Paths of Depression

"A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life. It is the tear [that results] from the injury of the oyster. The treasure of our being in this world is also produced by an injured life. If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we will not produce the pearl."

Stephan Hoeller

We are amazingly self centered, selfish to the core. A man's heart and mind are incomprehensible to any scientist in spite of what anyone in the scientific world might tell you. Socrates said that "the unexamined life is not worth living." Now, in my 85th year, I am finally capable of looking back at my life, the bouts with depression which have so affected my living. Mine was not a pathology that would have been easily diagnosed. And, as is the case with so many unusual personalities, we are just considered "different."

To this day, I consider life a serious business. I have never had the time or thoughts for casual, undefined talking or actions. I cannot waste one minute of my valuable life watching or listening to FOOLISHNESS, such as we find on television or around some social settings.

Perhaps my depression started just in watching the inequities of life... tired-sweating-routine lives of our livestock... for instance, the work animals, mules who had no past and no future, just the dread of working everyday in the hot sun, eating the same thing day after day. It occurred to me, early in life, that most of the people I knew did not have any more future than the work animals. My parents, grandparents, other people I knew worked-sweated-daily routine, much as work animals. Their only future was getting old-haggard heading to the graveyard. The difference in the lives of human beings from lower animals, they went to church. But the church seemed just so much emptiness, here on the earth, just thinking about "Pie in the Sky."

It was during the Great Depression, poverty everywhere (People forget that 7 million died from starvation in America). My parents-grandparents were landowners... some of North Carolina's first families, actually owned an automobile, yet even they were poverty stricken.

One aunt and uncle, living on a nice farm, inherited from my great grandfather, lost their farm because they could not pay for a mule. They had borrowed money from the local bank (BB&T, the world's worst bank) to replace a mule which had died. Could not repay the money for the price of the mule and the bank seized their farm. Banks are just big ponzi schemes, making money through 97% loans. Then as now, banks are in control of your life, pals and pets of government. I still remember one aunt who stood in line all day attempting to get her money out of the bank before the bank closed down during the Great Depression. The stress killed her. My parents and others were able to comprehend such deceit and dereliction of government, but to me, as a small child, the neglect of God. I went into depression after my aunt's death.

One young mother and her son had moved into an empty house on our farm. The woman had no other place to go. There was some discarded furniture in the house and she had a few things. Her son, Ralph, was about my age and we became friends... one of the few friends I had growing up. My father, with his equipment, prepared large wood piles which we would use both for heating and cooking. My father had 300 acres of woodland and it was Ralph's responsibility to find the limbs and sticks for heating and cooking at his house. I helped him. It was at that time, I learned about Ralph's remarkable mind. He could talk about any type of plant-tree-animal, he knew about the planets. The books from school which he read, he memorized. Yet, to my certain knowledge, Ralph's mind was never put to good use.

More remarkable, every few weeks a very fine car from a nearby town would stop in front of Ralph's and his mother's tenant house on our farm. His mother would go out and get into the car with the man. He would drive up to a path and drive down into the woods. Of course Ralph, my family, everyone knew what was going on. My father would joke about going out into the woods and shooting a gun to scare the 'love for pay' activity. His mother had enough money so she could go to my cousin's country store and buy some groceries. Ralph had been to town once in his life. All of these activities did not bother him, did not bother my family. Evidently did not bother the neighbors or those at the church house. People were doing anything to survive. But, it bothered me and I would sink into depression because of such scenes. The fact that no one seemed to care, family, neighbors, EVEN GOD.

The church house and the school house were the main forces in our home. I still remember "joining the church." No one seemed to care... I did not have one person speak to me about my "decision for Christ" except one aunt, who casually had mentioned that I joined the church. One would think, if God were so important in the lives of these people that there would be much happiness about anyone, especially the child with my ancestral background, taking this stand. The crazed thinking of my relatives, our neighbors, the people in the church, is just a matter of how people, in the church, perform for God. And it was just expected that the son of my parents-grandparents-great grandparents active in this church their entire lives, would just join the line. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans, 8:31). Most church people I know just want a "checklist" Christianity, a "bellhop" faith. Satin knows that with God, nothingness to somethingness and Satin is only happy when you compromise. My church life has been marked by observing compromising members. My depression resulted more from my own hypocrisy and observing others hypocrisy than any other one single thing. It was when I recognized that Christianity is a "wrestling match" (Ephesians, 6) that you do not have a chance without God, that, "Because greater is He that is in you, than He that is in the world" (1 John, 4:4).

My bad marriages were because of depression, realizing the deceit involved. God worked me over in college, the military, my professional, political, financial activities. I do believe that my disappointment with people was the fulcrum of all depression.

After God arranged for me to sense the entire world (Dr. Morris has traveled around the world 8 times, passport stamped in 157 countries) and I realize that God's chief creation, human beings, different colors, different attitudes... even faiths are very much the same and His business. He is in charge, He is Boss. I cannot become depressed because of the world, its inequities. God has assured me that I am important to Him, that He is all I need. There is no greater blessing for the mind of man, self indulged or not, fragile-sick-crippled-blind. "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee" (HEB, 13:5), my cure and your cure for depression.