Men get depressed

She's never called it depression before. I know it's taken me years to say it.

Last week she said he's depressed and I nodded because my soul gets stretched like that too. Depressed husbands make themselves push through. They twist their heart darkness into any other possible shape. They call it frustration or they label themselves "the melancholy type" or they just constrict to the necessary, hiding in bed but barely sleeping. They don't say "I'm depressed" very often.

Some have such rigorous self standards that they face a mountain of daily disappointment. Some wrestle with inadequacy bred into their bones and they doubt every urge or idea. Doubt paralyses them, and risking new notions fills them with terror. Fear that they cannot admit or perhaps cannot see.

Grace is the only solution. But depression conceals grace because it is born of self-criticism and failure. Failure to be what we long for, failure to see another's love for us.

So we talk about counselling and 'strategies' for self-care and the last thing he needs is strategies. He's all strategied up and he's worn out because it's another way to 'do the right thing' and be a good husband or father or person. His fear is of giving his all to God and finding nothing left for himself. That God would steal his soul if he offered it.

Someone else fears that God has nothing good to do through him. The fear robs him of passion and motivation. It leaves him misunderstood, dissatisfied and frustrated with himself. Another friend thinks others don't really like him and that man's wife reflects that she's 'a bit of an annoying person'.

It maddens me, this blindness. That we measure ourselves along such human scales, and our inadequacies become an obsession. Arrogance and pride can be about our achievements. But self- criticism is a type of pride too.

I see us all carrying self-critical burdens and they sap the life from us. God wants us to be free of this. Maybe freedom would come from seeing them more clearly and being willing to give them up. Willing to stop defining ourselves with them. To stop letting our imperfections be the barrier to God using us.

Let's turn the measuring around. Stop applying it to ourselves. Put it up against God, measure the life of Jesus. Start looking for achievement and adequacy where we're guaranteed to find it. Give up the flurry to be good enough. Accept ourselves, not to excuse failures but to stop the distracting internal war.

God is not stealing our souls, he's renewing them. We'll never find ourselves empty or soul-bereft trusting him. He's doing more than we can imagine in us (and through us), if we'll let him.

*NB. I write this, not knowing your particular experience of depression or self-criticism. Please forgive me if this does not ring true for you. I'm just reflecting on some things I've been thinking lately. This is not an exhaustive treatise on depression.

Paradox and Pain

We always laugh at Wesley in The Princess Bride, "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." Buddhist rhetoric buried in a fairy tale.

No one wants to have pain. It's uncomfortable, distracting and makes most of us feel miserable. Chronic pain can lead to depression and stops many people from working.

No wonder we fight it. Or numb it. Or try to forget it. We're desperate to escape it.

What if it's all the fighting and avoidance that makes pain unbearable?

The third wave of behavioural therapies advocate accepting, rather than fighting, pain. A paradox is emerging. That softening our approach to pain, entering into pain is a step towards lessening it.

Does chronic or repeated pain make you feel tense or upset? Do you fight it?
Try an experiment next time. Instead of becoming distressed, notice it and accept it. Turn it over in your mind and describe it to yourself. Rest in it. Do a careful scan of your body, noting where there is pain and where there is no pain. Don't judge it, just focus your awareness on it.

Let me know what happens.

Surely human/sinful nature isn't that bad?

Sometimes I forget the mess we are in. Dinner turns out well, or Simon kicks a goal at soccer, or we have a fun Saturday night with friends.

Strange how insular I am. How inward-looking.

Then I see a woman who cannot breathe as she cries for her murdered son. And another who believes she can never recover from abandonment and loss. I read a prayer message about an under-thriving baby who probably has fetal alchohol syndrome. And...(insert your example here)

We are torn by our natural hostility to God. And nothing I do can protect me from the ugly possibility of this world. Nothing I do can make me pure, or holy, or wise or truly kind.

Paul carves it in rock here. He needs to shock us, so we stop trusting we can be good enough. We just can't. Human nature is hostile to God - it fights and resists him, it undermines him and lies about him. It struggles to even know what is right, and then forgets to do it.

That's my human nature, my heart - I struggle to know right. I often forget to do it. Sometimes I even decide not to do it. I didn't drink so much that my baby will struggle through life, but I am so enthralled with my own needs that my children have to shout for my attention, and my husband sometimes doubts that I care for him.

Listen to Romans 8:7-8. God, we need help.

For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.

Romans 8:9

Humility/Humilitas

"Humility is the noble choice to forgo your status, deploy your resources or use your influence for the good of others before yourself.

More simply, you could say

the humble person is marked by a willingness to hold power in service of others." Humilitas, page 24.

This is John Dickson's definition of humility, in his recent book, which aims to explore the ancient meanings of humility and it's role today. It was transformed from it's roots in humiliation, an imposition, to a loftier virtue springing out of choice.

