The Risk of Two Realms

Yesterday’s post on depression hit a nerve with several folks. In my own mind, it’s summed up in my response to a comment: “Much of what we dislike in this world is the back edge of something we simply don’t understand.” In other words, depression is the manifestation of something deeper, often unseen. We don’t see that deeper thing because we’ve been conditioned to believe there’s nothing to see.

Every unpleasant sensation in this life has a cause. Sometimes it’s not worth pursuing; you just have to learn to work around it. Sometimes it genuinely hinders, but we already have a serious problem with knowing whether the thing hindered is worth pursuing in the first place. Most of us are taught to want things we cannot and/or should not want. Instead, we are told it is immoral to have certain feelings that we cannot possibly control. Most of what you think you know about reality is just a long train of false dichotomies.

It’s bad enough we live in a realm of shadows, but our Western society tries to paint those shadows in bright colors. We are virtually forced to confess that darkness is light.

In a certain sense, you really don’t even have to know precisely what your mission is in life; with a mere sense of mission calling itself you can push through the worst this world has to offer. Let me save you some struggle: Your mission is to glorify God. Fundamental to that mission is reaching out to embrace the moral character of God as expressed in His Law Covenants. That demands you step outside our Western Civilization. Some of you can instinctively do that, but most of us have to spend at least a little time considering what that means in terms of what we have to reject to do that. That’s the reason for the book advertised on lower end of the right column on this blog page.

If you would prefer that book in a different format, just ask: plain text, HTML, PDF, Word (DOC), Open Document (Libre/Open Office), etc. I’ll pay almost any price to get the truth into your head.

I don’t promise that you will overcome all your sorrows, but that you can if you decide it matters. Chances are it will be expensive in one sense or another, but that’s only because we have been herded into investing far too much energy in things that don’t matter. Depression is sometimes just a signal that your tank is empty, that you have nothing inside to keep you going.

At the same time, what lies behind depression is the same thing that makes me willing to do some of the riskiest things for the right reason. For example, at a youth camp one year I was the first to volunteer for a nearly impossible climb on the ropes course that included jumping between trees high above the ground — this was after my knees went bad. Some of what causes depression is the same fatalism that grants God permission to take my life in pursuit of His glory. Senseless danger? No, I was pursuing His glory. In that sense, depression is merely the flesh’s response to the recognition that nothing in this world really matters, anyway.

When I leave this world, His glory is about the only thing I can take with me, so I need to make sure I pile it up high.