helped move the conversation forward. I'll also acknowledge that I could have done a better job of acknowledging their feelings and understanding that those feelings were very real.
So, how do we balance Truth with feelings? How do we acknowledge that this is at it's root an issue of sin and the spiritual, while understanding that there are some societal/governmental parts of the conversation as well.
It seems as if Christ is Truth, then Truth should be part of the conversation.
3 comments:
It's tiresome to acknowledge feelings because feelings are brought up to imply they are all that matter. So to say, "Yeah...I get that you feel that way, but..." and then refer to the facts is seen as unfeeling. But as often as that ploy is employed, it's the facts that matter most. One's feelings can't be more important than the facts, lest bad policy that ignores the facts be enacted to appease the feelings. This only compounds the problems that provoked the feelings in the first place.
So, I will take pity on those who express unhappy feelings about a given situation. They'll get whatever comfort the level of distress demands. But then they are required to give attention to the facts, especially if those facts conflict with what they think is true, the misunderstanding of which led to those unhappy feelings. As Ben Shapiro so often says, facts don't care about your feelings.
And why should they? After all, feelings are simply signals. To dwell on the signal rather than what triggered it is foolish. Think of the physical. When you feel burning, you know you're too close to the flame and you respond accordingly. You make the necessary change based on the known fact of being too close to that flame. If you feel hungry, you don't just whine about being hungry. You open the refrigerator and make a sandwich.
The same is true with emotional feelings. I feel this way, why is it and how will I act based on the feelings? If my reaction does not produce the desired result, then I must alter my reaction. For some, they never do and continue to suffer the same consequences. At some point, if I care about that person, I can't waste time continually sympathizing with how they feel, but must disregard their feelings to lead them to a more beneficial outcome.
Sadly, some are too tightly bound with feeling badly and being the victim.
I'd argue that with the prevalence of mental health issues were seeing that it's a mistake to be cavalier about peoples feelings. I believe that it's important to engage in conversations to separate feelings about an experience from the experience itself. Further, there needs to be a way (obviously through relationship and love for others) to address the times when feelings are contradicted by Truth. Where I see the problem is that our society in general is moving away from the notion that there even is Truth, and this exacerbates the problem considerably. My problem is, that I want to be able to balance the acknowledgement of people's feelings with acknowledging what the Truth is. But do so in a way that isn't detrimental to the other party.
The mention of mental health problems is adding an unnecessary qualifier to the this more general point of feelings and facts. Naturally it changes the dynamic, but more often than not it doesn't come into play. So I will set that aside.
The balance you seek requires cooperation with the other person being willing to set aside feelings. That's a huge problem regardless of the person's mental health. No balance can be had without that cooperation. For such people, at some point it must be, "I can only stay so long at this pity party. Call me when it's over." It's not like this is the Middle Ages. All in all, we've got it pretty good. Stop whining and grow the hell up.
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