Remember there's a plan

RELIGION TODAY - Published Saturday December 6th, 2008

In many churches, the four weeks before Christmas are the season of Advent.

It comes from the Latin word "Adventus" which means "coming" and it really is a season of preparation. In my church, we have blue candles and pulpit clothes which set a sombre mood -- a mood of expectation and longing.

This year that sombreness seems closer than ever; there are so many things that seem to have gone wrong with the world -- from global warming right through the economic meltdown there seems to be nothing but bad news on the horizon.

I am not sure about you; but I think I have seen more stressed out people this fall than I remember from ever before. The religious question in all this becomes "where can we find God?" and perhaps we also ask "Is there any hope in these troubled times?"

The season began some six days ago with a prophet of ancient Israel yelling to God, asking that the heavens be torn open so that God would make the earth shake. "Anything to make us believe that there is more than this!" he seemed to be asking.

That is Advent.

And we have all stood at the precipice of grief in one way or another and looked into that personal abyss. We have all had things happen to us that make us question -- question the goodness of the world, question our values, question God.

We have all had to begin again; and we begin with expectancy.

I love the stories of Advent. Of Gabriel whispering in Mary's ear, silently changing Joseph's mind. The visit of Mary with her cousin Elizabeth; a story which to anyone who has ever seen a pregnant woman rings so true to life, as they are overjoyed with their expectation. Even John the Baptist with his rough camel skin clothing odd dietary practices brings something interesting to the table.

All of these characters remind us that the time is not now. They are all looking to the future. Joseph and Mary are starting a family, Mary and Elizabeth are giving birth, and John is making the rough places smooth. In each story, we are asked to imagine ourselves looking around at what we see, and knowing that God has something else in store.

So what does God have in store for us? I am certainly not the type of person who believes that God controls the outcome of every roll of the die, at the same time, I believe in divine purpose. Which is to say the universe is unfolding "for" something; there is a plan of sorts; just not one that says that God pre-ordained there to be snow this Christmas.

What I mean by plan is more like this: spring is supposed to follow winter. That is the way it was designed. The universe and all the characters that fret and strut their way across its stage are supposed to be living in peace and harmony and love. It is just the natural order of things.
The fact that there seems to be a lot more stress than love right now is a pretty good indication that we are living in the "not yet." We are living in the season of Advent.

We are not waiting to be rescued, or at least we shouldn't be. We are not waiting for that one way ticket to heaven; because there are no guarantees. We are waiting to be reminded.

In a few different ways, the Bible says that Jesus came into the world to remind us of God. Another way we can say this is that Jesus came to remind us about love. Not romantic love, but true, deep down, heartfelt compassion. The kind of love we figure would be behind making the world such a beautiful place.

We tell the story of that love being born into the world in an unexpected way; as the son of a young girl and a carpenter in a stable in an out of the way desert province of the Roman Empire. We aren't waiting for that to happen again. But we should be on the lookout for an even more unexpected way that love becomes the centre of our world. God will remind us, somehow, somewhere, during this season; what it is to be human.

That is worth waiting for.

What if you don't care that you don't care?

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday December 1st, 2008

I heard a new word this week: Acedia.

Apparently there are words in the English language that come and go from time to time. It seems that we change enough as a society that some words just have no relevance to us anymore and we drop them. I am not trying to step on the toes of "Lex Talk"; just trying to justify to myself not hearing about a whole word.

Acedia is a word derived from ancient Greek describing a state of listlessness, of not caring or not being concerned with one's position or condition in the world. It can lead to a state of being unable to perform one's duties in life.

Now originally it was brought into our vocabulary because of monks. Think of it this way -- if you are suffering from acedia you don't care about anything; you don't even care that you don't care. So if you are a monk and what you do today is the same as what you did yesterday and the exact same as what you are going to do tomorrow and well, it is all just one repetition and you all of a sudden start thinking, "what is it all for? Nothing ever changes?" you might just be suffering from this condition.

I am not immune to depression. Not only do I know a lot of people who suffer from it; but it affects me from time to time. I am one of the lucky ones; when I get depressed more often than not it is situational and after any combination of time, rest, medication, and therapy; I seem to recover.

So far, there has been no acedia. As opposed to not caring, I realize I am getting depressed when I begin to realize that I do not enjoy.

I am quite an "experiential" person. I eat things because I want to experience them, for example. It really would not matter whether I liked them or not, I would still want to try them. I travel for the same reason. I love to experience life in all its fullness and so really pay attention to even the bad and painful things because they offer different experiences that I simply cannot get while everything is going well.

So every now and then there comes this time when something really good will happen to me, or I will get the chance to experience something absolutely new and different; and try as I might, I just don't seem to feel happy about it.

Did you know that 20 per cent of people in Canada will suffer from depression in their lifetime? Suicide alone kills 25 per cent of our young people and 16 per cent of adults.

This is important to realize because suicide is the result when depression goes as far as becoming acedia.

Think about it, if life no longer holds any meaning, if you truly do not care, and you do not even care that you do not care -- why go on?

This is a true danger for many people. And it is becoming more and more prevalent; which is why the word is coming back into common usage. I truly believe that one of the major problems that face us today is meaninglessness.

It is quite easy to start asking what meaning life has for you. It is even easier to ask that question once you realize you have most of the things you want. As long as life is about getting the house, getting the spouse, getting the kids, getting the good job, getting a boat, getting a big screen television you can at least substitute future goals for actual meaning. Most of us do this.

There comes a time though when you look around the house and realize you have most of what you imagined you would. Then what?

Traditionally we might call this a mid-life crisis. I think this is probably because it takes us about 40 years to get everything in order and then realize there must be more to it than this. But it could happen at 15, 20, 30 or 60.

It might lead to doing crazy things to try to bring meaning; like hang gliding or buying a Porsche.
But we soon realize that more things are not going to fill the hole. That is often when depression kicks in.

And if we do not do anything about it -- becomes worse and leads us to acedia which can lead us to suicidal thoughts.

There are countless people around you right now suffering from depression. Trust me. But the problem is that we have attached such a serious stigma to this, and we do discriminate so much that most people hide their own problems.

I don't know if it is superstition, lack of knowledge and empathy, old belief systems, or a tendency to fear and exclude people who are perceived as different; but stigma and discrimination have existed throughout history. They result in stereotyping, fear, embarrassment, anger and avoidance behaviours.

They force people to remain quiet about their mental illnesses, often causing them to delay seeking health care, avoid following through with recommended treatment, and avoid sharing their concerns with family, friends, co-workers, employers, health service providers and others in the community.

I just think that we should realize that life is hard. And that most of us are going to have times when we need help to get through it.

There is no shame in that.