Sermon for March 25 - Depression

Scripture reading for this week: Jeremiah 31:31-34
I’m reading a tremendously powerful book right now.  It is called, Lincoln’s Melancholy by Joshua Wolf Shenk.  He opens with a preface relating a story told by the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy had found his way to an isolated clan out of the way in the Caucuses, a remote area east of the Black Sea.  He spoke with them telling them about the industrial world, and they were most interested in his thoughts on the great leaders of the world.  He told them about the Russian Czars, about Napoleon, and other leaders. 

But they pressed him, wanting to know of the greatest general and ruler of all time.  He was described as “a hero.” A man who “spoke with a voice of thunder; [who] laughed like the sunrise and [whose] deeds were as strong as the rocks and as sweet as the fragrance of roses.”  They described his foretold birth announced by angels, and spoke highly of his compassion for his enemies. His name was Lincoln of a land called America.  Tolstoy stammered to tell them what he could from his own knowledge. 

Afterwards, the writer offered to get them a picture of Lincoln.  He gave it to one of the riders who had accompanied him into town.  The rider looked at the picture, and his eyes began to well up.  When Tolstoy asked the man why he was crying; the young man responded, “Don’t you find, judging from his picture, that his eyes are full of tears and that his lips are sad with secret sorrow?”

The book is a wonderful read, describing the depression that Abraham Lincoln struggled with throughout his whole life.  A depression that was at times so acute, that his friends had to have a suicide watch for him.  It also describes how that pain, that struggle, would transform him into arguably the greatest president of the United States, and possibly among the greatest leaders in the history of democracy.

Towards the end of fall I read a line from Parker Palmer’s book Let Your Life Speak.  He wrote about a period of depression in his life where he sought professional help.  After conversation with his therapist, which he at first found insulting, he began to reflect on something his therapist had said.  He described his own depression this way,

Read from Let you Life Speak – pg 68-69

I read this, and I started to cry.  I actually cried a fair bit this past summer, fall, and early winter, it was not until I read this however, that I was able to admit to myself that something was going on inside of me.  I was emotionally exhausted but I was not letting myself realize it, subsequently it would just come pouring out at different times.  Palmer was able to label for me, that unmentioned presence within my gut, the one that made it so difficult to get out of bed, the one that would make me break into tears in the shower. 

It did not suddenly “cure” my feelings, but it helped me to recognize them.  I never went to the doctor, though a few friends and family counseled me to.  Subsequently, I don’t know if I was ever diagnosable as depressed.  Had it gone on any longer, I probably would have.  I am not against taking pharmaceuticals to help adjust brain chemistry, to give us the mental kick we need to get back on our feet.  I continued to see my therapist, (and still do), and she was incredibly helpful.  She encouraged journaling, and is always able to draw out that inner voice within me.

Depression is characterized by feelings of sadness, anxiety or emptiness, so much so that these effect our daily lives. It can sap energy and feelings of self-worth. Instead possibly filling the person with a sense of guilt.  Sleep can be elusive, or it can be over abundant.  Appetite can fade to nothing, or overeating can become a problem. Subsequently, it can be difficult to categorize.  Women and men can experience it differently, as can older people and teenagers or children.  Suicide can come from depression, as a way out of the experience.  The idea of death can be seen as a sort of rest from an exhausting struggle.  Depression affects over 121 million people worldwide.  It can occur to anyone, at anytime.  It can be affected by genetics, by biological factors, by environment, and by psychology.  It is often best treated by therapy and/or medicine.  If you or anyone you know is suffering from depression, I encourage a trip to the doctor to just talk about it. 

In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus uses a wonderful image.  He describes a seed, and how that seed must fall into the earth and die if something new is to be born.  Though he is describing his own crucifixion, he is also inviting us to follow him.  Not necessarily to the literal cross, but to follow him in a different way.  This is a common theme in the Gospels, death to an old way of life and resurrection to a new one.  And the image of a seed falling to the ground fits well with Parker Palmer’s experience of depression, a voice that was bringing him back down to the earth.  It is cold, and dark to be buried in the dirt of the earth. But it is there where a seed can flourish.

