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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday September 10, 2001 Volume III Number 37 |
FOCUS - The Catch in the Throat
Where does it come from? This swelling of the throat. This heating up deep around the larynx. Momentarily cutting off speech. The need to swallow. What is its genesis?
It’s mysterious and wonderful. It’s clear evidence of the existence of the soul. It’s physical, but goes way beyond the flexing of a muscle, or the involuntary beat of the heart, or the blink of the eye. It’s a mind/body connection that you’ll never see on an x-ray or through a microscope.
We are emotional beings. Physical manifestations reveal those emotions. One of them is the catch, the choke, a break in one’s speech. Teary eyes, or a flush of red, or the need for a hanky may accompany this welling up of feeling from somewhere deep down inside. While it seems in general to occur more often in women, it’s a phenomenon that strikes men as well. There is no age barrier – young and old will exhibit this behavior, though it seems that the more senior, the more likely a thought or a phrase or a situation will result in that momentary outward display, the evidence of a swelling heart. Maybe as we age, we let our guard down. Maybe we are less likely to disguise our true response. Maybe we are clearer about the things we truly treasure.
I guess there was a time when manly men considered such a moment of transparency as a weakness. Maybe then us guys were in complete denial about the “feminine side.” In those days, outward displays of this type were considered womanly. Manliness precluded such vulnerability. But that was a long time ago. Moms and dads, those with even the slightest dose of enlightenment, have been giving their little boys permission to feel for several decades now. Dads have gone to seminars and read books and generally been told that it is a rich kind of masculinity that openly demonstrates deep emotion in one’s life and wives regularly employ positive reinforcement techniques whenever they catch their husbands in a state of warm, buttery tenderheartedness.
So guys choke, too. It’s OK.
We’re told that emotional responses are rooted in one of three basic categories: anger, love and fear. This week, I encountered several situations that triggered a catch in the throat. Not in me. In others. These were emotional moments that left a significant imprint. But they were not angry moments, or fearful moments. They would fall into the category of love, I guess. They revealed something about core values. About passion. About caring. About the human need to connect with others in meaningful ways. About the joy of goodness. The power of relating.
The catch in the throat is the equivalent of underlining, bolding and italicizing the text. It’s an exclamation point in time. It says, this is important to me. Listen. Because it really matters.
I suppose for some who are particularly skilled as say an actor, that these emotions might be used as manipulative techniques to impose one’s self-absorbed agenda on someone else. When this happens, we disregard it as disingenuous; and our revulsion is understandable. This kind of emotional counterfeiting is clearly fraudulent, and worthy of punishment of some appropriate sort.
But most of us can tell the difference. When it’s phony, it’s offensive. When it’s real, it’s credible and genuine, and moving.
That’s the way it was when I saw it and heard about it this week. It was for real.
* * * * * * *
Gerry is our worship pastor. He’s been with us about six months now. He’s good. Very good.
He sat us all down in a circle this week before rehearsal started and told us he’d been studying his Bible and that he had a few things he wanted to relay to us from the text.
He found that way back in the days of the temple, three or four thousand years ago, there was a worship team. Something like ours. They even appointed, or better, God appointed (according to he text), a worship leader. Their assignment was to create an ambiance, to fill a large room enclosed by stone walls with the harmonies and clear tones of human voices. Their sweet music, blending with the lyrical prose of their song, would echo through the chambers out into the courtyard and flow into the city as their sacrifice of praise to a good God. Their exercise of melody and verse would draw the people in, and the sound would be contagious, encompassing an ever-widening circle of voices lifting up their praise to the Living One.
We are part of a long tradition, Gerry told us. Three thousand years old.
When people join us on a Sunday morning, they bring all kinds of experience, Gerry continued. Some have been struggling all week long with family conflict. Parents and children. Husbands and wives. Some with difficult employers. Tensions at work. Financial stresses. Time demands and overwhelming obligation. Some are battling illness; sometimes the annoying sickness or injury that keeps them from operating at full speed - others face life-threatening disease. Many are tired. Weary from overload. It’s called the human condition, Gerry said.
