Despair

I have dealt with depression for the majority of my life. Chronic depression is a part of my family history. I can't run away from it, its a tendency that will stay with me the rest of my life. But...

But I have identified something within this tendency toward depression that is completely demonic: despair. I have felt despair a lot in my life, because the awareness that I am not very smart, strong, funny, successful or even disciplined turns my mind constantly to the fact that I am not good enough. Not good enough in so, so many ways. Sometimes my mind is stricken with regret of something foolish, or an opportunity run afoul because of me. It can take just one of many memories to make me wince about the things I have done or failed to do.

But despair goes so far past beyond this, and the reason I have gotten past my depression is because I have been taught to see despair for what it is: sinful. Sadness and despair is the difference of having no faith in oneself and having no faith in anything. I was reading a fantastic excerpt from a spiritual classic by Johannes Baptist Metz called Poverty of Spirit. Like many spiritual classics it is short but far too much to take in the first few readings. I have just begun to meditate on the meaning of one chapter titled "The Innate Poverty of Humanity." In it Metz says that we're all beggars in front of God. He says that if we realize how much we need, then "It condemns us to a restless pilgrimage in search of a final satisfaction, an "Amen," which the poor know is theirs only in the kingdom of heaven." When we are beggars we see that there is something that we need, and that it doesn't come from us. Despair stands strong in its own concession that there is absolutely nothing to fill up our need, nor the world's need. It's a beggar, putting us on our knees not in humility but in self-will. It's the opposite of belief, faith, and dying to oneself. It's the opposite of grace. Grace quenches the needs and the desires that we feel, it is the bread and meat of life. Despair leaves us feeling empty, hungry without the desire to search for anything real, it's the cheap soda that fills us up in lieu of real sustenance. It's atrophy, it's apathy, it's nihilism.

Simply put, despair is hell.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The key here is not asking who is poor and who is not, it's about realizing that all humans are poor. Jesus himself was poor. Now Luke's version focuses on the poor as a socio-economic condition, and that isn't to be taken lightly, but for right now Matthews' version of the beatitudes will do. The kingdom of heaven is the answer to being poor. It is at once peace and war. Peace to ourselves, within ourselves who accept it, but to those who relish despair it wreaks murderous destruction, denies them any room in which to stand.

In the story about the feast in heaven Jesus tells of the Master sending out for all his guests in a city for his great celebration. However all of those who had filled themselves with a fatalistic contempt for hope couldn't find the will or desire to come. In the end he was forced to send out his servants again, this time to invite the beggars off the streets. We are all beggars, I just hope that we can realize that.