First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
February 7, 1999
Scripture: Selections from Psalms 22, 69, and 74
Wow, these guys are good. I mean, really good. I am talking about Nielson and Young and what they can do when they apply four hands, four feet, two minds, two hearts, four thumbs and sixteen fingers to the 176 keys (72 black, 104 white) and the six pedals of two pianos. This isn’t just pounding out a few tunes, here. This is about striking a few chords, here. And touching a few hearts, here. Ah, the miracle of the musical. How sweet it is. And how blessed we are.
Would that I could do what they can do. But jealousy does not become me. Neither does it honor them. So I will just say “Thanks”….and limit my requests.
Although I wonder if they get many….requests, that is. And I wonder if they always know them, when they get them. I mean, does anybody who’s had three or four too many, ever approach them and say: “Pardon me, but would it be too mush to ashk for a chorush or two of ‘Melancholy Baby’?”
Not that you have to be drunk to know that song. Or like that song. But you do have to be my age….or older. Which may explain why I seldom hear the word “melancholy” any more. Although the world is filled with people who feel it, whether or not they sing it. The dictionary describes “melancholy” as being an abnormal state….once attributed to an excess of black bile….characterized by irascibility, depression and pensiveness. Other applicable adjectives include “sad” and “dejected.” And the term “melancholia” is described as a mental condition featuring extreme depression and bodily complaint, accompanied by sporadic delusions and hallucinations. Which is no small thing when it happens to you….or to someone near you.
I am sure that Nielson and Young can play “the blues.” And I, for one, would like to hear them. But “melodies for melancholiacs” might be a bit much to ask.
All of us get the blues from time to time. Like when it rains….or the sun don’t shine….or our baby leaves us….or when anything else leaves us (like job or child, health or hope). “Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down,” sings the hitchhiker on the Jesus chariot. And he’s right, of course. We all get “down” sometimes….even we who love the Lord. Sooner or later, all God’s chil’un gonna crash. But when we hit bottom and don’t bounce, that’s not the blues. That’s something deeper….darker….and decidedly different.
And we call it by the name, “depression.” Which, as names go, is relatively new. But which, as symptoms go, is as old as life itself. Easier to describe than diagnose, depression is one of those diseases that doesn’t so much knock you down as drag you down. Then it pins you. Not necessarily for good. But for a long time between respites.
I am using descriptive language here. That’s because depression is easier to picture than measure. When asked to explain it, most people start their sentences with the words, “Well, it’s like….” Sitting (last November) in a Church and Society meeting, somebody reminded me that I had never done anything under the heading of “Mental Health Sunday.” Whereupon the topic turned to depression and last year’s seminar that involved more than 50 people. And when I used the phrase about “all of the colors in the crayon box being gray,” several people said: “Yes, that’s it. That’s what it’s like. That’s how it feels. That says it all.” Even though, clinically speaking, that doesn’t say a thing.
But not just any descriptive words will do. They need to be close-to-the-ground words. For depression is a feeling-low disease in a flying-high world….unless one is manic-depressive, meaning that one both feels low and flies high (to extremes that exceed everybody’s comfort). If something makes a depression in the earth….if something makes a depression in the sand….if something makes a depression in the carpet….it means that there is a hollowed-out space (or a hole) that is below ground level. Which is why depressed people talk about “feeling down”….or being “in the pits.” Such talk is clearly biblical. And such talk is readily understandable (as can be seen from the fact that 17.6 million adults will feel that way in any given year). That’s one adult out of ten. Which is a rather sizable chunk of the population, wouldn’t you say?
But newer to our thinking is the fact that depression is a disease as well as a feeling. It has symptoms. It has treatments. It has sufferers. And it has professionals. It comes in different forms. It springs from different roots. And it responds to different methods. It customarily has a cause….which can be nigh-unto-impossible to find. And it customarily has a trigger….which is usually pretty easy to find. In other words, we can pinpoint what gets it started, long before we can settle the question of its origin.
Of late, we have given the disease a certain respectability by adding the word “clinical” to its title (as in “clinical depression”). And most people seem to feel better with the suggestion that there are bio-chemical components to most depressions that either kick them off or make them worse. This distinction seems to matter more to some people than it does to me. That’s because people assume that anything that happens in the chemistry of the brain is somebody else’s fault, while anything that happens within the layers of the feelings is their fault.
