Depressed
Dear Eugene,
I guess I get depressed quite often.
I don't want to admit to it, I don't want to talk about it, not because of any stigma attached to depression, but because "depression" is not really the word to describe how I feel.
There was a time in history that "depression" might have been the word, but its expansive and substantive meaning has since shriveled to a hackneyed buzzword, expropriated for our modern lexicon to print easy labels and sell wonder drugs, a bad state of being to keep under control but how far and to what possible good end we don't know. There is a dent; it must be bad...
“BLESSED ARE YOU WHO HAS given each man a shield of loneliness so that he cannot forget you. You are the truth of loneliness, and only your name addresses it. Strengthen my loneliness that I may be healed in your name, which is beyond all consolations that are uttered on this earth. Only in your name can I stand in the rush of time, only when this loneliness is yours can I lift my sins toward your mercy.”
Thus prayed Leonard Cohen, a Jewish Psalmist who repossessed words to give back to the poor in our land of stolen plenty.
In T. S. Eliot's Christmas poem "The Journey of the Magi," after seeing what they have seen in Bethlehem, the wise men went home and wondered if they have witnessed birth or death, living or dying.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
To born into the birthing of Jesus is to die to our old ways, "no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation," letting go of the many old gods we were clutching.
The Magi were depressed; the journey was depressing, the homecoming even more so. They would still wake up to a new day to die some more.
I love taking the bus. Seeing the world, seeing people. Tomorrow 6:45 in the morning I should be glad of another death.
Yours, Alex
I guess I get depressed quite often.
I don't want to admit to it, I don't want to talk about it, not because of any stigma attached to depression, but because "depression" is not really the word to describe how I feel.
There was a time in history that "depression" might have been the word, but its expansive and substantive meaning has since shriveled to a hackneyed buzzword, expropriated for our modern lexicon to print easy labels and sell wonder drugs, a bad state of being to keep under control but how far and to what possible good end we don't know. There is a dent; it must be bad...
“BLESSED ARE YOU WHO HAS given each man a shield of loneliness so that he cannot forget you. You are the truth of loneliness, and only your name addresses it. Strengthen my loneliness that I may be healed in your name, which is beyond all consolations that are uttered on this earth. Only in your name can I stand in the rush of time, only when this loneliness is yours can I lift my sins toward your mercy.”
Thus prayed Leonard Cohen, a Jewish Psalmist who repossessed words to give back to the poor in our land of stolen plenty.
In T. S. Eliot's Christmas poem "The Journey of the Magi," after seeing what they have seen in Bethlehem, the wise men went home and wondered if they have witnessed birth or death, living or dying.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
To born into the birthing of Jesus is to die to our old ways, "no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation," letting go of the many old gods we were clutching.
The Magi were depressed; the journey was depressing, the homecoming even more so. They would still wake up to a new day to die some more.
I love taking the bus. Seeing the world, seeing people. Tomorrow 6:45 in the morning I should be glad of another death.
Yours, Alex
Amazing grace, my friend: this dying to be born anew. Did I tell you that I have just read Kathleen Norris's book "Acedia & Me"? She has helped me understand my own darkness in a whole new light, and especially my temptations toward sloth.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tim. Just put a hold on the book you mentioned. Lately I've been reading the Desert Fathers. But I need to admit too many good books to read in too short a life sometimes is the most depressing thing of all... XD
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