05/17/2026
https://www.trinitywashpa.org/post/that-right-kind-of-feeling..that right kind of feeling
agzemrzycki
2 hours ago
3 min read
Hello Saints,
I recently listened to a in interview with author and Anglican priest The Rev. Tish Harrison Warren. She is the author of two amazing books, Liturgy of the Ordinary & Prayer in the Night. She is also a columnist for the New York Times. Both Tracey and I would highly recommend her writings, and, well, she also happens to be one of Tracey's friends.
Warren's latest offering is called What Grows in Weary Lands: On Christian Resilience. The book was the subject of an interview on The Language of God Podcast. In Warren's previous writings she has written about holding onto faith when life takes its darker turns; when we feel overwhelmed like the writer of Psalm 88. She has also written about finding joy and worship in everyday life.
Now she is tackling another interesting subject. How to hold onto faith when everything is…. just fine. She herself admits she writes about what she is currently or has recently experienced. After the difficulties she wrote about in Prayer in the Night, life has settled down. Routines have been established. She and her husband get their kids off to school, do their work and ministry, attend and run services, have their spiritual disciplines, and keep their Sabbath.
And yet, she found herself in a spiritual desert. She didn't feel close to God. Her faith felt forced. She just wasn't "feeling it" for an extended period of time. She found wisdom and comfort by reading the desert fathers and mothers. Though their lives were very different from hers (and ours) she found they too would go through long periods of "aridity." However, they found that by persevering they experienced incredibly spiritual growth. The book is a reflection on their, and her, experience.
The evangelical church has been so important for introducing the idea that experiencing -and expressing- emotions during worship and in our prayer time is appropriate, even encouraged. But, as Warren says, it seems we've gone over the edge and now our faith is tied to producing that right kind of feeling. We think that If we don’t feel anything, God must not have been as present. And worse, we think it's probably our fault. I saw this recently when I spoke to someone in their 20's. They said they thought something was wrong with them because they didn't feel strong emotions during church. She kept her faith because her priest outright told her "you don't need to feel anything in order to believe." (As a side note, I later saw her weeping because of the ministry she had received recently. She obviously had feelings about her faith. They just didn't arise in worship like she thought they were supposed to).
I am looking forward to reading this book. It's something I think we all go through at some point. This is also something I see in the recovery community. The first 1-2 years are often filled with intense experiences. Lots of tears are shed, of joy and pain. There's also the freedom that people feel, sometimes for the first time in a decades long life. We call it the "pink cloud." There's something real and vital and wonderful about this time. But it doesn't last forever. Life settles down and becomes routine, normal. This is often a dangerous period because we think something is wrong. The "high" of early recovery is gone. Sometimes this is where people relapse, looking again for some kind of intense experience. We need to learn to not confuse serenity and boredom. We need to learn to love being normal. I remember after a little over a year in recovery I said to an old timer "It's weird. I feel OK. And, I'm actually OK with just being OK. Is that serenity?" He just chuckled at me and gave me a loving smile.
In Christ,
Jamey +
Hello Saints,I recently listened to a in interview with author and Anglican priest The Rev. Tish Harrison Warren. She is the author of two amazing books, Liturgy of the Ordinary & Prayer in the Night. She is also a columnist for the New York Times. Both Tracey and I would highly recommend her writin...
