Theological, Philosophical, and Psychological Responses to the Question of "How Can One Deal with Despair?"

A sermon delivered by the Rev. James R. Bridges at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Rock Tavern on February 8, 2004

This is a sermon with which I have been struggling, in some form or another, since 1988.  It was begun at Unilead, not too far away,  at Kirkridge.  It was started by the Rev. Bruce Marshall’s acknowledgement of evil in a meditation.  It was continued by various courses in seminary which at times dealt with theodicy, the question of how God could allow evil to exist in the world.  It was expanded upon immensely by my seeing people in despair, suffering from melancholy, depression, a lack of meaning and purpose, devoid of hope in their lives.  As I saw them struggle, it bothered me deeply, and yet, I had no “answer” for them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson experienced such a state of melancholy after loosing his five year old son, Waldo Jr., to fever in 1842.  He wrote of feelings such as these: 

We wake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight. But... we cannot shake off the lethargy now at noonday. Sleep lingers about our eyes, as night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir-tree.... Our life is not so much threatened as our perception.  Ghostlike we glide through nature, and should not know our place again.  Did our birth fall in some fit of... frugality in nature, that she was so sparing of her fire and so liberal of her earth that... we lack the affirmative principle, and though we have health and reason, yet we have no … [excess] of spirit for new creation? We have enough to live and bring the year about, but not an ounce to impart or invest.  Ah, that our Genius were a little more of genius![i]

“Ghostlike we glide through nature.”  What better expression can capture one aspect of the experience of succumbing to despair.  “And though we have health and reason, yet we have no excess of spirit for new creation.”  We have nothing to give or invest.  We are empty, depleted, cut off in many ways from life. 

He eventually came to grips with his despair and melancholy by focusing upon the present, almost like Buddhists do today.  For Ralph, it was the present hour that he attended to – not tomorrow or the next day, nor did he look to the past.  The present helped him make it through each day.

For a time, I too had lived in such a state of despondency during my young adulthood, but I was able to move on from that spot after two or three years.  It was a recovery from a long term romance which had ended up in the garbage heap.  My struggles and techniques of coping, however, do not always work for others.  In fact, often they do not. 

They can be rebuffed by some who note that at the time, I was young.  I was intelligent.  I had a future ahead of me.  Of course, at the time, I did not feel that way, not at all, but in retrospect, they were right.  I am now 57, and I had felt that way in my early 20’s – in a period of existential angst and sickness.  I began my steps out of such a psychological state by acting “as if.” 

If one reflects upon what I had done with myself at that time, I basically had intuitively followed some of the instructions of cognitive behavioral psychologists, like Beck, in his treatment of depression.  A good number of years ago he had determined that one of the best ways to treat depression is to have the client engage in productive labor and activity in spite of their depression.  Although I felt miserable and lousy and most certainly did not want to work productively or engage much in any types of social interaction, I went ahead and acted as if everything was ok and that I enjoyed working and interacting socially.  A funny thing happened.  Gradually I actually began to enjoy work and life once again.  Not at first, mind you.  And yes, there were some necessary job changes along the way, but that acting “as if” did help get me moving psychologically out of my funk, and gradually I plugged back into life. And then, just as gradually, I established other goals, goals towards which I in turn worked.  That worked for me, but I know others for whom it does not.  They have trouble taking that first step.

I also tended to focus on the present, much as did Emerson.  Some of you have heard me voice my existentialist “commandment” – I am living in the present, so live it in the here and now.  That also worked for me in part…keeping me in the here and now, as opposed to returning to the pain of the past and the apparent despair of the future. 

Some people when faced with such despair reach out towards medication, either prescribed or self-administered.  Alcohol, narcotics, and pain killers offer some relief, albeit temporary.  I see their palliative nature as illusory however, and as one comes out from under their influence, one suffers more.

Then there are also the psychotropic prescription medications – these too will sometimes, but not always, help people deal with depression and despair, but again, once the medication is stopped, the despair returns – unless there has been some significant change in the person’s life.

Many, many people turn to religion for support at times when faced with suffering and despair.  And here, they may find a variety of answers, some theological, some philosophical, and some – well – someplace in between.

David Hume, a philosopher of some note, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) had his character Philo argue that the great amount of suffering in the world indicated that God did not exist.[ii]  Such did little to help those who suffer deal with their problems, but it might have an influence on their religious beliefs or lack thereof. 

For some, orthodox religion provides firm answers.  These answers can serve as a prop, a support, a guidepost along one’s life.  They provide certainty.  Orthodox religion often provides meaning to the despair, reflecting upon the covenantal relationship between humans and God.  Under such a viewpoint, one can see suffering and despair as punishment by God for one’s sins.  From such a vantage point, despair takes on meaning – instructive meaning.  We can learn from it.  There is a cause for it – and once we rectify the cause, suffering will supposedly lessen.  Jerry Falwell’s and Pat Robertson’s comments regarding September the 11^th being God’s retribution for contemporary immorality is a good example of this type of religion.  It puts the suffering in context of moral punishment.

Personally, I find such an approach inadequate, if not itself evil and degrading, because there are many good people who have not severely sinned who nevertheless suffer greatly.  Indeed, the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible provides one such example by examining the nature of faith.  In that story, Job perseveres in his faith, his belief in God, in spite of his suffering greatly.  Any one of us, I believe, would have experienced the deepest and most profound despair if we were faced with the sufferings of Job.  Yet he remained faithful. 