And he smiled. Because he knew we all relate.
From the beginning of recorded history, Gerry continued, God’s been telling us that we need to learn how to praise. Something good happens when we praise. We are reminded that there is Someone beyond the pressures of today with help and perspective that will get us through.
Then he set down his big study Bible and looked at us. He said, this is what we do. We are not worship leaders. Like the old temple musicians, we are lead worshippers. Our job is not to perform for the people, our job is to worship. As WE worship, so will they. We all nodded in agreement.
Gerry is a performer. He’s written and published songs. Through the years, he has performed on the stages of large arenas and cranked up the volume. He has theological training. He has taught and preached all over the country. And he is an educated and licensed marriage family therapist.
But something became clear to us the other night as he taught. Gerry believes that worship is perhaps the most meaningful and effective therapy available to humankind.
He said, “and you know, as people are drawn in to the presence of the living God, and they are welcome there, and taught to understand who He is, to know his grace and his mercy and his peace,” and then there was a catch in his voice as a deep emotion gripped him, he barely completed the thought through the swelling of his throat…
He choked it out… “People’s lives are transformed.”
He wiped his eye with the back side of his hand. And the rest of us knew that for a moment, Gerry allowed us in to a place where he feels deeply. And because he did, we feel it, too.
Gerry took a deep breath. “Wow, where did THAT come from?” And we all knew the answer.
Praise in music has transforming power.
And the truth of it took hold of this performer-pastor-therapist-teacher – and got hold of the rest of us, too.
* * * * * * *
Kristyn is in her third year as a public school teacher.
She knows the highs and the lows. She’s dedicated to her profession, and her students. She believes they all possess the tools they need to succeed. She’s tenacious in expressing that belief, and transferring confidence to children who don’t get much encouragement anywhere else. Many of them are neglected, some abused. Others come from loving, supportive homes. It takes her about a millisecond to size up a student’s home environment. After awhile, you just know.
She wants them to experience the joy of learning. She wants them to understand the freedom and independence that can come from achievement in education. She revels in her kids’ enthusiasm for recreation and playground fun. You’ll find her on the playing field right along with them.
But now, after two full years, she knows the battle is uphill. All the way.
There’s a lot working against her. Her seventh graders are easily distracted. Easily influenced by students who are indifferent, disengaged, preoccupied. Peer pressure is enormous; issues like appearance and dress and make-up and popularity can in an instant derail a good lesson plan. A simple roll of the eyes, cluck of the tongue, clever remark, and the entire class is gone.
So she reads books. Attends seminars. She’s on a constant search for techniques that make a subject interesting, hold the attention of her students, and help them develop the disciplines of learning. Reading. Writing. Speaking. Problem solving.
And I’m guessing she’s just about as effective as a teacher can be.
She got a call from her principal last week. It was a background briefing on a student who would be coming to her class in a matter of days. His name is Eric. After she hung up the phone, she decided that the best approach would be to go directly to the class and relay some of the principal’s introduction.
“A new student will be joining us in a day or two,” Mrs. Duncan (Kristyn) began. The class settled down, attentive to the news. “His name is Eric. He will be coming to our school because he needs a new start. In his former school, students were unacceptably cruel. They called him names. They teased him mercilessly. Eric has some physical challenges. And some learning challenges. People were mean, and it hurt Eric deeply…” and as she spoke, emotion welled up, and her voice caught, choking off the sentence, and the class of seventh graders froze. Dead silence.
Mrs. Duncan went on. “When Eric comes to our school, we’re not going to do any of those mean things, are we?” The students wagged their heads in unison, a rare moment of togetherness. One of the girls in the front row, Heather, pulled a Kleenex from the box on the teacher’s desk and handed it to Mrs. Duncan. She smiled and said, “Thank you, Heather.” She used it to wipe tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, class. I don’t know why I’m so emotional.”
