Depression and Spiritual Growth

C. The Role of the Meeting (cont.)

The second example comes in the form of a poem describing the events of one Meeting in June 1986, which I wrote much later. I think it speaks for itself.

Sunday Morning, 1986
It is Sunday morning
or, as Quakers have it,
First Day. Quiet.
No one going to work.
Clear, the sun shining brightly.
It is unseasonably cold for June
thanks to the front that passed through last night.
We wolf down a hurried breakfast
because we are late, as usual,
jump into the car
and head downhill to the Meeting.
It's my fault that we're late.
I'm in the jaws of a remorseless depression,
and I'm moving slow.
Maybe (please God, maybe!) going to Meeting
will do me some good.
The road is alternately blasted with blazing sunlight,
or dappled with complexly woven shadows
of trees and bushes that crowd up to its edge.
Tiny purple, white, and yellow flowers
embroider the shoulder.
Amazingly, we arrive on time.
We are greeted by good friends.
Knowing what I'm going through,
some put down their own burdens for a moment
and minister to mine: strong handshakes,
some gentle pats on the back, a warm hug.
These are good people; they seem certain
that they and I together can keep me alive
until the illness runs its course.
I am not so certain.
We go into Meeting.
There's the usual squirming about
and people going in and out.
Everyone has too much energy
to be here on such a nice day.
Finally the children leave,
the last batch of latecomers come in,
and Meeting settles into the business at hand:
centering down to wait upon the Lord.
My soul can't do it:
a quiet, determined, unrelenting
voice in my head is telling me
again and again, over and over
that there is no hope;
that there will not, cannot,
be any relief.
That there is only one solution: death.
That the solution must be acted on now.
``Get the gun ... and maybe you can have peace.''
Over and over; on and on.
How much longer can this go on
before I break?
I close my eyes and try to concentrate
on anything but the voice. No good.
But on a different level
I become aware of something else:
it is the collective presence of the Meeting.
United, we are empowering one another.
The room as quiet as it can be,
eyes still closed,
I sense something bigger than all of us,
benign, protective, powerful, ... good.
Then someone rises to speak.
A woman whose voice I do not recognize
(eyes still closed).
Into my darkness,
blindness, desperation, despair,
she speaks a message about her life.
Remarkably
the message from her life fits mine
giving it new meaning.
She has reached the length of the room to touch me;
into my closed eyes she is shining Light.
Her words cut in, cut through the depression,
and, for a few minutes,
silence my inner voice of doom.
For a few minutes I am unchained
can leave my tormented hell
and join her in warm soft Light.
The experience comforts me,
and though it does not heal me
it restores my courage,
reinforces my will to live,
and allows me to move forward
for a few minutes without pain.
It will be three more endless months
before the depression is broken
and that seductive homicidal voice
is silenced.
There are many very hard days yet ahead.
But more than once in that bleak time
I am able to close my eyes
return to that cool, brilliant morning,
and hear that woman's quiet voice
(her identity unknown to me to this day)
guiding me to a place where,
for a little while,
I can rest, rebuild, be safe.
She touched me from across the room with her voice;
God touched me from within with His grace.

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