In looking at this book of the Hebrew Bible, I am reminded of the Christian theologian Paul Tillich’s book, The Courage to Be (1952).  In that book, Tillich speaks of the power of being and self-affirmation in the face of non-being.  What does Tillich mean by non-being?  He includes such things as fear and anxiety over death, loss of meaning and purpose in life, and guilt and condemnation.  Non-being is truly the negation of being.  The courage to be is like for you or for me to be able to say in the face of suffering, despair, dread and even death, I am and I will be, in spite of whatever pain and suffering I experience.  I am.  I am.  Even in the face of the fear of death, I am, and you are you.

To me, this stance is not necessarily based upon anything rational.  It is self-affirmation, based upon one’s courage and the ground of one’s own being, requiring a strong connection to the core of one’s self.  Being in the face of non-being.

We Unitarian Universalists carry this position of affirmation a step further, I believe.  Not only do we affirm being in the face of non-being, we affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person, regardless of how much suffering they are undergoing.  We don’t try to protect someone from life; we don’t give them rules to live by.  What we do is affirm life, we engage it and live it.  We are willing to be with someone who is hurting and suffering, who is bereft of meaning.  We can sit with them and hear their pain – and affirm their inherent worth and dignity – as well as their ability to find their own meaning and purpose in life.  We can be with them in their struggles, trying to carve out once again meaning and purpose to their lives.

Our history as a faith movement contains certain kernels which, I believe, also help one facing such despair.  We have a basic underling optimism, a hope, for humanity.  We believe that each of us has inherent worth and dignity, and that is a positive belief – especially when contrasted against the Calvinistic doctrine that only an elected few will make it into heaven, the rest being condemned to hell.  Those who came before us in our faith community rejected that view of life.  They also believed that we can work to improve the quality of life.  The old Unitarian Universalist saying “Acts, not creeds” speaks to our desire to improve the world.  Our social action concerns over making our world a more just, caring, and loving community reflect our optimism.  Our religious ancestors spoke out against slavery.  They spoke out in favor of women receiving the right to vote.  They spoke out against discrimination.  They also call upon the crucial element for fighting and overcoming despair: hope.  Hope for the future…hope for the present….hope that this world can be transformed into a better place for all to live.

Victor Frankl survived one of Hitler’s death camps during the Second World War.  He emerged from his experiences and became a psychotherapist.  He also published a book, Man’s Search for Meaning, which to me, is a classic…both psychologically and theologically.  He compared and contrasted those prisoners in concentration camps who made it and those who did not.  He concluded that a major determining variable was whether or not the person could find some form of meaning to their lives.  In the death camp, often that meaning was connected to living for someone else.  Those who could go beyond themselves in Auschwitz had a far better chance of surviving.  Is this going beyond oneself any different from our interest in social action?  I think the underlying dynamics are the same….they are based upon hope, and they are involved with someone other than oneself.

My colleague, the Rev. Robert Hardies, minister of All Souls in Washington, D.C. has written,

The great Sufi mystic Rumi tells his story of hope in a poem about despair. He writes, "there is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard, they cannot hope." It is this: "Look as long as you can at the friend that you love." That's a good place to start in our search for the stories that give us hope. To look around us at the people and at the things that we love. Our family. Our friends. Our earth. Our God. And don't just look at them, Rumi says, "look at them as long as you can." Contemplate them. Meditate upon them. Remember in those familiar sights, in those familiar faces, remember your story of hope.

Is Rumi asking us to look carefully at our social web of existence?  I believe so.

His recommendation is similar to that written by Lynna Sedlak, a reporter for a Buffalo newspaper.  She has written

 

When I find myself despairing, I stop at the end of the day, even a particularly difficult day, perhaps especially a particularly difficult day, and make a list: a gratitude list. Who or what do I have to be grateful for today?  The list does not come from the spectacular. It’s not that I would mind, but our lives are not often filled with spectacle. The list comes from small moments, mostly very ordinary. . . It is all the more precious, more sacramental for its mundane and humble setting. It is our life, yours and mine.

 

She too has discovered the web of existence – and how supportive it can be for us all.

Rumi’s recommendation is also similar to that written by Wendell Berry, in his poem “The Peace of Wild Things”: 

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.  

Here he is not looking into the social web, but rather into the environmental/nature web of existence, much as some of our transcendentalist poets and writers, like Thoreau and William Cullen Bryant, did in the 19^th century.  Indeed, Bryant’s poem Thanatopsis also helped me get through my despondency as a young adult, even though it focused upon death.

So what are the answers to the problem of despair:  Perseverance and a certain amount of discipline, courage, self affirmation, attending to the present, belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person – including one’s self, hope, hope for a better tomorrow, and finding meaning in life through reaching out beyond oneself to help others.  Lastly, undergoing such struggles openly in a loving community, one which accepts you for who you are, and doesn’t try to rescue you from your struggles, makes the journey more bearable.  I believe that this community here would be such a community.

The answers, while simple to say and identify, are not so simple to enact.  Nonetheless, should you find yourself engaged in such struggles, please feel free to share with me or others in our congregation.  We don’t have the right answer for you, but we surely can listen and be with you – while affirming your worth and dignity.  Thank you.

Blessed be and amen.

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