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.

Sermon for February 26, 2012 - Lenten Wilderness and Taboo

The scripture reading for this Sermon is: Mark 1:9-15

My family has a cottage on Georgian Bay in Ontario.  I remember as a child growing up, we would spend a lot of time up there over the summers.  Heading up for weekends, and the occasional full week.  I don’t know if I ever told my parents, but I always got a bit scared about going up to the cottage.  Even though it was well constructed, it had electricity and running water, I always felt exposed up there.  As I recall it, I would get nightmares far more regularly at the family cottage.

I had a similar feeling when I moved out to Strathclair.  The utter lack of people, made me feel very exposed, very vulnerable.  I can’t explain it.  It was not overwhelming by any means, but it was certainly there, in the back of my mind, a constant nagging anxiety.  I have been told by many people here that they get a similar feeling when they go into cities, a different sort of vulnerability, but a vulnerability none the less.  Or perhaps it is that same feeling I have often heard expressed by prairie folk about mountains.  It’s not a hatred, but a discomfort that grows the more time is spent hemmed in by the enormity of their reach.

Wilderness can have many different images.  I think depending on where you were born, the word “wilderness” will call to mind many different scenes.  For us in Canada, I think wilderness might best be interpreted by the forest.  This could be imagined as the Canadian Shield, with the massive rocky outcrops, or possibly the Old Coastal Forests of British Columbia.  The wild growth of trees, the mess of shrubs, the unseen noises which resonate throughout the woods. I find in the woods, there is that sense that something just beyond my control is at play in the wilderness. 

Other areas of the world probably perceive of wilderness entirely differently.  I would imagine in northern Canada, the tundra evokes similar feelings.  Perhaps those who are familiar with the jungle might express similar feelings of powerlessness.  Mountain ranges, Savannah, wild ocean waves all could carry with them those fears and trepidations.  For the Jews living in the Promised Land, the wilderness was often imagined as the desert.

In the desert where a storm of sand can whip up out of nothing, where you can suddenly find yourself without water; in a forest, where every tree could look like the last one, where every snap of twig signals something that is far worse in our imagination than what is beyond our sights; in the ocean where waves can capsize boats, where hurricanes are born and raised; in mountains where avalanches are possibilities, where people get lost for days, not knowing what even to eat; these are the places of wilderness in our world.  These are the places where we are at some level, afraid to go.  These are the places where, when we truly immerse ourselves in them, we lose even the illusion of control.  These are the places where we feel exposed, where we feel vulnerable, where we feel powerless.

We encounter these in our daily lives.  All of us have taken steps into the wilderness.  Whether it is dealing with a death that has greatly affected us, whether it is extreme financial hardships, whether it is the end of a relationship, or perhaps some great emotional turmoil we all have gone there.  These are places no one wants to go to, but where we end up through the natural course of life. These times can be isolating, they can be terrifying.  They fully embody that sense of powerlessness, that loss of control.

Often people end up in a wilderness that is dark and almost incomprehensible to anyone who has not gone there.  Drug addiction, or any addiction for that matter, violence and abuse, depression and mental illness.  These are some of the wildernesses that people walk through regularly, and yet where many of us are afraid to go.  And I don’t mean to participate, I mean we’re very often afraid to even talk about them.

One of our past Moderators in the United Church of Canada, David Giuliano, uses the image of the wilderness guide in his understanding of ministry.  As a protestant denomination, I think this goes beyond the calling of those who are simply in ordered ministry.  As members of the priesthood of all believers, in many ways, it is the call of all Christians to be willing to travel to those places where others might be afraid to go.  To meet people there, and to walk with them through that wilderness.

I like to think of the desert surrounding the Promised Land as a character in and of itself in our scriptures, in our stories of faith, in the history of salvation we read about in the Old and New Testaments.  It is through the desert that the Hebrews wandered for forty years, before being forged into a nation.  It was into the desert that Elijah ran, and there that he encountered God in a whisper.  It was in the desert where Ezekiel had his vision of bones growing flesh and being filled with the breath and life of God.  It was in the desert that David had compassion on his enemy, Saul who was trying to kill him.  The desert resonates throughout the book of the Psalms and the various prophets.  And in the New Testament, it is to the desert that John the Baptist calls us to transform.  And as in today’s reading, it is in the desert where Jesus encounters the devil and comes away prepared for his ministry, speaking of the kingdom of God.

