Sentimental Mentallity

“You love God, don’t you?” Nicholson asked…

“Yes, sure I love Him. But I don’t love Him sentimentally. He never said anybody had to love Him sentimentally,” Teddy said. “If I were God, I certainly wouldn’t want people to love me sentimentally. It’s too unreliable.”

Teddy, by J.D. Salinger

Several entries back, I wrote that I didn’t love God; however, I never really felt comfortable writing that because it didn’t really put a finger on the complete truth. I couldn’t put words to how I felt until now. Salinger masterfully nails the point in his short story Teddy.

We can look to Christ to see the results of sentiment. One day, the people hail him as the Messiah, and a few short days later they demand his crucifixion. “Sentiment” is derived from Latin, and it means thoughts resulting from feelings or emotion.

Sentimentality has become a code word for an emotionally soft, fluffy structure. It’s come to mean our feelings and whims of the moment.

Everyone is sentimental in it’s original meaning, and every decision is sentimental. Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads, the premier advertising consultant in the world, points to brain anatomy. The area of the brain within which decisions are made is closest to the area of the brain responsible for feelings and emotions. It is further from the logic areas of the brain.

We’re all sentimental but we just value different feelings. I don’t value a fluffy, gushy feeling toward God. Rather, I value a respectful, humble, submissive feeling toward him. It’s different, but it the same in that it is still a feeling.

Well, there I am…just a big softy.