Dickson gives many examples of great or famous people who have lead with humility. They are people who have no need to boast or to remind others of their power, instead they act graciously to everyone. Despite insisting he has few credentials to teach on leadership, John Dickson has provided a really clear exposition of the role of humility in good leadership. Perhaps my own ignorance of the leadership literature is evident in this comment. But what more can I say other than I learnt something and that there is a level of scholarship and understanding which is needed to explain concepts simply. John Dickson has that gift.

I wondered if the book was an attempt to sell humility by explaining its value - ie. it makes a good leader into a great leader, so if you're keen on being a great leader, get some humility. Despite the history of bad press, there's some evidence it is the secret behind some business success stories.

There is an uncomfortable tension about finding the reason for humility in greater achievement. I think it discounts the value of humility in small communities and in relative obscurity. It buys into the myth that true human value is found in fame and world-renowned attainment. I've reminded myself before that there is value in living a quiet life and that being seen by the one who sees everything is what matters. What is the value of famous leader humilitas to me? Of course that is a caricature, but it is a possible end-point of this book. And perhaps it is the danger of concentrating on the powerful to explore humility.

Having said that, there is no simple way to explain humility, without encountering paradox. The biblical archetype of humility is Jesus. He began this humility paradigm shift from humiliation to the choice of power surrendered in humility. He is the most powerful being we can imagine, and yet he suffered degradation and was murdered. He never doubted his purpose or his mission, and yet he wept in pain. He rebuked people who got it wrong, but forgave sinners.

And I like John Dickson's upfront way of acknowledging the paradox. He's right, the idea of writing a book on humility and holding oneself up as an authority on it is a little ridiculous. But he tackles that one in the introduction, and aligns himself among us - the ones who struggle to grasp the wind. True humility is elusive and fleeting, and difficult to pursue without running right past it. I believe it is found in seeking to serve others rather than in seeking to be humble.

Let's not mention the death thing

Death lurks. We'd better not talk about it, because we can't escape superstition. And nobody wants to remember that we're all headed there one day.

Dig right down to the heart of the process and find that death comes from one thing - turning away from God. Sin. I am so humanly trapped in it that my mind is utterly controlled. My brain is washed in it. My heart pumps it out around my body and each contraction poisons me. 

And in the midst of this stupor, I think that life is a new iPad, or being liked by my friends more, or not failing, or getting more hits on my blog.

The only remedy is the breath that brings life - the spirit of Jesus soaking my mind, rushing in my heart and veins. Who knew that life and peace were to be found in giving control rather than taking it?

Don't we all hunger for life, for peace?

So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. 

Romans 8:6

Romans 8:7-8

What controls me?

Am I ever really in control of my choices?

Or do I just choose in reaction to my history, or my emotional state, or just that mistaken idea that I am the centre of the universe? It's easy to believe the lie that I choose. That I know the alternatives and possibilities and that I make right choices because I am clear-sighted, wise and perceptive.

Maybe this isn't true for you, but I frequently get confronted with my wrong choices, or realise the oddest things have influened me. Autonomy is a fraught concept because we cannot escape our participation in the network of humanity.

Paul just talked about wanting to do right but failing, not wanting to be false, but doing it anyway. I am caught in his contradiction - my heart longs for right but my nature bends away from it.

And these next few verses in Romans 8 dissect the dilemma. They collect all the forensics and divide us into those on the Spirit's side and those on sin's side. I admit I'm scared. The evidence accruing for me feels equivocal, but Romans 8 doesn't give that option. Listen with me as I try to wrestle with Romans 8:5-8. I'm memorising...

Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.

Romans 8:5

Romans 8:6

Hey, my friend...

Yes, you.

I want to pray for you.

It's exam time again, and I sent out a text for some faithful friends to remember me in conversation with God. Our church family prayed and checked on me, too.

I've been anxious this week, but I've been supported by the knowledge of those prayers - the brief whispered ones, the long patient ones, the barely spoken ones, the matter-of-fact ones. You have helped God walk with me.

And it's not about the results. It's about knowing that God's people are faithful and kind, and that no matter what happens, God will be here with me. He'll rejoice with me or mourn with me in two weeks time. He'll know my impatience, when it creeps up into my throat, every couple of days, till then.

He'll be there with you, too. He'll be answering my prayers for you. Helping you through the maze of your life, knowing the flutters and falters of your heart. Sharing your excitement or soothing your weariness. That's just what he does. All day, every day. Deep in the night and in the pale dawn, he's with you.

So can you let me know what to pray for you? Put it in the comments. Email me. Even if we only meet here, I want to hear from you.

That is real connection. Praying prayers for you that allow me to participate in God's care for you and presence in your life. I'm there with you when I pray for you.