Why So Sad?
Ministerial Meandering
Why so sad?
We all have moments when we feel down and sad - and we feel trapped in that place. Like many people who have had years of suffering from depression, I know that activity and displacement therapy is a good antidote - particularly physical training - that hurts. However, Churchill’s ‘black dog’ will catch up with you eventually.
Paul, the apostle, complained of a ‘thorn in his side’, which he had asked the Lord to take away from him three times - but it appeared that the Lord had other plans. We never find out what it is, and perhaps he also suffered from inner sadness. Paul was sanguine enough to realize that his ‘thorn’ was probably for a purpose, and rationalized with himself that God’s power was more evident in his (Paul’s) weakness, than in any power he had of his own.
If Paul is to be believed, he would rejoice in the most crushing of circumstances; ‘We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.’ And this is probably the most restrained of his claims. If we read a little further into his second letter to the Corinthians, he asserts that of all the apostles, he has suffered more. If you want to be impressed with his fortitude, read 2 Corinthians 11:23-27.
I don’t usually quote long passages from the bible in my MM’s, so I won’t, but only make the point that most of us have never experienced the sort of punishment that members of the Early Church faced, and are never likely to. And that’s a huge relief. But that is not my main message today.
Existential - or external adversity, that which might threaten our bodies in the way that Paul was subjected to physical trauma and deprivation - is not what usually makes us sad. It is a soul-sickness and weariness that saps our inner selves and makes us helpless to face even the simplest of tasks sometimes. I recall watching Andrew Solomon give a TED talk on the subject of depression from his personal experience, and he said that one day it hit him so hard, he thought he’d had a stroke. He was so debilitated, he couldn’t get out of bed to even make a phone call to ask for help. In his talk he quoted Emily Dickinson’s personal experience in her poem, ‘I felt a funeral, in my brain.’ But of all the observations he made, one sticks in my mind powerfully; he said that one of the things that gets lost in conversations about depression is that ‘you know it’s ridiculous - even while you’re experiencing it,’ to which I would add, ‘and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.’ I am very aware of the inner and outward paralysis that takes over your very being, and would wish it on no-one.
My emphasis is to say that we have to find ways to combat our demons. Running from them only makes them chase us faster. In the same way, after I stopped drinking, I had to find a way to fill the hours that I had previously numbed; activity again. But that was not enough. My mind screamed for engagement, for purpose, for challenge, for change. This is why activities such as Men’s Shed movements are so healthy. Statistics repeatedly show us that those with the most morbidity and mortality are men - often living alone - in their 60’s and upwards, who are retired and have found nothing to do. They are the biggest suicide risks.
Engagement with others is essential to our well-being; it doesn’t have to be chatter and gossip - the latter is usually harmful - but it is just getting alongside another human being and spending time together. Many a walk has been made blissfully in silent company. Men’s Clubs in London have always attracted loners, and I remember well the retirement present my old Housemaster was given when he left my senior school - membership of the Atheneum Club in London. He was ecstatic. He would go there to sit and smoke his pipe and read the papers, and take a meal occasionally. Conversation was not his long suit - but that club was his connection to humanity.
John Donne famously wrote, ‘No man is an island,’ and so I urge us all, as we get older, to make certain we keep some connection to our fellow human beings. Some of them can be quite nice.
Philip+