I’m a beast of burden, made and called by God to carry the load.
Over the weekend, our subscriber roll swelled by over a dozen. I’m cynical enough to bet that WordPress simply isn’t telling me when people drop their subscription. I rather doubt there are over 500 people reading my stuff every day. Even if they are, I’m glad they aren’t all seeking my direct pastoral care.
The human soul is wired with limits. It’s not that I couldn’t get to know that many people, but that I could never get to know them well enough to actively pastor them. A basic principle of shepherding, regardless of culture and methods, is that you can’t give genuine warmth and pastoral care when the flock is bigger than 75. To play it safe, you start sharing the load at around 50.
In case you didn’t know, Moses learned that the hard way, and his father-in-law taught him about the limits of pastoral care. Jethro suggested the number 50 as the breaking point for direct pastoral care, though most English translations use the word “judging” instead of a more appropriate term indicating the shepherd’s role.
By the same token, there is no way I could subscribe to all of my subscribers. In fact, I don’t subscribe at all. The blogroll on the right reflects those I visit as a habit, not simply those I recommend. Had I time and inclination to read everyone’s blog who subscribes to mine, I could surely recommend a much greater number. To be honest, a great many of my subscribers puzzle me; their blogs indicate vastly far different interests. Some write in contradiction to what I teach. Not that I’m offended; we can only tell the story we live, and even then, only so much as we can put into words. As previously noted, I’m not in the business of correcting other folks, only telling my own story and hoping that you can use some of it.
But some of you worry me, in the sense that your blogs indicate to me that you are suffering. As always, a certain amount of that is simply the norm for our fallen existence. I’m not immune to that myself, so it pulls on me and I want to do what I can. Still, my story includes walking out of the long nightmare of depression, and some of you are clearly still struggling with it. This is a major sensitive spot on my soul. I can’t pretend to understand your individual nightmare, but I can’t help but wonder if my escape doesn’t hold some promise for you.
It’s way too complicated to simply write a book about it. To be honest, all of my books are merely volumes in the library, different aspects of what makes life tolerable for me. Every one of my books help tell the story of how I escaped that prison. The means to escape covers a lot of other problems, too, so this blog doesn’t focus on depression. Rather, I focus on the wider story that includes depression as a major factor.
Most of us who have suffered depression have no idea how we got there. Like many of you, I studied it seriously, taking lots of courses and reading books that were supposed to address it. It seemed only sensible that if I could understand how I got there, I could find the way back out. Not so. In many ways, it matters not a whit how you got there, because there is no path back. The entrance is lost somewhere in yesterday, and the exit is in another land entirely.
On the other hand, there is a sense in which knowing something about the cause does improve the chances of escape. But cause does not equal path. Scar tissue is a given in human existence, so the question is: How do we stop the bleeding and close the wound? In that sense, naming and blaming won’t stop the bleeding, though it might prevent further wounds. As much as possible, you have to get away from the source of your sorrow before you can start to heal. Depression is seldom a matter of hit-n-run, so knowing something about the cause is the first step to escape.
At the same time, I’m watching dark clouds gather and thicken on the human horizon. Depressed or not, our world is going to be much more difficult for everyone. Whether or not I have any prophetic gifts, I do have a prophetic nature. Blind is the shepherd who doesn’t watch in expectation of threats to the flock. So I worry about all of you in that sense.
Still, the blessings of shalom are the same whether the troubles are internal, external or both. The solutions are always in growing a sensitivity to the moral level of our existence. Without that, we cannot possibly understand anything of note in this world or inside ourselves. If we do not appropriate the moral vision of Christ, we ought to be depressed. Let me give you this gem: Depression is a symptom, a sign that you have a gift for seeing moral conflict that far too many cannot see. The existence of depression is a sign you are created for better things, that God has made you to experience His divine truth directly. It’s a primary symptom of being among the Eternal Elect, because those who are morally crippled are unlikely to be bothered with the inherent conflict of our fallen existence.
The clouds of human sorrow are never more than a thin layer. Despite how thick and how expansive their coverage, the Son is bigger and brighter. As David noted in our most recent Psalm lesson: the hours of darkness are numbered, and joy comes in the morning. I want to show you how to hang on, to find a reason to stick it out.