Personally, I believe the whole concept of “fault” to be an unhelpful one. For every hour spent trying to assess blame for depression is one less hour available for coping with, and curing it. But that’s a pipe dream, given that there is a lot of “blame” in depression….most of it, self-inflicted. We feel bad. Then we feel guilty about feeling bad. Then we feel guilty about feeling guilty. We feel like we ought to be able to claw our way out of this. Then, when we aren’t able to, we berate ourselves because we can’t. All the while, thinking we’re disappointing everybody by what we are doing….what we are not doing….what we are thinking about doing….not to mention all the time and money this is costing somebody, somehow.
And since it doesn’t lift one ounce of the guilt to say, “Don’t blame yourself”….even if 100 people say, “Don’t blame yourself”….you might as well take the guilt you can’t banish and give it to the only one who can (banish it, that is), asking God for mercy as well as for peace: “Forgive me, O God, for feeling so guilty about feeling so bad.”
But enough on that, given that guilt is usually only a side-effect of depression. There are more potent and primary symptoms. Problems eating and problems sleeping. Restlessness, helplessness and hopelessness. Worrying much and accomplishing little. Feeling that life is no good….that you are no good….or that God is no good. Feeling like your feet are mired in quicksand and your brain is stuck in sawdust. Obsessing over everything and then caring about nothing. And through it all, watching the self deflate, as former pleasures slowly (and steadily) leak away.
Some of which may be all of us. And all of which may be none of us. But if three or four of these symptoms move into the front bedroom of your soul and hang themselves in the closet for longer than three days, for God’s sake, see somebody. And for your sake, see God. Because depression can be faced, treated, healed and cured. Not easily. Not immediately. And not always permanently. But most everybody (including the relapser) recovers. Which can’t be said too strongly….given that while you’re in it, you tend not to believe it.
Drugs help….once you give yourself permission to take an anti-depressant in the same manner as you give yourself permission to take an anti-biotic. Therapy helps….once you become as comfortable undressing your mind before a psychologist as you are undressing your body before an internist. And electroconvulsive therapy (shock treatment) helps….once you get over the idea that you need not be crazy to have it, or will be, once you do.
But I am neither diagnostician nor clinician, so it is highly inappropriate to go further with this line of thinking. Besides, depression is such an individualized disease….presenting so many variations and facets….that while it may be helpful for depressed people to get together and share symptoms….it may be downright dangerous for depressed people to get together andshare treatments. That’s because one person’s panacea may well become another person’s trap.
Still, as a theologian (rather than a clinician), I do have a trio of things to say. First, to whatever degree you are depressed, you have plenty of company in the Bible. Read the Psalms if you doubt this. Start with Psalm 69:1-3.
Save me, O God,
For the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
Where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
And the flood sweeps over me.
I am weary with my crying;
My throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.
Or consider the helplessness of Psalm 74:9-11.
We do not see any signs;
There is no longer any prophet,
And there is no one among us who knows how long.
How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
Why do you hold back your hand?
Why do you keep your hand in your bosom?
Or listen to the low self-esteem that drips from Psalm 22:6-7.
But I am a worm, and not human;
Scorned by others, and despised by the people.
All who see me mock at me;
They make mouths at me; they wag their heads.
Listen to Job, lamenting his birth. Listen to Jeremiah, lamenting his. Ask yourself why David was brought to Saul’s chamber, night after night, to play sweet music for the king. Then ask yourself why Abishag, the Shunamite girl, was brought to lie with David….another troubled and aging king. And listen to the description of Barzillai, the Gileadite, who declined an invitation to the palace by saying:
Why should I go?
I can no longer discern what is pleasant from what is not.
I can no longer taste what I eat or what I drink.
I can no longer listen to the voices of singing men or singing women.
Why should I become a burden to the king?
II Samuel 19:34-35
To be sure, not everyone feels this way. And there are those who can truthfully sing: “Every day with Jesus is better than the day before.” But not as many as you think. And while they may be the lucky ones, they are far from the normative ones. Some of the people who love the Lord best, love him from the valley. And one of the most moving prayers every put to music, is the one that ends: “No angel visitant….no opening skies….just take the dimness of my soul away.”
My second word is in the form of a gospel observation….one that you know by heart, but do not always take to heart. It’s the suggestion that if you would gain your life (or regain your life) you need to be willing to lose it….offer it….give it up….hand it over.
