Sadness as a path to God : Continuing
When we have good feelings be it joy or delight etc., we tend to embrace the feeling. And it makes sense to do so. IT FEELS GOOD. Sadness on the other hand feels like the flu. So we try to ride it out or deny it. Clarification: I am talking about garden variety sadness which is different than organic depression. I believe sadness is often times misdiagnosed as organically caused depression. And this is a problem. I don't believe sadness responds to drug treatment at all. Unfortunately non response to medication causes Doctors to use more medicine in an attempt to get a proper response. This is the wrong way do deal with sadness.
I ended the last entry by saying that sadness was a prison cell with no back wall. I know this is true. If one allows himself to just undergo sadness as it enters ones life and just attempts to ride it out then that person has walked into the prison cell of sadness. What if the person dealt with sadness as they would the feeling of joy ? With joy we we become a participant we live the joy. Yet with sadness because it is undesirable we either flee from it or just endure it.
I'm not one to say "what would Jesus do?" out loud but sometimes it's a good question to ask (just don't wear those irritating bracelets J/K).
How did Jesus deal with sadness or any feeling for that matter. From the gospels we see Jesus absolutely human and prone to all the feelings we have. But how did he deal the sadness? When Jesus was at the tomb of Lazarus the scripture says "Jesus wept". From the gospel we get a picture of Jesus deeply engaged with his sadness. We see the same thing as he prayed in the garden shortly before his crucifixion. So engaged in his feeling that he sweat blood then he would boldly surrendered himself to his accusers to do the will of His father.
So what's in those pictures of Jesus for us ? A model for dealing with sadness. Jesus was never imprisoned by sadness. He ran up to it as we would with the feeling of joy and held on to it and participated in it. He didn't let sadness just happen to him. Jesus could honestly say he was sad because he was BEING sad.
I don't think many of us can honestly say that. We can say honestly that we are joyful or delighted because we really participate in our own joy and delight. Not so with sadness. We so much want it gone we don't deal with at all. We mostly just wait it out until life distracts us in another direction. How odd ! We would never treat joy that way. Why do we treat sadness like that. BECAUSE WE DON'T LIKE DISCOMFORT!
Yet we have the example of our savior who embraced discomfort unto death and he did it for us. The tolerance of discomfort (sadness) is necessary to grow through it.
Going back to prison cell with no back wall illustration. To just let sadness happen to you is to face the bars of the prison cell until life becomes more of a reality the then the cell of sadness. Unfortunately it seems that the more one deals with sadness in a passive manner the more difficult it becomes for the rest of life (reality) distract one from prison cell. In affect the cell becomes reality. Real life can't penetrate it. One is indeed imprisoned by sadness.
But what if one was to tolerate the discomfort of embracing the painful feeling . To cry ,yell and scream or pray. To do so alone would be difficult but we are not alone . We have a loving God who is waiting for us to embrace the discomfort as he did. By doing this we turn ourselves around so as not to face the bars of a cell but to wrestle with sadness in the presence of and with the help of God.
Sadness doesn't need to be the prison we make it . If we participate in it and seek God to help us through it we find freedom not imprisonment. This treatment of sadness can not be done with out God. A therapist will not do. A savior is our only help. Just talking through it does nothing if one isn't willing to participate in the sadness. As Christians we strive only to be like Jesus . So let's be like Jesus and participate in the sadness . After weeping so sadly for Lazarus our Lord then raised him from the dead. Could he have done it if he allowed himself to be imprisoned by his sadness. I know, I know, He is God. But have the power to turn to God with our sadness. A much better alternative than a prison cell.
Go big and PARTICIPATE!
I ended the last entry by saying that sadness was a prison cell with no back wall. I know this is true. If one allows himself to just undergo sadness as it enters ones life and just attempts to ride it out then that person has walked into the prison cell of sadness. What if the person dealt with sadness as they would the feeling of joy ? With joy we we become a participant we live the joy. Yet with sadness because it is undesirable we either flee from it or just endure it.
I'm not one to say "what would Jesus do?" out loud but sometimes it's a good question to ask (just don't wear those irritating bracelets J/K).
How did Jesus deal with sadness or any feeling for that matter. From the gospels we see Jesus absolutely human and prone to all the feelings we have. But how did he deal the sadness? When Jesus was at the tomb of Lazarus the scripture says "Jesus wept". From the gospel we get a picture of Jesus deeply engaged with his sadness. We see the same thing as he prayed in the garden shortly before his crucifixion. So engaged in his feeling that he sweat blood then he would boldly surrendered himself to his accusers to do the will of His father.
So what's in those pictures of Jesus for us ? A model for dealing with sadness. Jesus was never imprisoned by sadness. He ran up to it as we would with the feeling of joy and held on to it and participated in it. He didn't let sadness just happen to him. Jesus could honestly say he was sad because he was BEING sad.
I don't think many of us can honestly say that. We can say honestly that we are joyful or delighted because we really participate in our own joy and delight. Not so with sadness. We so much want it gone we don't deal with at all. We mostly just wait it out until life distracts us in another direction. How odd ! We would never treat joy that way. Why do we treat sadness like that. BECAUSE WE DON'T LIKE DISCOMFORT!
Yet we have the example of our savior who embraced discomfort unto death and he did it for us. The tolerance of discomfort (sadness) is necessary to grow through it.
Going back to prison cell with no back wall illustration. To just let sadness happen to you is to face the bars of the prison cell until life becomes more of a reality the then the cell of sadness. Unfortunately it seems that the more one deals with sadness in a passive manner the more difficult it becomes for the rest of life (reality) distract one from prison cell. In affect the cell becomes reality. Real life can't penetrate it. One is indeed imprisoned by sadness.
But what if one was to tolerate the discomfort of embracing the painful feeling . To cry ,yell and scream or pray. To do so alone would be difficult but we are not alone . We have a loving God who is waiting for us to embrace the discomfort as he did. By doing this we turn ourselves around so as not to face the bars of a cell but to wrestle with sadness in the presence of and with the help of God.
Sadness doesn't need to be the prison we make it . If we participate in it and seek God to help us through it we find freedom not imprisonment. This treatment of sadness can not be done with out God. A therapist will not do. A savior is our only help. Just talking through it does nothing if one isn't willing to participate in the sadness. As Christians we strive only to be like Jesus . So let's be like Jesus and participate in the sadness . After weeping so sadly for Lazarus our Lord then raised him from the dead. Could he have done it if he allowed himself to be imprisoned by his sadness. I know, I know, He is God. But have the power to turn to God with our sadness. A much better alternative than a prison cell.
Go big and PARTICIPATE!
posted by Father Rich at 10:20 AM
2 Comments:
how can you be married and be a priest? what kind of weird stuff do you eat? :)
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