(Perhaps take a moment to jot your responses to that question down just to notice in yourself how you might respond. . .)
After compiling thousands of surveys three emotions stood head-and-shoulders above the rest as being common to all responses. Over five years the three emotions that people could recognize as they were experienced were: happy, sad, and angry.
The supervisor of the survey was shocked! She wondered what it meant that the vastness of human emotions and responses could be, and was, boiled down to three emotions? Are we truly all feeling the same thing? Of all the human emotions that are accessible to us, why do we identify only as mad, sad, or happy?
Now there is a great deal of room in this conversation to lean back and wonder about the social implication of these results, but I wonder about how the apply them theologically? How do we take the results of this survey and apply them in our lives as Christians as we seek to serve God and live faithfully in our context?
If the author's conclusion is correct, then it seems from my perspective that you and I have a commonality with our neighbors that might normally go unrecognized. . .
While we might recognize and accept God as the center of our lives, and even if our neighbor does not, common space is present. We may believe that the scriptures are a true and accurate representation of how God reveals Himself to us through Christ Jesus, and the person next door may disagree with us vehemently. Yet, we each know what it feels like to be happy, sad, and angry.
We have a commonality with them, and in that commonality, language exists that can help them live faithfully in this world and find God seeking them out. But we must accept this conclusion and choose whether we are going to live into it and serve God or not.
I wonder where this emotional commonality points you? What does it look like? And how different truly are we in the church from our brethren who do not worship with us?
Blessings
Rev. Derek
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