Dear God,
In the Gospel of Matthew (9:9-13), we read:

While [Jesus] was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

This always makes me think of the saying in 12-step groups that there have been plenty of people who have been too smart for the program, too wise for their own good, but there has never been someone too stupid to learn the basics of recovery from addiction.
I sometimes think that You, God, gave those living with illness a special bond with each other—an intimate connection that is unfathomable until you’ve plumbed to the depths of despair. And I think of Mother Teresa recognizing God in the disguise of the poor. She wrote, “[W]hen I walk through the slums or enter the dark holes—there our Lord is always really present.”

I experience the same presence of God on the boards of Beyond Blue, and in the discussion threads of Group Beyond Blue in the community.
But I’m curious, God, what’s up with the connection between spirituality and depression? Are depressives really more spiritual? Or is it that the more religion you get in your life, the more depressed you become (no offense)?
I think you know Eric’s logic …
“If something’s not broken, a person isn’t going to waste the time to fix it, or make it the best it can be,” he said yesterday at breakfast, (referring to his golf swing, while I was contemplating souls and eternal salvation). “Only when something breaks down (he was thinking cars, I was considering the nervous system), is a person going to search for a solution.”
“Think about it,” he continued. “If you’re happy, you’re not going to pick up some spiritual self-help book on how to improve your life. But if you’ve just run into a wall, you could use a little advice and some spiritual solutions.”
I guess that’s why “The Pain of Being Human” sold twice as many copies as “The Joy of Being Human,” and why the book Mike Leach and I edited entitled “I Like Being Married,” flopped in comparison to the books on how to forgive your spouse after an extramarital affair.
Saint Augustine once wrote, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” I believe that therein lies the clue on why depressives are more spiritual—we are more aware of that human restlessness or inner void (the doughnut phenomenon I described in my post “Ten Days to Self-Esteem”) than our happy counterparts (those blessed with functional wiring, like Eric), or maybe we are more restless AND more aware of our unease. And we want to fill that void and settle the restlessness ASAP because it feels about as good as cow droppings on our heads.
So we pray. And we inhale frozen Kit Kat bars. Because both are like sucking on a pacifier to satiate the inner longing TEMPORARILY (prayer the preferred method, of course). Until our Prozac poops out (and our brain’s wiring and chemistry changes), and we need another kind of cocktail. At which time some of us head to daily Mass or join religious congregations, and others go to the hospital, and some (like me) do everything and anything as long as it’s not Vinyasa yoga (because that feels worse than the cow excrement).
But all the while, God, you are with us. Because, just like Jesus says in Matthew, we who live with illness, approach you with a humility or maybe a desperation, that You find refreshing, right? And so you are there.
To read more Beyond Blue, go to www.beliefnet.com/beyondblue, and to get to Group Beyond Blue, a support group at Beliefnet Community, click here.