Sola Gratia
I remember what a beautiful day it was. It was late October, by far the best time of year in most places but especially in the Midwest. It was probably in the low 50s, with the wind blowing the fallen leaves around, making that distinctive crackling/shuffling sound that will always be associated in my mind with autumn. The sun was shining in that low, pre-winter angle that gives everything a glow. It was like something out of a picture book.
The night before we had a storm. I remember that because I was up most of the night, lying in my bed, listening to the wind. I love listening to the sound of storms normally--I usually find it very soothing, relaxing. But not that night. That night, I remember very clearly having this fantasy of the wind blowing down the tree outside my window, driving it through my bedroom, and killing me. It seemed so real, so plausible. And, on that night, there was a very real part of me that wanted it to happen.
So, on that beautiful October morning, I was in a bad place. When you are in a bad place, at least my experience teaches, you really can only focus on at most two things. On that morning, I had only two objectives--I would go find someone to write me a prescription for an anti-depressant, and then I would go to my terrible job at a horrible law firm. As such, I put on a suit, got in my car, and drove to a nearby walk-in clinic. It was not open (it couldn't have been any later than 7 in the morning) and it had a big sign out front saying that it did not proscribe psychiatric medications. The other thing I've noticed about being in a bad place, especially that time, is that you take on a kind of rat-like cunning--your mindset and worldview is wildly and profoundly out-of-whack, but you often have a weird clarity about some narrow slice of the world. Having been frustrated at my first attempt, I decided to head right to the emergency room of Grant Hospital, a classic downtown, multipurpose hospital in Columbus. I didn't really have a plan, as such more structured thinking was really beyond my competency on that morning.
That's how I found myself, sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, in my suit. I must of have looked very strange, even ridiculous, but I wasn't thinking in those terms. Again, I had a strange, almost animal mindset--I was here to get a prescription, and that was the only concept that I could hold onto amidst the fog. I was taken back and examined by a nurse, who immediately told me that he, too, had been where I was. It was a moment of profound human kindness and concern, even love, that I have thought about many times since then, but was barely aware of it at the time. He wrangled up some ER doc to write the script, and I was out of there in 45 minutes or so.
After grabbing the script, going to the pharmacy, and filling the prescription, it was sort of like losing the adrenaline high. I crashed. It became immediately clear that no, I was not going to be able to make it in to work that day. It was at home, sitting in my chair, that I noticed what a beautiful day it was outside. I would like to say that this provided me with hope in the moment, but that's not true. The next month or so was brutal, really just an exercise in survival, in getting through the day. But I remember going to a Christmas party in mid-December and thinking "hey, I feel better." Not fully OK, but better. It will be six years in October since that beautiful day, and I have never been back to the darkness of that crisp, nightmarish day.
I think about that day every time I hear of someone taking their own life. Anthony Bourdain did so yesterday, and the fashion designer Kate Spade a few days before that. Before her it was singer Chris Cornell, and Robin Williams, and a host of other people whose names are not publicly known except by the families and friends they left behind. I have a cousin who took his own life in the last year. When I hear of people going away on their own volition, there is a very real part of me that understands how and why this comes to pass. I have seen the place where that happens; I know at least some of the pain they must have felt.
And yet, I am still here. When I think about that day in October, I think about that weird clarity of purpose that I somehow managed to summon, the one that allowed me to take the step to begin the process back to health. In a way, it was muscle memory--that day in October was my third really serious bout of depression. But there is a dimension to it that I can't really explain. I wonder if that strange clarity is in fact the only reason I am still here. If I didn't have it, for whatever reason, would I have moved toward the abyss in which Bourdain found himself? I don't know, but part of me thinks that is very possible.
One thing I am clear on--I don't think that this weird clarity stems from any merit, skill, practice, or discipline of my own. I am not better, or stronger, or saner, or tougher, than Anthony Bourdain or any of the others. Nor am I loved more or better than they--while I am loved very deeply, it seems that they were, too. I am not more deserving, of anything, than they.
I have come to understand that day in October as a moment of grace. Whatever the source, however it is understood, I was given something wholly unearned and unmerited, even for a brief moment. Part of me is hesitant to describe it that way, since the end point of that logic is that God loves me and cares for me more than he does for Bourdain or Chris Cornell or Robin Williams, and I cannot believe that to be the case. And, yet, I don't know any other way to describe or understand it other than something provided to me from above and infused in at the moment I needed it. But there were other forms of grace--the grace of a person who understood, the grace of people who poured out unbelievable love as soon as I had the strength to tell them what was going on, the grace of a beautiful day, the grace of a world that is worth loving and worth fighting for, even in the midst of the darkness and the shit. All of that is grace, too.
The theological doctrine of sola gratia, grace alone, was a Reformation-era, especially Calvinist, slogan. Whatever its original intent, it turned into an arrogant doctrine, proclaiming that the chosen elect basked in the love of God while the wretched shiver in the cold and the darkness. As I said, I don't think that I am anyone special. I do not know, and I do not believe I can ever know, why I got what I needed when I needed it while others did not. All I can do is to testify to what I have experienced. And, perhaps more importantly, rather than the arrogance of a self-satisfied elect, I try to react with gratitude. I try to live in a way that shows my gratitude to God, and gratitude to the people around me who have been vessels of this grace. I don't live up to that all of the time, or perhaps even most of the time, but I try.
