After the Flooding: Christian Community in an Election Season

I recently spent a week staying with some of my dearest friends. Their kids are ages five, seven, nine, and 12, and man, do they know how to get under one another’s skin. They know just the thing to say, just the tone to use, and just the face to make to send another sibling sky high with fury. They are experts at co-opting one another’s nervous systems for their own entertainment.

As a younger sister myself — and an “auntie” who loves this family deeply — the shrieking voices and flailing limbs often make me chuckle. I resonate well with the subversive prodding of a sibling. But for my friends — the parents — the need for regular applications of patience, correcting, coaching, and coregulation must become exhausting. Helping a child to regulate, to bring their mind, body, and emotions back to a state of flexibility, responsiveness, and openness for connection, can be a real art.

We often know flooding, or emotional dysregulation, when we see it: hands ball up into fists, voices raise, postures inflate, and words become assault weapons. Physiologically, hearts race and blood pressures rise. I like to think of it as our prefrontal cortex, that trusty planner/inhibitor/decision-maker, going offline. We begin to operate more reflexively and reactively out of our limbic system, the rudimentary and instinctual part of our brain that is heavily involved in the experience of emotions. We lose control.

Emotional dysregulation can actually head in two directions. We can either become filled with energy and distressing emotions and sensations (as described above) in an experience called hyperarousal, or we may become sapped of energy, desire, or motivation in an experience called hypoarousal. Here, we feel numbed, disconnected, and potentially distant. When we are initially triggered, we often head to hyperarousal, yet when we are flooded by distress for a prolonged period of time, such as with abuse or neglect in childhood, we tend to slip into hypoarousal easily. Our brains are very good at learning to survive.*

To illustrate the workings of these systems, imagine experiencing a fire in your oven. Your instinct will likely be to fight it or to flee it. You may also experience a freeze response. However, you are even more likely to experience a freeze posture if the fire is long gone, but the smoke detector (post-fire) has continued to blare for the last year. Your brain performs a sort of numbing to help you keep living in your home. The Lord has beautifully designed our nervous systems to keep us alive.

Unfortunately, news outlets, social media, and the like have discovered the power of our nervous systems — just like my friends’ kids. Headlines, videos, and tweets are extremely adept at coopting our survival instincts. They target our precognitive processes to hook us in by flooding us, which results in the engagement of our attention, our time, and our reactions. They know how to set metaphorical fires by presenting images, soundbites, and quotes that send us into hyperarousal.

Consider the way we become enraged by a piece of reporting about a political comment with which we disagree. We catch a glimpse of a newspaper, a channel on TV we don’t normally watch (or do), or an ad on social media. We overhear a conversation at a coffee shop. Our blood begins to boil. We may have a few choice words in our head (or maybe that’s just me). We may have a sudden desire to explain the many irrationalities of what we’ve just seen or heard. Or we may have the urge to delete our account immediately. Our body either tenses up or we swiftly begin ignoring or avoiding what we have just encountered. Our nervous system has been effectively co-opted, whether it’s veered in the direction of fight, flight, or freeze. We are no longer as in control of our faculties as we would like to be. And if it is all up to us to “just calm down!” (which tends to be the least helpful thing to tell someone who is triggered), we are locked into a hopeless scenario.

But thanks be to God, this is not where we must stay. This is only one angle on a many-faceted situation. And the whole of the situation rests in the domain of our Lord, where the King is reigning. Here, the Scriptures are alive, the Spirit is at work, and Jesus has left us a legacy of what it actually means to be human. Here, James 1 can be an exceptionally useful chapter for instructing our hearts.

In James 1:14-15 we read, “but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Then in 19-20, “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.”

Without context, it is easy to read these words in a reduced, behavioral manner. “If you’re tempted to do something bad, slow down and listen. Also, cut off the source of the temptation.”

We might apply this interpretation to the conversation at hand with the following application: “If your coworker brings up his disdain for your political party and you are tempted to rip his head off, slow down and listen to him. Then, take an inventory of the sin in your heart and then root it out/cast it off/crucify it when you find it.”

Easy peasy, right?  Just catch yourself in the process of likely emotional dysregulation, create internal space to listen to and receive the infuriating opinions of your coworker, and then cleanse your heart. No problem.

…Wait: this isn’t working for you? There must be something wrong with you. Or your faith. Or your efforts.

As you can likely tell, I’m being tongue-in-cheek here to prime us for the forthcoming point. If you’ve ever received teaching or rebuking in this vein (the shaming vein that fails to take the whole of James, the person of Jesus, and the rest of Scripture into account), I am truly sorry. That is so lamentable. I grieve the ways so many of us were taught to “just do the thing, and it will make your life better by making you a ‘good Christian.’ And if you can’t do it, something must be wrong with you.”

There are many, many things wrong with that line of thinking – not the least of which is a prosperity gospel theology with poor anthropological assumptions.

