"Transparency"

Transparency in our culture is often viewed as weakness. We fear our emotions. Not only is it true of grief but also at all of life’s difficult intersections. Guilt, faith, anger, love, fear, success or failure all can bring a storm of emotion we cannot control or disguise. Repression of our emotions is a cultural expectation. However, an emotion such as anger is not easily repressed. It often emerges in some other form; sleeplessness, disturbing dreams, compulsive behavior, headaches, spastic colon and ulcers. Saving face is not in the Biblical record.

Artists of all kinds have to risk unveiling themselves. They open themselves to deep, personal emotion. They risk rejection or indifference.

Remember when Socrates drank the hemlock, he sent the workers away and proceeded to admonish Apollodorus for bursting into tears.

The Bible says, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” In other words, “Don’t go to bed mad.”  Better to get up and candidly deal with it, the demanding emotions, rather than try to sleep on it.  Repression of feelings must not be accepted as the cultural standard. How we express those feelings without causing collateral damage is of utmost importance.

You are made in the image of God; body, mind, and spirit. All three of these human aspects are uniquely integrated. We are also a complex mix of knowledge, will, and emotions. The Savior said, “I have come that you might have life and that more abundantly.”  John 10:10

Blessings!