I’m in the process of teaching a series of workshops on tending our emotions, and a participant asked if there was any teaching in the Christian Scriptures or in Jesus’ words that encourage us in this endeavour. As the importance of emotional self-care is a through line in almost everything I write and say, I thought I’d explore a bit of my response here.
The first thing that came to mind is Jesus’ statement that the first commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. And the second is like unto it, Love your neighbour as yourself.” He goes on to say, “All the law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
In these words, I read how important my heart is to the Divine. In fact, the heart is the first part of me that’s mentioned. Religious traditions often talk about the importance of what we believe, or what we think about God. But that’s not where Jesus starts. He starts with the heart, then the soul, and then the mind.
This highlights to me the importance of tending my heart, feeling all the nuances that are there to be felt, and allowing the emotions to move through. When I don’t tend the emotions, I feel them as a weight in my heart that leaves room for little else. When I give them attention, and practice the skills of processing the feelings, they do move, and I feel lighter and clearer. Some call this the “purification” of my heart. It’s not about judging and banishing that which I deem unworthy, but about processing and tending whatever I find there, discovering the Holy One in meeting my own experience.
I decided to broaden my exploration and see what else I might find.
I recalled a story that I’ve loved since childhood, the story of Hagar fleeing from the cruelty of her mistress Sarah, and being met by the angel of the Lord in the wilderness. The angel greets her this way, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?”
I immediately thought of the teaching I’ve heard about the Bedouin cultural value of hospitality. A visitor to encampment is always welcomed with these three questions: “Who are you? Where are you from? Where are you going?” These are not idle questions. They are the beginning of welcome. As food and drink and shelter are offered, stories are exchanged. These questions are the signal of welcome and an honouring of the visitor and their journey.
As Hagar wept near the spring in the wilderness, abused, alone and certain she would die, the Divine appears to her, calls her by name, and offers the questions of welcome. I believe she heard a familiar litany that brought comfort.
She told the angel where she’d come from. “I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai.”
I’ve always been bothered by the fact that the angel didn’t rescue her from an abusive situation. Instead, the response was, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” Perhaps this return truly was the only way for Hagar to survive. While I can’t explain that part of the story, I do notice that the admonition is followed by an assurance that Hagar’s descendants “will be too numerous to count.”
Again, this wouldn’t be of much comfort to me, a white woman in modern times, but to an ancient desert dweller, this was a promise of significant honour. In her culture, a woman’s value and recognition came through the number of children and grandchildren she had. However, a slave woman’s children were actually the property of her owner. She had no honour, no generational value.
With the angel’s promise, she could return to the hardship of her situation with the promimse that the Divine One recognized her worth. Her descendants would be known as her descendants. In other words, she would be given the honour of being a matriarch.
In this exchange, I hear the angel of the Lord tending Hagar’s heart, first in using the litany of welcome that to her ears would signal safety and care, and then reassuring her of her value and promising her the respect of her community.
The angel also says to her, “The Lord has heard of your misery.”
Is there any more profound expression of empathy? The Divine cares about your misery, the suffering of a slave woman, viewed by most as mere property, invisible to those in power, subject to the whims of a bitter mistress. I hear in those words the assurance to Hagar that she wasn’t alone in her suffering.
Hagar’s response is to offer a name for the Divine, “the One who sees me.”
I love that. Her experience of being cared for is so profound, the One is forever renamed in her mind.
I also find it significant that in the Scriptural record where women’s voices are not frequent, this story of a woman offering her name for the Divine is included. It tells me God honours our heart need to be seen, to be tended, to be reassured of care.
This is the way the Divine met one woman’s heart. It inspires me to meet my own heart with that same care and attention, to practice being Divine Love to myself. I envision a world in which the abundance of that Love fills each of us to the point of overflow to the world around us.
This brings me full circle to Jesus’ “First Commandment”, to love God with all that I am, and my neighbour as myself.
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