I am grateful to be here, and I am grateful for the grace that has helped make that possible. Life is a gift, and I am grateful to have that gift and share it with the wonderful people around me. And for those who have departed this life, I hope they find the grace they needed when they come into the Father's house, to the place that has been prepared for them, to the place where their wounds are healed forever.
The night before we had a storm. I remember that because I was up most of the night, lying in my bed, listening to the wind. I love listening to the sound of storms normally--I usually find it very soothing, relaxing. But not that night. That night, I remember very clearly having this fantasy of the wind blowing down the tree outside my window, driving it through my bedroom, and killing me. It seemed so real, so plausible. And, on that night, there was a very real part of me that wanted it to happen.
So, on that beautiful October morning, I was in a bad place. When you are in a bad place, at least my experience teaches, you really can only focus on at most two things. On that morning, I had only two objectives--I would go find someone to write me a prescription for an anti-depressant, and then I would go to my terrible job at a horrible law firm. As such, I put on a suit, got in my car, and drove to a nearby walk-in clinic. It was not open (it couldn't have been any later than 7 in the morning) and it had a big sign out front saying that it did not proscribe psychiatric medications. The other thing I've noticed about being in a bad place, especially that time, is that you take on a kind of rat-like cunning--your mindset and worldview is wildly and profoundly out-of-whack, but you often have a weird clarity about some narrow slice of the world. Having been frustrated at my first attempt, I decided to head right to the emergency room of Grant Hospital, a classic downtown, multipurpose hospital in Columbus. I didn't really have a plan, as such more structured thinking was really beyond my competency on that morning.
That's how I found myself, sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, in my suit. I must of have looked very strange, even ridiculous, but I wasn't thinking in those terms. Again, I had a strange, almost animal mindset--I was here to get a prescription, and that was the only concept that I could hold onto amidst the fog. I was taken back and examined by a nurse, who immediately told me that he, too, had been where I was. It was a moment of profound human kindness and concern, even love, that I have thought about many times since then, but was barely aware of it at the time. He wrangled up some ER doc to write the script, and I was out of there in 45 minutes or so.
After grabbing the script, going to the pharmacy, and filling the prescription, it was sort of like losing the adrenaline high. I crashed. It became immediately clear that no, I was not going to be able to make it in to work that day. It was at home, sitting in my chair, that I noticed what a beautiful day it was outside. I would like to say that this provided me with hope in the moment, but that's not true. The next month or so was brutal, really just an exercise in survival, in getting through the day. But I remember going to a Christmas party in mid-December and thinking "hey, I feel better." Not fully OK, but better. It will be six years in October since that beautiful day, and I have never been back to the darkness of that crisp, nightmarish day.
I think about that day every time I hear of someone taking their own life. Anthony Bourdain did so yesterday, and the fashion designer Kate Spade a few days before that. Before her it was singer Chris Cornell, and Robin Williams, and a host of other people whose names are not publicly known except by the families and friends they left behind. I have a cousin who took his own life in the last year. When I hear of people going away on their own volition, there is a very real part of me that understands how and why this comes to pass. I have seen the place where that happens; I know at least some of the pain they must have felt.
And yet, I am still here. When I think about that day in October, I think about that weird clarity of purpose that I somehow managed to summon, the one that allowed me to take the step to begin the process back to health. In a way, it was muscle memory--that day in October was my third really serious bout of depression. But there is a dimension to it that I can't really explain. I wonder if that strange clarity is in fact the only reason I am still here. If I didn't have it, for whatever reason, would I have moved toward the abyss in which Bourdain found himself? I don't know, but part of me thinks that is very possible.
One thing I am clear on--I don't think that this weird clarity stems from any merit, skill, practice, or discipline of my own. I am not better, or stronger, or saner, or tougher, than Anthony Bourdain or any of the others. Nor am I loved more or better than they--while I am loved very deeply, it seems that they were, too. I am not more deserving, of anything, than they.
I have come to understand that day in October as a moment of grace. Whatever the source, however it is understood, I was given something wholly unearned and unmerited, even for a brief moment. Part of me is hesitant to describe it that way, since the end point of that logic is that God loves me and cares for me more than he does for Bourdain or Chris Cornell or Robin Williams, and I cannot believe that to be the case. And, yet, I don't know any other way to describe or understand it other than something provided to me from above and infused in at the moment I needed it. But there were other forms of grace--the grace of a person who understood, the grace of people who poured out unbelievable love as soon as I had the strength to tell them what was going on, the grace of a beautiful day, the grace of a world that is worth loving and worth fighting for, even in the midst of the darkness and the shit. All of that is grace, too.
The theological doctrine of sola gratia, grace alone, was a Reformation-era, especially Calvinist, slogan. Whatever its original intent, it turned into an arrogant doctrine, proclaiming that the chosen elect basked in the love of God while the wretched shiver in the cold and the darkness. As I said, I don't think that I am anyone special. I do not know, and I do not believe I can ever know, why I got what I needed when I needed it while others did not. All I can do is to testify to what I have experienced. And, perhaps more importantly, rather than the arrogance of a self-satisfied elect, I try to react with gratitude. I try to live in a way that shows my gratitude to God, and gratitude to the people around me who have been vessels of this grace. I don't live up to that all of the time, or perhaps even most of the time, but I try.
I am grateful to be here, and I am grateful for the grace that has helped make that possible. Life is a gift, and I am grateful to have that gift and share it with the wonderful people around me. And for those who have departed this life, I hope they find the grace they needed when they come into the Father's house, to the place that has been prepared for them, to the place where their wounds are healed forever.
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