Kumba-nah

It’s summer, and so it’s spirit season—the time of year full of Vacation Bible School, retreats, church camps, revivals, and mission trips. People have time to really devote to their faith, and that’s great. I always liked extra church time in the summer as a kid, but I also always encountered uncomfortable moments, moments when the music slowed, people shared testimonies, and those around me had an emotional response I couldn’t relate to. Why were they being so emotional? Why did I never, never feel those things?

I made myself feel better through justifications. The atmosphere is emotionally manipulative. Some are just faking to fit in. They’ll go right back to business as usual once the week is over. It’s ok not to feel anything. Right?

A part of me wanted that emotion, that connection, that overwhelming feeling that seemed to spill out in tears and hands in the air and bright smiles. Why wasn’t I feeling anything? Was I missing something? Was I not as faithful as them? Would everyone think I didn’t love God unless my devotion outwardly expressed itself in emotional demonstration? I never asked God for an emotional experience. It looked messy and vulnerable and unsustainable. My subdued, internal devotion is steady, glowing embers rather than fireworks. So I enjoyed the crafts, the lessons, the songs, the submersion into summer church things, but I never got a retreat high.

Retreat highs happen when people have strong emotional experiences or spiritual revelations during a retreat or mission. When we step out of our daily routines and devote a day or a week or more to living for God and reflecting on faith, it’s easy to see our faith make great strides. Oh, this is why we’re here, this is how God loves me, this is how I want to live for Him. We make great plans for how we’ll take the lessons of the retreat back home. But oftentimes, the familiarity of home knocks us back into our old routines. We fondly remember the retreat, but it’s not life-altering.

For those who felt those retreat highs, they miss the high more than they miss the retreat. They seek out other ways to get the emotional feeling—more retreats, more music, more emotional expressions in their worship. Others feel that losing the high is the same as losing faith. God felt so close then, but now the feeling’s gone; is God gone too? Feeling becomes a confirmation of faith.

In The Spark of Faith, Vatican household theologian Fr. Wojciech Giertych, OP, says, “Since faith is located in the intellect and partly, in the will, belief as such is not a matter of feelings….Emotional experiences and imaginations therefore play a role in religiosity, which expresses faith and maintains it in the personal and social realm, but the force of their expression is not a sign of the depth of faith. Some people react to everything emotionally, and so they also experience their religiosity in this way, and others are more reserved in their reactions. This does not mean that those who are cooler have no faith….It is not essential to have religious experiences, nor that they necessarily be multiplied. What is much more important is that concern that faith will grow, that it will be more deeply rooted in the intellectual and moral life, thereby opening it to the fecundity of grace.”

It reassuring to know that my faith does not depend on my ability to have deep emotional experiences or public displays of such. Though it is also good for me to be reminded that others experience God and the world in such ways, and they aren’t all being manipulated or fake. God speaks to us differently. And while I don’t risk retreat high withdrawal, I am learning the benefit in letting go and just living in the experience. I’ve now had emotional spiritual experiences. They’re powerful. But we can’t stay on the mountain. We have to come back down into the world. Our faith must be rooted in rationality so that it doesn’t bend to the winds of whimsy. The summer ends. The retreat high dissipates. Life steadily moves on. Can I handle that?