Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Depression … sigh

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Matt Stone

2006-09-15

How many of you have struggled with depression?

Geoff Pengilly was writing on how to deal with depression the other day and, well, lets just say the practical suggestions I had to offer are just far too fresh in my mind this week for my own good. Though others may find it helpful.

Geoff

There are a few comments I would add as someone who has struggled with depression on the odd occasion and who indeed was initially motivated to seek God through a period of deep depression in my late teens.

Firstly, what I have found helpful above all else is meditation.

It is unfortunate that you haven’t mentioned this supremely beneficial practice at all but I recognize that meditation is neglected within many strands of evangelicalism so I don’t single you out here. What I would challenge you to do though is to re-examine what the Bible (and especially Psalms) says about meditation and consider the implications for pastoral care and how you might guide a sufferer. Personally I would recommend meditations on faith, hope and love.

Secondly, the story I always find most helpful is the one of Jesus’ anguish in the garden. Knowing that God is not aloof from suffering but (in Jesus) experienced anguish himself can be comforting and instructive. The promises of God are of eminent value but sometimes, before we can hear God, we just need to know that God hears us and stands with us.

In this respect I am also reminded of the book of Job where Job’s friends sit with him for seven days saying nothing. Sometimes we can leap too readily into denying suffering, covering it over with positive self talk. As a male I find it important to acknowledge my feelings, give myself permission to feel, genuinely feel, before seeking a fix. Depression can sometimes leave you numb. Healing involves opening to vulnerability again. You mentioned forgiveness; what I am talking about here involves self-forgiveness.

You also mentioned turning away from self and facing God. I agree that this is most beneficial and I am reminded of a saying – don’t focus on the mountain, focus on the mountain mover. This of course readily takes me back to meditation and one verse I find it beneficial to meditate over is the ‘seek first the Kingdom of God’ passage.

Beyond practical matters there are also some theological and missiological issues to dwell on. In the alternate healing movement, psychology is often closely linked to spirituality, such that the two can be seen as thoroughly entwined. Mind, body and spirit are view holistically. Contrast this to contemporary evangelical understandings that are often grounded in mind-body dualisms that owe more to Descartes than Genesis. We have this funny situation where non-Christians are sometimes more in tune with the ancient Hebrew understandings of mind, body, spirit inter-relationships than Christians are themselves. What is the growth of alternate healing / holistic spirituality saying back to the church?

Tags Mental Health

4 responses to “Depression … sigh”

philjohnson

2006-09-15

Matt
It has sometimes been said that the 20th century in North America consisted of the “age of (psycho) analysis”. So the linking in of psychology with religion took place with Carl Jung, Carl Rogers etc. In this respect the links were manifested in the emergence of clinical pastoral training and a counselling industry in churches; and then with Maslow, Perls, the human potential movement, transpersonal psychology etc came the therapeutic cosmology in many facets of New Age spirituality. So in some respects the psychological has been manifested in both Church and in alternate forms of spirituality inside the West.
It is worth noting the historical antecedents to this are found in the 19th century as a therapeutic-scientific-spiritual cosmology was unfolding in New Thought metaphysics, Spiritualism, Theosophy. In each of these the intriguing point is that far fom running away from science and “proof” and “reason”, these 19th century pathways insisted on scientific analysis and spoke of their spirituality using the new sciences of the day. Thus no sooner had Darwinian theory emerged that evolutionary models were appropriated by Spiriitualist mediums — one evolves and advances in many “spiritual spheres”; Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine took up evolutionary theory and developed a complex pre-history of humanity with 5 root races evolving up to the present.
Blavatsky aspired to synthesizing in her book both religion and science. Annie Besant likewise continued this theme in her tenure in Theosophy.The Society for Psychical research was born to scientifically validate spiritualist and psychic phenomena.
These writers also drew on the 18th century rationalist criticisms of the Bible (like Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason) to discredit what they saw as an inferior religion (i.e. institutional Christianity). It involved an emphasis on gnosis rather than faith.
At the same time these movements were interested in spiritual energy and Leadbeater gave some grounding to it in his speculative writing on auras and chakras. Similarly a fascination with magnetic forces, Mesmerism, etc was linked to healing-therapeutic powers and to a therapeutic cosmology grounded in the latest science.
Now in New Age we have seen this tendency ensue with efforts like Capra’s Tao of Physics, and the efforts of energy healers to blend this with a therapeutic technique and cosmology. Although there is a growing familiar vocabulary that popularly speaks of the new cosmology (with ideas however understood at the grass roots level that are based on Quantum theory), the fascinating thing is that science and “proof” is not absent or sidelined. The push to holistic thinking does seek integration and does seek to overturn Cartesian dualism, yet retains a good dose of “Enlightenment scepticism” in its discourses.
At a pop level there are a pile of “therapeutic” evangelical books on sale in Christian stores that partakes of “me-ism”, uses pop psychology, and ties it in with middle class materialist aspirations for comfortable living. The difficulty with much of it is that avoidance of issues often occurs, bad theology is laminated on to it, and there is little serious grappling with the proverbial “dark night of the soul”. At another level a whole new corpus of material has been produced that borders on a Christian animist cosmology replete with magico-divinatory techniques for vacuum-cleaning your life and your domicile of demons, whence healing then flows. The therapeutic pop exorcist has been spawned who can rid your life of depression because it comes (allegedly) from the “demon of despair” (or a similarly named entity). This cosmology can help maintain boundaries, internalise a self-fulfilling pattern of interpretation of reality (whatever is alien and impinges, or whatever impinges that is dour or negative must emanate from dark spirits; and one can possibly expect a happy-clappy life once the remedies for the expulsion of threatening spirits is enacted).
Yes the notion of meditation as you outline it is often absent in the evangelical writings of the day. However what has sometimes taken its place is a form of pious devotional literature that encourages one to read bible verses looking for a word or phrase that can be acted on because this is “me and Jesus time”. The word or phrase is used in a divinatory way and not in a proper biblical exegesis of grammar and context. That kind of devotional literature offers its own therapeutic folk Christian techniques that can superficially inspire people, but can fail badly when one’s self-made “unreality” collapses in the face of “reality” (especially the depressive kind).

