Feeling the Falls

Photos were taken at Trümmelbach Falls in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. They are considered to be the largest underground waterfalls in Europe.

Growing up I remember thinking that my tendency to be introspective was a deficiency, almost a sign of weakness. So much so that in certain circles, especially participating in sports, I often felt less masculine. For I had bought into the “men don’t feel, men don’t cry, men don’t show emotion” mantra. I remember feeling like I always had to turn off my thoughts but I never could. As a result, my natural tendencies to feel and think brought about many insecurities.

Today I am less insecure about it but still have moments of doubt. There are times that I wish I could just turn off the switch for a while. But I can’t. Maybe because deep down I know it is a death wish. For to do so would leave me feeling like I was alive but not living, looking but not seeing, speaking but not communicating. Therefore, I have come to be very grateful for the capacity to feel, no matter how joy filled or painful the feelings might be.

So whether it is happiness or anger, humility or vanity, hatred or love, the intense feelings that rise within me are usually sparked by an outside event, relationship, or nature. In other words it is usually something in my everyday life that sparks them, and once sparked, I am off and running within my mind. I once heard that the longest journey in life is 18 inches. The 18 inches from your mind to your heart. Therefore being conscious of the journey that connects your thoughts to your heart is the key to an enriching life. And for me, the bridge to the Divine.

The heart is where God dwells and where the context of my thoughts and actions occur. Consequently, my thoughts at times become my only lifeboat to God. For they become the avenue to my heart.

The intensity in which the water fell from the Alpine mountain peaks today reminded me of the intensity I feel inside. And like the water that falls into a larger body of water below, my feelings and thoughts have to flow into a larger context than my own understanding or I run the risk of choking on my anxieties and fears.

“Suffering without Christ is painful, suffering with Christ is redemptive and will transform the world.”

Fr. Mike Schmitz

In some ways watching the intensity in which the water fell reminded me of what it means to live a baptismal life. A life that immerses its intense feelings, actions, thoughts, and words into the One who is Love. Into the One who has felt what we feel. Into the One who awaits us on this very day just as we are…the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And the only One who can give me peace within my introspective tendencies.