Here's a link to an audio of the sermon I preached on Sunday, June 20, 2010. Some background . . .
One out of every 10 Americans will experience clinical depression during their lifetime. Dark emotion will become chronic and debilitating, affecting their ability to function, interact with others, and derive pleasure from life. One out of every four women will be clinically depressed at some point in her life. Because of our increasingly complex and interrelated world, clinical depression has become a modern epidemic.
Says Parker Palmer: "People walk around saying, 'I don't understand why so-and-so committed suicide.' Well, I understand perfectly why people take their lives. They need the rest. Depression is absolutely exhausting. It's why, day by day for months at a time, I wanted to take my life. What I don't understand is why some people come through on the other side and reclaim life with new vividness and with new intensity. That is the real mystery to me."
Depression is real, common, and treatable. Contrary to the way it makes us fee, it doesn't disqualify us.
In this audio sermon, I explore the nature and experience of depression through the life of one of Israel's greatest prophets, Elijah. With Elijah, we listen for the negative messages that play in our heads tumbling us into despair, we watch for the presence of those angels who nudge us and tell us to do such things as "get up and eat," and we walk the long journey into the dark cave that can become a womb of rebirth into human community.