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AngelD

2006-09-15

I am fairly new to blogging, and find myself in a very depressive state these days – I have always tried to keep a positive outlook and yet some days its hard. This is how I came across your blog. Hope you dont mind my dropping in.
I am not christian, however found you had an inference to psalms regarding meditation. Are you able to elaborate?

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Rodd Jefferson

2006-09-16

I’m a leader in a church and exasperated by the Christian community and their unwillingness (in general) to be real about their life struggles.
I still live in this world, and still struggle with it too. That said, I’m also interested in learning more about techniques to help with depression. I know that stress is a key contributor to depression, and so I’ve been trying to learn more about relaxation techniques.
Like AngelD, I’d love to learn some more about the meditation part.

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Matt Stone

2006-09-16

I’ll try to elaborate briefly guys.
Contrary to popular perceptions, not only has meditation been a venerable tradition within Christianity through many ages but the Bible speaks of meditation explicitly and favourably in over 20 passages, particularly the Book of Psalms.
Within your temple, O God,
We meditate on your unfailing love.
Psalm 48:9
Now, when you consider that some evangelical theologies have been founded on much much less than that, maybe these neglected bible passages are worth exploring and, well, meditating over?
I have spoken of this more extensively on my other blog ekstasis and direct you to some references from the psalms here and other, more implicit, references in this section.
As you begin to explore this it is worth noting that Bible teachings on mediation differ somewhat from say, the yoga sutras of Patanjali. The focus is not so much on right technique and tools as it is on right attitude and orientation. ‘Who’ is the more important issue for the Psalmist than ‘how’. Christianity spirituality stresses the importance of growing in faith, hope and love, not the following of rigid rules and regulations.
This may be initially frustrating for those seeking simple easy answers on technique but it protects us from spiritual pride that can come from equating technique mastery to spiritual growth.
That doesn’t mean I don’t have my favourite techniques. It just means I hold onto them lightly and don’t make much of them. I’ll advocate assuming a balanced posture and deep breathing like the next guy but that has more to do with basic physiology than anything too deep or profound.
In regards to dealing with stress, consider what stress is – it’s the tension that arises from the gaps between our expectations and our experience. Sit with that for a while. If our experience is unavoidable, maybe its our expectations that need to change? Are our expectations in sinc with the teachings of Jesus? The important thing is to stick with it. Don’t hide from your experience of life. Even when they’re painful. Numbing yourself to pain also numbs you to love. The way of Jesus is the path of courageous vulnerability.
But when I was silent and still,
not even saying anything good,
my anguish increased.
My heart grew hot within me,
and as I meditated, the fire burned;
then I spoke with my tongue:
“Show me, O LORD, my life’s end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting is my life.
You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Each man’s life is but a breath.
Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro:
He bustles about, but only in vain;
he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.
“But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in you.
Psalm 39:2-7
Happy to speak of this more if you’d like.

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