Some people made a vacation week around the 4th of July.
I saw some statistics that made me wonder about taking a vacation. Here are the stats. There are 365 days in the year (right). We take weekends off, so subtract 104 days. That leaves 261 work days. A normal work day is eight hours. We do other things sixteen hours a day. So subtract 174 days. That leaves eighty-seven work days.
But wait: the average person consumes forty-five days per year at lunch. That leaves forty-two work days. Minus breaks, figure twenty-one days. That leaves twenty-one days per year to actually work. From that, a two-week vacation leaves only eleven workdays. Many companies also allow holidays. Subtract ten: that leaves one full work day per year.
Now there's something radically wrong about that math. It doesn't make sense. And so I’m going to take a week off, and I hope you take a vacation too even if it's doing nothing.
The word of God takes us back in our imaginations to the 6th century before Jesus, the 500s. The prophet Ezekiel witnessed Babylonia destroy the three pillars of Hebrew life: the monarchy, the city of Jerusalem and the temple. And yet, despite this catastrophe, the spirit of God energizes the discouraged Ezekiel to continue proclaiming his message to the tone-deaf Hebrews: live an other-centered, God-centered life. Ezekiel may be challenging us to do the same but are we, like the Hebrews, tone-deaf to the message.
Paul in his letter to the Christian community in Corinth, Greece alludes to a “thorn in his own flesh.” Biblical scholars have debated for centuries about what this disability was that seemed to handicap Paul. I think of many well-known successful people who overcame handicaps: Helen Keller. FDR. Beethoven was deaf.
But St. Paul lived a purpose-driven life. In fact, he faced many tough audiences. But he says the power of God’s grace sufficed for him to overcome the many challenges and disappointments he encountered in his ministry.
Paul is even grateful for his own“disability.” And why? Because Jesus is his model par excellence: powerless on the cross, Jesus burst forth all-powerful from the tomb into a new indescribable heavenly reality that can be ours as well.
In the Gospel according to Mark, the Spirit of God enters into Jesus and empowers him to speak to a tough-minded audience, his own relatives and friends in Nazareth. But they rejected his “good news.” “Who is he?” they asked. “Isn’t he one of us, a carpenter? Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith or trust in God.
Ezekiel, Paul and Jesus all spoke to tough-minded audiences that sometimes were downright hostile. All three must have been disappointed at times when their audiences seemed to turn them and their message off. Yes, they must have felt misunderstood, disheartened and even depressed at times.
And so I would like to focus briefly on depression. Most of us get depressed to some degree at some point in our lives. How deal with depression and make it work for us instead of against us?
First of all, I am talking here about occasional, minor, normal depression, not severe, ongoing, debilitating depression. When depression is severe and debilitating, we need professional help at once.
But depression is sometimes a temporary occurrence. For no apparent reason, we feel blue, out of sync, unable to motivate ourselves.
I know of at least three basic forms of depression:
1. One form occurs when our chemical balance is out of whack. Psychiatrists can help us manage this imbalance with medication after a diagnostic consultation.
2. A second form is caused by something outside ourselves. It’s a loss that affects our well-being, for example, the death of a parent or spouse or child, a divorce, a retirement, an unexpected life-threatening diagnosis, an “empty nest”—the children are gone, it's the end of a relationship, we're unemployed, we've had a life-threatening diagnosis. Time generally helps heal depression due to loss. Support groups are invaluable in dealing with loss.
3. A third form of depression is often linked with stress. We run out of energy to deal with the demands we feel are being made upon us. For example, a person tries desperately to do everything perfectly, just right. But most things in life don’t work out perfectly. Often we have to muddle through a situation and make the best of it. Stressed-out people often take on the expectations of others without expressing their own limitations, without saying no.
So then, how deal positively with depression?
1. As we grow older and wiser, we realize that trying to do everything perfectly doesn’t matter as much. We may say yes to something—but at our pace and in our way. It also becomes easier to say no when we realize our own limitations. Yes, we’ll try to do the things we have to do as best we can, but we won’t take on more than we can handle.
2. Recognize our early stress symptoms so we can deal with them. For example, we know we’re getting depressed when we (fill in the blanks) … we get irritable, we can’t sleep. If we’re irritable, this may be telling us we need to get away briefly from a particular situation. And if we feel unmotivated, this may be telling us to do things differently, more creatively.
3. Acknowledge depression so that we can take control of it. Communicate with family; let them know how we feel. We can ask them, for example, to be more reasonable if we think they are taking advantage of us. Take charge of our own lives. Re-energize ourselves by re-discovering purpose in life again? Engage in physical activity, walking, gardening, golfing, cycling or whatever. In other words, get up out of that couch. If work has become boring, change our habits, vary our routine. Do something we like; call friends; lend a helping hand; volunteer; find something to look forward to. Rekindle our spiritual life by reading perhaps the Bible or a book like Rick Warren's “The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth am I here for.”
And last but not least, a fellow furry creature such as a dog or cat or bird can be a treasured companion.
So, if we’re feeling at times the way Ezekiel and Paul and Jesus must have felt at times—disappointed, misunderstood, depressed--consider these suggestions so that we can make depression work for us, not against us. Re-discover purpose in our life.
And remember especially St. Paul’s words today: “my grace is sufficient for you,” whatever comes our way. God is always with us, closer to us than we are to ourselves.
