Shortly after I posted my first poetry set on the affection of joy, I realized that I should probably clarify what this poetry project is, and why I decided to make it my focus this year.
This year, I am writing monthly poetry sets (3-5 poems per set) with the goal of exploring different affections.
affections as faithful motive power
The best way that I’ve come to understand affections is by contrasting them with emotions. Emotion is something that happens to you. We experience and exhibit various strong feelings as responses to various stimuli — a person, a place, a picture, etc. Often emotions are fleeting, superficial, and not necessarily related to action.
Affections, on the other hand, are connected to both mind and body in a more holistic way. Jonathan Edwards contrasts them with “passions” (or emotions) this way:
“The affections and passions are frequently spoken of as the same; and yet, in the more common use of speech, there is in some respect a difference; and affection is a word, that in its ordinary signification, seems to be something more extensive than passion; being used for all vigorous lively actings of the will or inclination; but passion for those that are more sudden, and whose effects on the animal spirits are more violent, and the mind more overpowered, and less in its own command.” (from Religious Affections)
Ultimately, affections are vitally connected to faith by the inclinations of the will.
When we accept Christ, our deepest desires experience a fundamental shift. While we still struggle with wanting those things we wanted in our natural human state, we begin to desire those things that are of God. We are awakened, in a sense, to the loveliness of our Father and alerted to the ugliness of our sin and everything that opposes our Father.
A war of attraction
In a regenerated person, our affections often war against our emotions and seek to submit them to this new paradigm of glorifying and enjoying our God. As we encounter attractions to things that are evil still existent in ourselves, we must fight against them for the sake of a higher attraction. Edwards says it this way:
“As all the exercises of the inclination and will, are either in approving and liking, or disapproving and rejecting; so the affections are of two sorts; they are those by which the soul is carried out to what is in view, cleaving to it, or seeking it; or those by which it is averse from it, and opposes it.
Of the former sort are love, desire, hope, joy, gratitude, complacence. Of the latter kind, are hatred, fear, anger, grief, and such like; which it is needless now to stand particularly to define.
And there are some affections wherein there is a composition of each of the aforementioned kinds of actings of the will; as in the affection of pity, there is something of the former kind, towards the person suffering, and something of the latter, towards what he suffers. And so in zeal, there is in it high approbation of some person or thing, together with vigorous opposition to what is conceived to be contrary to it.”
Part of my interest in exploring the affections is to develop a deeper understanding of how to let those affections thrive that make me love God more and more each day, and hate my sin and all that stands in opposition to Him. I’ve realized a deep need in my heart to love the Giver above the gifts He gives to me. So in some sense, the object of each affection I write about can be understood in this way.
poetry as exploration
I don’t ascribe to the viewpoint that poetry is exacting about its subject. Rather, I believe that poetry jumps into something and swims around for a while, getting used to its textures and dimensions, tasting, smelling, generally seeking to experience its subject rather than define it. It can be proclamation (“Hey, this is salty!”) or confession (“I can’t swim!”) or any other number of reactions – including definition. For me, poetry is primarily exploration, which is perfect for this project.
Lists of affections and/or emotions are numerous, so for the sake of my project I have selected 12 interrelated affections, as follows:
Joy → Envy
Grief → Contempt
Peace → Gluttony/Greed
Anger → Rage
Humility → Fear
Confidence → Pride
Some of these represent aspects of the same affection, but carry different directional motives or belief systems. I hope to explore them in such a way that the differences and similarities may become clear.
Anyway, thanks for once again granting me a moment of your time to pontificate about things I’m interested in. I’d love to hear from you about your current creative projects and what draws you to them in the comments!