Let me be so very careful here, lest I make anyone who is already feeling bad, feel worse. But the danger of depression….yea, the seductive temptation of depression….is to become self-focused, to the point of becoming self-consumed. As life flattens, it narrows. The worse you feel, the fewer you seek. You shut down. Then you turn in. And pretty soon, there is no one left in your world but you. Partly, because your world got smaller. But partly, because you occupied more and more of it. Said a depressed man in my hearing: “I am a walking paradox. On one hand, I don’t think anything of myself. On the other hand, I think about nothing but myself.”
I suppose that, when you are depressed, you tend to take your emotional pulse 200-300 times a day: “How am I feeling now? Do I feel better than I felt an hour ago? Better than I felt yesterday?” And everybody around you responds in kind: “How are you feeling today? Better than yesterday? Worse than yesterday? Stronger than a hour ago?” All of which may be important to know. But time spent figuring out how you are feeling is time that can’t be spent figuring out how someone else is feeling. And, if I read the gospel correctly, it is time spent figuring out how someone else is feeling that can save your life. Do you want to know how to maximize the benefits of therapy? I’ll tell you how to maximize the benefits of therapy. Arrange your appointments so that you see your psychologist on the way home from your volunteer job in the soup kitchen.
Finally, having offered a gospel observation, let me ask a gospel question. Can you take a yoke? Not a joke. I didn’t say “joke.” I said “yoke.” As in “take my yoke upon you”….as in “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” I’m talking about being harnessed here, rather than going it alone, here. I’m talking about letting your load be shared….your burden, borne….your weight, lifted. When you’re depressed, you can’t get from darkness to light by yourself. You can’t hack your way from thicket to clearing by yourself. You can’t climb from valley to mountain by yourself. But, fortunately, you don’t have to.
The terrible thing about depression is that it kills whole big chunks of your future. You don’t see any reason to go there. Nor do you have any strength to get there. But God is in the futuring business….especially when you are not. And Jesus Christ is in the guide-for-hire business…. especially when you are lost. So you don’t have to blaze your trail, every hour of every day. You just have to try to keep going until he half-drags, half-carries you to a place where you can finally suck some air and see some stars. Breakthroughs do come to those who lean hard and look longingly.
Let me offer one such breakthrough as described by Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, William Styron, in his book Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. After months of spiraling decline, Styron reached the point of writing a farewell note to his wife and family.
But even my few words seemed too long-winded. So I tore up my efforts, resolving to go out in silence. Late one bitterly cold night, when I knew I could not possibly get myself through the following day, I sat in the living room of my house, bundled up against the chill. Something had happened to the furnace. My wife had gone to bed, and I had forced myself to watch the tape of a movie (in which a young actress, who had once been in a play of mine, was cast in a small part).
At one point in the film, the characters moved down the hallway of a music conservatory, behind the walls of which (from unseen musicians) came a contralto voice….a sudden, soaring passage from Brahms’ “Alto Rhapsody.”
This sound….which like all music (and all pleasure) I had been numbly unresponsive to for months….pierced my heart like a dagger. And in a flood of swift recollection, I thought of all the joys the house had known. I thought of the children who had rushed through its rooms….the festivals that had taken place within its walls…the love and the work….the honestly-earned slumber….the voices and nimble commotion….the perennial tribe of cats and dogs and birds….the laughter and the sighing. All this, I realized, was more than I could ever abandon. Even as what I was about to do was more than I could inflict upon those memories.…and upon those (so close to me) with whom the memories were bound. Whereupon I woke my wife and (the next day) admitted myself to the hospital.
I do not know if you would call that a religious awakening. Nor do I particularly care. All I know is that it restored a man’s sight, while saving a man’s life. And, in my business, I know who to thank.
Note: I am indebted to Miranda Burnett and many of the resources she assembled for a seminar on depression, offered at First Church in the spring of 1998. I am also indebted to materials prepared on the subject of depression for Stephen Ministers in training. As in many cases, conversations with colleague and friend, Dr. Roger Wittrup, have proved fruitful. And William Styron’s book, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, proved to be wonderfully descriptive of one man’s descent and recovery.
The Sunday morning worship experience also included a pair of guest musicians, Stephen Nielson and Ovid Young, playing a pair of grand pianos in the center of the chancel. This will explain the opening paragraphs of the sermon.
