petitioninggod.com Blog

Wrote this the other day to a friend who struggles with mild depression, but who, thanks be to God, is slowly but surely learning to lift herself out of it using the only method that works (getting in touch with the Creator & aligning herself with his purposes).

>>>For several days now I’ve been reading the Kierkegaard book that I studied with Dr. Lacy at Rhodes exactly 30 years ago this fall. The Sickness Unto Death is absolutely fascinating because now I have the frame of reference to appreciate it more fully and to see just how accurate K was about what ails humankind. “The sickness” is despair, which K keeps on saying over and over (and demonstrating with spot-on examples) is universal, although most people don’t realize they’re in despair because they successfully fend off the feeling by staying busy or otherwise distracted most of the time. And he says that the only cure is to get in touch with God and get right before God, and to be the self that God means for each of us to be. Of course those aren’t Kierkegaard’s words, but let me find some of his words for you. Let’s see, how about this: “The condition of the self when despair is completely eradicated: by relating itself to its own self [i.e., by not trying to be someone it’s not] and by willing to be itself [the self God intended it to be], the self is grounded transparently in the Power which posited it.”

Also, excuse the masculine pronouns here, but “This view [that despair is universal] will doubtless seem to many a gloomy and depressing view . . . . Yet on the contrary it is uplifting, since it views every man in the aspect of the highest demand made upon him, that he be spirit.”<<<

Wow, that "SK" guy really knew what he was talking about, didn't he? And to think he only lived to 42. Another thing he said that's in total agreement with many posts in this blog are his "last words" (not really his last but what he had written in his journal as his last): God is love!

In another email to another friend this week, I found myself expressing the whole thing in a slightly different way:

>>>Hope you’re able to keep any new perspectives you gained from your travels operable now that you’re back at the grind. Life is either going around in circles endlessly, or an upward spiral, depending on what we do with our minds (souls!).<<<

God’s peace to all who read this!

Sara