Good morning…
God’s timing is impeccable. After sharing in yesterday’s blog the description of Betty Skinner’s clinical depression in the 1960’s – what it felt like, what it tasted like, what it dragged-on like – I read these words aloud to our afternoon class from this week’s assigned chapter.
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Depression comes in many forms. Some are primarily genetic or biochemical and will respond only to drugs; some are primarily situational and will respond only to inner work that leads to self-knowledge, choices, and change; some lie in between. Though I needed medication for brief periods to stabilize my brain chemistry, my depression was largely situational… Twice in my forties, I spent endless months in the snake pit of my soul. Hour by hour, day by day, I wrestled with the desire to die…
…I understand why some depressed people kill themselves: they need the rest. But I do not understand why others are able to find new life in the midst of a living death, though I am one of them. I can only tell you what I did to survive and, eventually, even thrive – but I cannot tell you why I was able to do those things before it was too late.
…I once met a women who had wrestled with depression for much of her adult life. Toward the end of a long and searching conversation, during which we talked about our shared Christian beliefs, she asked, in a voice full of misery, “Why do some people kill themselves and yet others get well?” I knew that her question came from her own struggle to stay alive, so I wanted to answer with care. But I could only come up with one response. “I have no idea. I really have no idea.” After she left, I was haunted by regret. Couldn’t I have found something more hopeful to say, even if it were not true?
A few days later, she sent me a letter saying that of all the things we had talked about, the words that stayed with her were “I have no idea.” My response had given her an alternative to the cruel “Christian explanations” common in the to the church to which she belonged – that people who take their lives lack faith or good works or some other redeeming virtue that might move God to rescue them. My not knowing had freed her to stop judging herself for being depressed and to stop believing that God was judging her. As a result, her depression lifted a bit. (Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak, 57-59)
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When we “have no idea, really no idea,” being honest with our God, our selves, and our loved ones may offer a bit of freedom. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God (Psalm 40:3, MSG).
…Sue…
