*Let your life speak: Ch. 4*

Chapter 4 "All the Way Down" is all about Palmer's struggle with depression. I haven't experienced depression but I have been in some pretty low places while struggle with some issues. I could go on and on about the chapter but not having personal experience or being able to relate too much isn't going to be helpful for anyone. So, since he had some pretty profound things to say that are general, we're going to take it from there.

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Palmer had a discussion with a women in which she asked "Why do some people kill themselves yet others get well?" All he could say was "I have no idea." He felt awful about his answer, but what was he supposed to say? I mean, really? A few days later, she had sent him a letter saying that the thing she was holding onto most was those four words- I have no idea. "[His] response had given her an alternative to the cruel "Christian explanations" common in the church to which she belonged-- that people who take their lives lack faith or good works or some other redeeming virtue that might move God to rescue them. [His] not knowing had freed her to stop judging herself for being depressed and to stop believing that God was judging her. As a result, her depression had lifted a bit" (59). This makes me sick.

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Why do we have people in the church telling others that they aren't worthy of life?

Why do we have people in the church guilting people into taking their lives?

Why do we have people in the church letting people commit suicide because it's God's plan?

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What kind of awful answers are we giving people?

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I thought the church was about community and Christianity about hope? We just passed through Easter and for me, that's all the resurrection is about... HOPE. Palmer discusses love-- A kind of love "in which we represent God's love to a suffering person, a God who does not "fix"us but gives us strength by suffering with us. By standing respectfully and faithfully at the borders of another's solitude, we may mediate the love of God to a person who needs something deeper than any human being can give" (64). Well, if we can learn something from Palmer here, it is to tell the truth so someone who is depressed. Perhaps that will save them more than our petty answers. Accept the grace, the "inexplicable grace"of God and give them "I don't knows." You may be saving their life.

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Palmer refers back to a time when he imagined someone coming to him and attempting to get his attention but try after try he does not respond. This is what happens when we don't listen to God. When we aren't paying attention, we can get ourselves deeper into our issues than we would have ever liked. This "person" was trying to get a hold of him before his depression hit. This is, of course, not to say that depression was what God wanted for his life, but when you don't listen to God, your life isn't going to be easy... That sounds harsh, but I can't think of any other way to say it. I don't mean it harshly...

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Paul Tillich describes God as the "ground of being" and I think more than God being that, God grounds us. God is that on which we depend.... God is that which made us... but God grounds us. God humbles us. God brings us back to earth to realize that we aren't God. We are beings of wholeness that must learn to embrace our weaknesses, liabilities, darkness... When we recognize those things, "I.. give that part less sway over me, because all it ever wanted was to be acknowledged as part of my whole self" (71). We have our own human issues. We can never be God. We get so wrapped up in trying to be a perfect person, but it isn't until we recognize our our faults AND embrace them, that we can be a whole human.

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It's hard.

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But God is more powerful than our faults. God's love for our lives takes our faults head on to encompass them with all of God's being. God's ability to transform our lives is incomprehensible.

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Parker Palmer wrote a poem after he triumphed over depression. This poem explains God's transformative love and power in our lives:

Harrowing

The plow has savaged this sweet field

Misshapen clods of earth kicked up

Rocks and twisted roots exposed to view

Last year's growth demolished by the blade.

I have plowed my life this way

Turned over a whole history

Looking for the roots of what went wrong

Until my face is ravaged, furrowed, scarred.

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Enough. The job is done.

Whatever's been uprooted, let it be

Seedbed for the growing that's to come.

I plowed to unearth last year's reasons--

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The farmer plows to plant a greening season.

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"The farmer plows to plant a greening season"....

What are you plowing? What are you planting?