Moreso than with politics, I am one who tends to become pretty angry when I hear stories of statements like the above offered to my friends. As a counselor, I know that even if it should be that simple, it never is, and I see the damage that trite and shaming advice often creates. I am tempted to slay the offending pastor/youth leader/parent in my mind (theologically), thereby feeding my incredibly self-righteous mind-beast. Yet here is where I think the Holy Spirit may delight in using James 1 to intersect my own pathway to death.

Count it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (James 1:2-5)

Before we get to verses 14-15, James has set the table for us. He begins his letter by acknowledging that we face trials of many kinds. Life is hard. Suffering is real. Things do not always go the way we want them to – or even the way they should. People say and teach horrible things.

I don’t believe James is making light of suffering or inviting us to slap a spiritual Band-Aid on it with his exhortation to “Consider it joy when we face trials.” He is familiar with the persecution and poverty experienced by the Jewish Christians to whom he was writing.[1] Verses 2-4 read more as a pump-up talk from a coach who feels the wins and losses of his players than a therapist instructing someone in the steps of cognitive reframing. James is a letter of encouragement that appreciates the heart.

In fact, his appreciation for the centrality and value of the heart is evident in verse 3 where he explains the formation of perseverance. Perseverance is not attained through brute strength, intellectual assent, or mere determination of the will. Instead, perseverance is more of a quality or condition that is birthed in us. One of the ways it is formed is by a testing of our faith, as we see happen to Jesus in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-13). That testing is not always a result of our choice – or by anything we have done wrong; it rests in the sovereign domain of God’s ordaining. And in that domain, it is oriented for our good, even though it may be painful (Romans 8:38).

With that in mind, we move on to verse 5, which orients us to the Giver of all good gifts, God. Although the book of James is action-packed in its many instructional recommendations, it does not leave out the Source of all true, right, and good motivation. It does not merely appeal to the agency of man, or to man’s strength and capabilities alone. Over and over, James returns to home base, to the Creator-Redeemer, by interjecting reminders of God’s character (e.g. generosity) and of his kingdom (e.g. the lowly brother boasting in God’s exaltation of him, vs. 9).

Back to the Holy Spirit’s disruption of my pathway to death.

With the crucial tablecloth of God’s kingdom and his good, sovereign reign over the table, we can understand James’ words on evil desire (epithumia, in Greek) in verses 14-15. When I become angry over the poor teaching (and sometimes unkindness) my friends received, there are different types of desire fueling this anger. As we see with Jesus table-turning in the temple (John 2:13-25), holy desire for justice and a world reigned by love (and not exploitation) can lead to very righteous anger. As an Enneagram 1, this type of anger is my close companion.

Unfortunately, so too is epithumia, a more twisted desire that leads to death, and not to wholeness, life, and righteousness. My mind-beast does not search for a way to reconcile with the spiritual leaders who offered shaming words to my friends. It looks to take them out (which is not a holy desire). Epithumia, used in the way James is offering it, is not good desire. It is sin-derived desire that runs away with and controls us. The KJV translates it as “lust,” which is a fitting description (especially as we remember that lust doesn’t only apply to sex, but to other objects such as food, money, or even anger).

We want to be careful not to demonize epithumia altogether, as it does not always have a negative connotation. For instance, epithumia is the word Jesus uses when he says, “I’ve strongly desired to eat this Passover with you” (Luke 22:15). In the Christian story, desire is not inherently evil. It is not a bad thing in and of itself. But it does invite a closer look and invitation of the Holy Spirit to convict where convicting is needed. What desires are at work? What are the sources and trajectories of these desires?

Some desire will be sourced in sin, and some in God. Sinful desire is “human longing for what God has prohibited.”[2] Letting my mind-beast have its way with those who harmed my friends, even in my imagination, is sourced in sin. Tearing people down with my thoughts is not holy. Holy desire leads to life and love; it reflects God’s design of humans (Gen. 1 and 2, and the life of Jesus) and points to the way He is making all things right. A holy desire might lead to me imagining ways healing could happen in the humans who harmed my friends. It might lead me to pray for them, for instance.

So what do we do if we have become dysregulated? How do we live as Jesus-followers in a season where the media is out to awaken our mind-beasts at every turn? The tactics of flooding have become more advanced in order to economize our fury. The basic state of our American communities is more polarized than ever — a powder keg waiting for a spark, and never more so than in the next two months.

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Ps. 139:23-24)

The most important move we can make is a move toward our Triune God. He is the One who can bring us into awareness of the situation, ourselves, and the resources he’s provided to help us to regulate and/or remove ourselves if would be unwise for us to stay.

As an example, consider a charged conversation I found myself in with a family member this winter. I had thought we were catching up casually after a prolonged time apart. Then, mere moments into reconnecting, I found myself the recipient of a political diatribe. As he stood (I was sitting) in the living room, his voice raised as he delivered an arsenal of “objective truth,” as he referred to it.

Come, Lord Jesus, I prayed, as I felt energy building in my shoulders and noticed my neck stiffen. My foot began to twitch. How can I love this image bearer in front of me?

