Emotional Well Being
More and more I am coming to the realization, that the most central point of my ideas about the Millennial Church is the pursuit of emotional well being. Every time needs it’s own institution for that and every civilization has it’s own measurements. Of course that alone is not a revolutionary thought. The twist is to ask if you can design an institution entirely devoted to and fully aware of the goal to create frame works for emotional well being. We are at a time in which we understand more and more about ourselves. Why don’t we use that knowledge and start to create what is good for us instead of trivializing it?
Take one of my favorite examples: the Mother Figure in religions and other cults. Every society has them, the perfect, flawless female which we can turn to and load with all our imperfections, fears and secret desires in return for tolerance, understanding and consolation. May it be the Holy Mary, Mother Earth, Isis in ancient Egypt, Parvati in Hinduism or even Beyonce. They are even often depicted in similar ways and are known to be an essential part to human development. But why don’t we create this framework for ourselves, in a totally none-mystified way? For most people in history the spiritual mother effect worked without them realizing how, but the question is if it would work with fully purposely creating it?
Sure is, that there is not much collective effort around the achievement of emotional well being. The general perception is: when you are not comfortable, with yourself, your surrounding or with what you do, it is your own fault: Go travel, at least to a spa, or change your career altogether. You are the master of your own well being. If you need help we tolerate it, but we will still judge it as weakness. And better get done with it quickly! The point though is, that emotional well being needs constant care and there is hardly any places which are generally accepted where you can take care of that accept shopping malls, movie theaters, gyms and the coast of thailand. Also what those places have in common is that next to giving yourself a good time, you are also expected to benefit from it on other levels, like getting prettier, smarter or more interesting. Every action needs to be reasoned and ‘just to feel good’ counts as one of the weaker ones. Eating ice cream and chips all day is self destructive, sexual pleasure is banal, not getting out of bed is depressed, dressing up is childish and turning to spirituality is brain washed. Yet everybody knows the longing to some extend, we feel ashamed to admit, let alone do the unreasonable activities. It needs an institutionalized surrounding to fulfill the shameful desires or a really strong personality to carry it without shame. But why don’t we manage to maintain a healthy relationship with those desires? We know that they are there, yet most of it comes breaking out, if ever, in the more hidden areas of society, in privacy, subcultures and micro-cultures or the anonymity of the internet.
I think, crying in front of an iconic mother figure would be nice some time and I would be happy, if there would be a place where it is just okay to do that. Actually, I would probably be crying the sh*** out of myself every once in a while and all I would need is the portrayal of a perfect, beautiful woman with a warmly glowing aura and a subtle, welcoming smile, plus the justification to do it. And I would sure feel better afterwards. Anybody?
