JAMESWATKINS.COM

During the American Civil War, the Confederate Navy filled Mobile Bay on the Gulf of Mexico with mines, which at the time were called “torpedoes.” As flag officer David Glasgow Farragut led the Union’s fleet of 18 ships into the bay, he issued one of history’s most memorable orders:

“Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”

The tactic succeeded. Only one ship was lost, and the last Confederate stronghold on the Gulf of Mexico fell to Union control. (And Farragut was made admiral of the U.S. Navy and honored with two postage stamps.) It’s also a good strategy for our emotions:

Damn the emotions! Full speed ahead!

Don’t deny emotions

I’m certainly not denying that my life is a mine-filled sea of emotions. I regularly struggle with clinical depression, so there are days I just want to go below deck and hide in the hull. But I’m not alone. I have plenty of company with the psalmists of the Bible. One-third of all psalms are known as “laments.”

Don’t deify emotions

The psalmists certainly didn’t deny their emotions, but neither did that make their emotions their god. Inevitably, the psalms above are followed by a psalm of praise:

Saint Paul sums up these “bi-polar” extremes of emotions:

Do defy emotions

Emotions are fickle feelings that may be caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, a subconscious reaction to an event in the past or present, or something we ate the night before. Emotions are real, but they are not reality. (That’s good! You may want to write that down and post in on the bathroom mirror!)

So, I find myself paraphrasing Admiral Farragut’s order: “Damn the emotions! Full speed ahead!”

And most days, I’m successful—with prayer, persistence and Prozac—in navigating the emotional mines floating in my life. I can’t deny them, but I also refuse to deify them. They are not my God, but bio-chemicals, sub-conscious reactions or, perhaps, the pizza I ate before bed.

Full speed ahead!

Copyright © 2011 James N. Watkins

Notes

1. Do not deny depression. If you have symptoms lasting more than two weeks, see your family doctor. I’ve certainly been helped by anti-depressants, but it took trying five or six different meds before I found one with maximum benefits and minimum side effects.

2. I’m not talking about physical ailments that do prevent us from doing those things we wish to do or must do. Right now (July 2011), I must have picked up a nasty bug on my Denver flight. I’m getting some work done propped up in the recliner with my laptop, but after about two hours, I’m completely depleted and it’s back to bed.

3. And if emotions are causing incapacitation, I trust you find the help needed and with Admiral Farragut, defiantly shout, “Damn the emotions! Full speed ahead!” Either way, you’re in my prayers!