She took a deep breath, and went on. “We’re going to give Eric a warm welcome when he comes, aren’t we?” The students nodded. “And we’re going to help him if he needs help. And we’re going to respect him for who he is, right?”
They nodded again.
And afterwards, several of her seventh grade students cornered their teacher and said, “It’s going to be alright, Mrs. Duncan.”
And she answered, “Good. I think so, too.”
* * * * * * *
Yesterday, Dan, an airline pilot and world traveler, told us about an encounter with a stranger on the ancient steps of Solomon’s temple, the old ruins in the old City of Jerusalem. It happened nearly twenty-five years ago. A young believer chatted with him at length, and at last in a profound and perceptive manner, told Captain Dan that someday he would understand how God would take his love for aviation and use it for a Kingdom purpose, and as Dan told the story, his voice cracked with emotion. That prophetic word is taking shape in the form of a new ministry poised to make a worldwide impact.
Bart
was there the day Brent died just three years ago.
Brent Curtis, co-author with John Eldridge of the powerful book Sacred
Romance – Drawing Closer to the Heart of God, was on a Colorado Rocky
Mountain weekend retreat with a group of men.
They explored the themes of their new book, and on Saturday afternoon
broke loose for some high country recreation.
Bart took some out on horseback. John
took another group fly-fishing. Brent
took a third group mountain climbing. Brent
was an expert climber.
Bart’s first awareness of trouble came when an emergency helicopter passed overhead. He turned his horse back to the corral at the ranch, where he was informed that there had been a terrible accident on the mountain. He knew the terrain around the ranch better than anyone, so at the crew’s request, he jumped into the helicopter to guide them to the site. There, at the bottom of a sheer face, was his friend Brent. Lifeless. Still. A terrible, fatal, accidental fall. And as Bart told us the story over lunch, now three years later, his voice choked. The pain is still as real as the day they landed the chopper just close enough for Bart to run to his friend’s broken body… and weep.
Brent left a young wife. Two young sons. And a powerful legacy that lives on in two new books authored by his best friend, John Eldridge.
* * * * * * *
That catch in the throat. It got me, too. More than once.
I suppose there is a department of anatomy somewhere, maybe neurobiology, where a grant funded research into how it is that the neurons in the brain and the synapses connect and trigger this physical reaction to heartfelt emotion. I don’t know that scientific analysis would change my mind about the meaning of such occurrences. Certainly we are more vulnerable when our guard is down. When we are in the company of a trusted friend. When we feel as though we are understood. And appreciated. In a safe place where we can open up, and say it the way we feel it.
But that catch in the throat, well, it means you are alive. You are aware. You’ve touched a place deep in the recesses of your mind and heart where there is value. Tenderness. Empathy. It’s important to you.
The person of whom you speak. The episode that traumatized your day and taught you to realign your priorities. The loss that leaves you with an aching void.
Early in the morning, I drove to an all day meeting. Someone left a Bob Carlisle cassette tape in the stereo… and before long I was listening, at the break of day, with a vente Starbucks in the cup holder, to his classic Butterfly Kisses, a ballad about a dad and his little girl who grows up, gets married and moves away. I’ve heard the song a hundred times, but it still got me. (I’ve walked our two down that aisle.)
A catch in my throat.
* * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
That catch in the throat. Here’s hopin’ you’ve known it, too. If it’s been too long, you ought to take some time for reflection. Think about the things and the people close to your heart.
Maybe it’s your calling. For Gerry, it’s worship. For Kristyn, it’s a classroom of seventh graders. For Dan, it’s a calling with wings. For Bart, the painful memory of sheer granite face and an unforgettable friend. For me, butterfly kisses.
When was the last time you felt that warm swelling around the larynx, and your speech was involuntarily cut off?
Cherish the moment.
You are alive and well.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2001
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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