One of the most difficult and mysterious things for me to coach people in, as a therapist, is not only coming into awareness of the flooding/dysregulation happening, but to then create (internal psychological/emotional/spiritual) space to respond intentionally, versus reacting reflexively. This can happen through intervention of the Holy Spirit in any number of ways. An instantaneous miracle could be one (although it is less likely). If Jesus instantly can calm the wind and the waves (Mark 4:39), he instantly can calm our nervous systems. It is a worthy ask of the Lord if you catch yourself beginning to boil over.

If we have already begun boiling (hyperarousal), which is where I find myself more often than not, a deep breath and a quick prayer can be helpful for buffering your reaction. Lord, help me to love here. Keep me connected to you. Our breath is one of the best tools God has given us for regulating our nervous systems. As I notice my desire to lob contradicting arguments back at my family member, I bring my attention to my breath and count four slow one-thousands in, hold, and then four slow one-thousands out. I notice the air moving in through my nose, and then I let my mind linger on the feel of my lungs expanding. Then, I notice the release and relax of my chest as I let the air out. Intermittently, my mind returns to its assault plan. I notice its attempts, thanking it for the many ways it has protected me in the past, and then I return my attention to my breath. Rinse and repeat.

For those of us who default more toward the numbed, detached hypoarousal I mentioned before, breath may not be as effective for regulation. We may need to actually mobilize to reconnect to ourselves — and that may mean excusing ourselves from a conversation. Grounding through our physical senses (e.g. paying attention to the feel of the carpet on our toes, the fabric of the armchair beneath our fingers, and the taste of the coffee we are drinking) can be helpful. Engaging with music and dancing are even better, and it may just take time. I find that “thawing,” as I think of it, takes me longer than turning down the stove from boil. Regulating our nervous systems takes time, gentleness, patience, and practice.

As a side note, learning the signs of manipulation can be helpful to the process, as well. (And truly: this can take years, depending on your story.) If you begin to “feel crazy,” or notice a sense of disorientation internally — perhaps in feeling confused, frustrated, lost, fuzzy, or having the thought, “What is wrong with me?!” — you may want to ask the questions, “Do I trust the person in front of me? Can I tell they are for me, even in this disagreement? Have I seen signs of integrity from this person in the past?” Manipulation comes in many forms, and its hallmark is a decrease of agency. If you are feeling less able to hold onto your own thoughts, make your own decisions, and remain in touch with your dignity as a beloved image bearer (e.g. due to berating comments), you are likely being manipulated. Leaving the room can be a holy choice that honors God’s design of you as an image bearer worthy of being treated with respect and kindness.

So, let’s say you’ve found yourself in a situation similar to mine (with my family member), but you are the one firing off defenses for your side of the argument. Your brain is surging with ideas that support your position, and you can feel the waves of power coming from confidence in your perceived rightness. You are commanding the attention of the person in front of you. It’s then that we particularly need to realize what is going on. We may have lost sight of the relationship in front of us, as well. Our epithumia has taken over and seems to have an energy of its own.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Rom. 7:24-25)

The Christian story is one of a people in process. Just as the Israelites forgot who God was over and over, and they needed rescuing time and again, believers in Christ live this same pattern. We see Paul’s recognition of his need for God’s intervention in his life through his words in Romans. We see repeated requests for forgiveness from the Father. We also see God’s relentlessly compassionate, persistent pursuit of his people recurrently through the Scriptures. He never stops coming for us — and for all parts of us, I like to say. He wants for your power-hungry part to rest in the power of his love. He wants for your stubborn part to know the relief of his love. He wants for your defensive part to find safety in the protection of his love. He would see every part of us redeemed into love-centered humans he created us to be.

Come, Lord Jesus. Bring us back to the dignity of being your image bearers. Help us to live from our secure, loving, life-giving union with you, Triune God. Forgive us for our hard heartedness and our stubborn self-protection.

James is on to something with his repeated orientation to who God is and to how God’s kingdom is at-hand. He is well aware of our need for coaching, forgiveness, and encouragement along the way. And he is also aware of how hard it is to be a human with an active nervous system and epithumia that gets us carried away. Not only do we need the truth of scripture to inform us on how to live as Jesus-dependent humans; we need the body of Christ supporting us along the way while the Spirit empowers us to live from a place of love.

As we enter the 2024 election season, my prayer is that the Holy Spirit’s strong presence would guard my heart and mind, keeping me tethered to the One in whom my identity is secure. I pray that he would reveal my epithumia when it rears its ugly head and empower me to crucify it, receive forgiveness, and return to living from the Source of love instead of my sin. I pray that he would protect me from operating out of the belief that I need to prove myself in order to be worthy of belonging. And I pray that he would soften my heart toward those who are most similar to me, as they also tend to be the most triggering of my flooding and dysregulation. Would he help us to see one another through the lens of his beautiful kingdom more and more. And would he help us to treat one another (and ourselves) with the grace he lavishes upon us time and again. Amen.

*Resource: The window of tolerance is a tool developed by trauma expert Dan Siegel (depicted by the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine) that can serve as a road map for identifying where we are in our experience of dysregulation.
[2] ESV Study Bible, p. 2388
[3] The Letter of James, Moo, p. 74