The bible is rife with images that can appropriately be viewed through the lens of depression.  Another example, is the common theme of the desert, which, as I have said before, is like a character unto itself in the bible.  Depression, can often be experienced as a desert, a wilderness, a place of struggle, a place of pain.  It was where the Israelites wandered through for forty years.  It was where Elijah fled to, and collapsed saying he had had enough.  And in the season of Lent, we symbolically follow Jesus out to the desert where he encounters trials and temptations of his own.

But the biblical witness of the desert never ends there.  It is out in the desert, where the Israelites are forged into a nation.  It is in the desert where Elijah encounters God in a gentle whisper.  It is in the desert, where Jesus is stripped of everything but himself, where he goes and finds his mission.  The desert strips us down, it tears away all of our comforts, everything that we define ourselves by.  Even the hope that we might get out of the desert is taken away.  We are naked to the wind and the sand and the sun.  All that is left, is our true self; that part of us that was created by God that can never be destroyed, and here we can encounter it within.  Everything is stripped away, all that is left is our beating, so we can finally read that inscription Jeremiah so eloquently speaks of.

I don’t know if we have any Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans here, but I was watching an episode that really rang true as a metaphor for the possibilities I experienced that helped me pull out of my own struggles.  In the last episode of season 2, Buffy is fighting Angelus, the big bad guy, a vampire who used to be her lover.  Following a sword fight he has knocked her to the ground, her sword just out of reach.  By this episode she has been kicked out of her school, she is on the run from the law, she has been told by her mom that she is not welcome back in the house, and she is separated from her friends.  Moving in for the kill Aneglus says to her, “No weapons, no friends, no hope.  Take all that away and what’s left.”  The sword comes down.  Buffy grabs it, and responds with, “Me.”

I would not dare describe someone else’s depression, I don’t want to assume that I know how depression is universally experienced.  However, I find these image fit well with my own experience, and was a tremendous part of my own healing.  The idea that I was being pulled down to the earth, down from all the heights I had created for myself.  That I was in some sense, being healed, being called back by a true friend within me.  The idea that I was wandering in the desert, where the wind and sand strips us of everything but our true selves, was important to me.  It helped me to see my own struggles as a sort of gift.  When I stopped fighting my depression, and instead tried to embrace it, I was slowly (and I emphasize that – slowly) able to move from despair to a reformed sense of hope.  From lethargy to a different sort of energy.  From sadness, to a sense of grace.  Read my sermons from Advent knowing they were written in the midst of this.  I think they are among my best sermons, there is a truth to them I was just beginning to discover.

I needed help.  I could not have done it alone.  I relied heavily on colleagues, on friends, and on family.  I had to read some very powerful writers who shared their own experiences with depression, writers like Parker Palmer or Henri Nouwen, and trust them.  I had to reach deep into my faith, and not just believe in, but trust in the life death and resurrection narrative of Christ.  To trust that I would find that inscription written upon my heart.  And it was very hard.  I could not always do it. 

Still, I count myself as fortunate.  I did not dive to the depths that some people do.  I don't know whether I was clinically depressed or not. I was still able to come to work.  Suicide was never a significant concern, though the image of death as a sort of peace, a sort of rest was certainly present.  Parker Palmer shares that he does not know why some people do commit suicide and others are able to find life.  I’ll echo that.  I’m not convinced that is something entirely within my own control.  My tears did not suddenly dry up, they still flowed readily. 

I’m sharing this because it is how I experienced depression.  My hope is that in sharing this, others who are experiencing it, or will experience it, will know that they can get through it.  People who have loved ones experiencing it, can know that it is not leperous or shameful, but something that carries the possibility of new life. Though it was painful, though I wish it upon nobody, though I never want to go through it again, God was able to use my struggles to form something new.  Though God does not want us to experience pain, God can transform it when we do.  Even out of death, God can create new life.  Thanks be to God.