Emotional Depth

There is a kind of depth other than strictly intellectual depth, and that is depth of emotion.  The human mind contains an entire world within itself, a world accessible to each individual person.  That world includes a spectrum of sentiments.  Human emotions, with their spiritual, social, sexual, existential, and personal components, are far from being shallow in themselves.  They can be vibrant, powerful, penetrating, and even have a profound effect on our physical bodies.  The depth of human emotions is easily accessible through introspection.

The potential power and depth of feelings is particularly apparent in human relationships--friendships, dating relationships, marriages, and family relationships alike.  When we form close relationships, the accompanying emotions can be so deep that we can scarcely articulate them.  Perhaps we ourselves may not even understand their full depth.  But we can experience them with great clarity in our relationships all the same.  Given that other people can trigger such deep-seated feelings within us, it is ironic that it is other people who sometimes tell us to keep our emotions silent.  Emotional depth can frighten some people.  It might even frighten those who experience it in its intensity.

Emotion itself is not a shameful, humiliating thing that we must always conceal.  Some Americans treat public displays of deep emotion as if they showcase some sort of inherent weakness.  In truth, showing them to others can require great amounts of courage, vulnerability, and strength, things which can be very necessary in relationships between non-telepathic beings.  To acknowledge both that we are emotional beings and that our emotions can be very potent is to acknowledge an important part of reality, and sometimes it can take fortitude to face reality.

Christians should never object to the presence and intensity of emotions.  Instead, we should celebrate the range of emotionality God imbued humans with, recognizing emotional depth as legitimate and as something that God created and called very good.  It is only when emotion seeks to usurp the epistemological authority of reason or becomes bent towards a sinful end that emotion should be opposed.  When it comes to epistemology, emotion is utterly useless in all things except communicating to us what we are feeling at a given time.  This does not mean emotion has no place in out lives; it only means that emotion's place is far away from epistemology.

Nothing about emotional depth contradicts having a rational intellect, even a perfectly rational intellect, and thus there is no basis for trivializing the complexity of rich emotions.  When we minimize the extent and impact of our feelings, we ignore or deny a part of ourselves that was meant to be as it is.