I love that biblical metaphor of wilderness.  Maybe that’s why I preach on it regularly.  It is in the wilderness of our lives that we long for comfort.  It is in the wilderness of our lives where we long to know the Divine Love.  It is in the wilderness of our lives where we long to feel held by God. 

In the bible, the wilderness is often an agent of transformation. The wilderness transforms, the wilderness changes.  The wilderness creates.  To say that we are wilderness guides means that we are willing go to the wilderness, and show that God is present even there.  To go to the wilderness and say, even in this dark and painful place, you are not alone.  To go to the wilderness and walk with people helping them to grow within it, to become remade in God’s image.

I remember as a kid, I went white water rafting in Nepal.  It was a terrifying experience.  There were times when I was very scared.  But I certainly remember the feeling I got when I was done.  A sense of accomplishment, a sense that I had gotten through it.  I was sad it was over by the time our few days were done.  I have a picture at home of me in my life jacket, with a puffed out chest in a very manly and triumphant pose.  A gawky awkward, kind of doofy teenager.  And standing beside me was our guide, Hamish.  Chest just as triumphantly puffed out.  He got us through.  Sometimes he had to yell, sometimes he had to take control, sometimes he would sit back and let us do the work.  He knew the river, he knew the way the water worked, he knew the rocks and the undercurrent.  He knew all that because he had been there, he had been down that river, or other rivers, and he was willing to go there again with all of us. 

I think that is what it means to be a wilderness guide.  The church, a mish mash collection of all sorts of people, all of us with our different experiences.  All of us with our struggles in the wilderness.  Subsequently, all of us with our collected wisdom.  Imagine that church being willing to go to the wilderness with others.  To help them get through.  To tell them they are not alone.  To become the Body of Christ.  To show that God is present even in the midst of such struggle.

A note of caution; I am not by any means saying that we need to have certain wilderness experiences to develop our relationship with God.  We should not all go out and get an addiction of some kind just so we can try to meet God.  We should not become abusive or allow abuse to continue simply to meet the Holy One.  We should not be hoping for death, or for pain.  They are going to happen to us, we don’t need to go looking for them.  What I am saying, is that even those dark places, those places where we are vulnerable, where we are out of control, those places of wilderness in our lives, can be redeemed by God.  They can be wielded by the Holy One to create something new.

Over the course of Lent we’re going to explore a few different taboo subjects.  Subjects that may make us uncomfortable; subjects that we don’t talk about often enough in church; subjects that perhaps deserve to be explored.  These are wilderness subjects.  They happen across the world, and they happen here within our communities.  And for those who are experiencing them they are incredibly painful.

So here is what the next few weeks will look like.  After I’m back from my study leave we’re going to explore four different subjects through the lens of what I see as Christian faith.  That will get us up to Easter, and then throughout Easter and Pentecost, we’ll explore a few others, but on less of a rigid schedule.

Some of the issues we’ll explore are domestic violence and abuse, addictions, depression and mental illness, and finally, on Passion Sunday we’ll look at sex and sexuality.  Just a heads up, that last one will not be a how-to-guide, if you need tips and pointers I’m sure you can get those from the community centre or Dora’s.  Though I have to confess, I find it tragically funny when religions try to dictate proper technique.  You won’t get that from me, mostly due to ignorance on my part. But also because there are far more interesting things to talk about when it comes to God, Christ, and sex.  After that, if anyone has other subjects they’d like to talk about, feel free to let me know.

My intent is not to condemn, my intent is not to promote.  All I hope to do, is to show that even in the midst of the unmentioned, in the midst of such taboo, in the midst of suffering, in the midst of tragedy, and in the midst of ecstasy, God is there.  It is those very wilderness aspects of our lives that can inform and develop our relationship with God. My prayer is that just by talking about these issues shows that we are willing to at least start the journey into the wilderness. 

Jesus begins his ministry, his mission of redemption by heading out into the desert.  I think it is important for us as the Body of Christ to continue that mission and follow him there.