Fall Issue 7
You need a poet to teach you what English can do. - Jolene Nolte
Click here to download a PDF of this issue with the Greensheet
The Source of All Knowing
By Steven Gomez
I wrote this article back in my first year at Regent, and I thought it might be worth reprinting for those who may be struggling with similar feelings in these early days of their studies. Some veteran can tell you all about our plumbing problems that term. — Editor
The weekend was tough. A New Testament midterm meant that I didn’t have as much time to work on the CTC paper, and I still had to do the weekly DQ. Top things off with insomnia three nights in a row, along with a dose of depression about personal stuff, and it made for a stressful few days. I know I wasn’t alone in feeling the pressure, and I’m not singling myself out from all the other first-years and people around the college who could tell similar stories of plumbing-issue fallout. In my case, though, the pressure squeezed and brought something else to the surface as well, something I didn’t expect.
I don’t feel smart enough for Regent.
Scrambling for a paper topic, wondering what to say or even how to begin research, changing my topic, still unsure what my point even is and how research is supposed to be done—I thought I knew how to do this stuff. I expected to work hard at gaining knowledge and even some wisdom, and I know we’re all here to learn…but I can’t help feeling like everyone else has gotten a head start.
I overhear conversations about eschatology and sacramentalism and whatnot, and I quickly become fascinated, then just as quickly realize I don’t have nearly enough background reading or whatever it is that got my fellow students so discursive in the topic. I’d love to present a paper at the next academic symposium, but I’m terrified of the Q&A; who knows what questions these hyper-intelligent people will ask the poor dumb arts student? Everyone’s excited about the upcoming Laing Lectures with Stanley Hauerwas; and so am I, except this is the first I’ve ever heard his name and he’s supposed to be one of the foremost theologians of our time.
I thought I knew enough to get me started. I love to read and I love to write and I love having deep, meaningful conversations. But something feels overwhelming, like I’m supposed to already know the things I’m just learning about now. As I barrel towards the end of only my second term, I already have fears that I’m too far behind, too slow on the uptake, too clueless to make the grade.
Sitting in the library, stressing about sources for my paper (not to mention a thesis), my friend Gustavo sits down beside me to work. We chat in whispers and he shows me a method for outlining that resembles writing a story.
I’m in chapel and Paul Spilsbury is preaching about the sick man at the pool of Bethesda, with his narrative of shame and resentment as he finds himself helpless while everyone makes it to the goal ahead of him. Yet Jesus doesn’t judge or moralize or tell him to get his thinking straight. He simply asks, “Do you want to be well?” and makes him so.
And after the sermon we take communion together and I am reminded for the hundred-thousandth time that Jesus gave me these things not just to save and heal, but also to nourish and sustain. “Apart from me, you can do nothing.”
Some days it is hard to remember that I’m not here of my own volition. I was called to this place, and had to trust that God would make it possible. Now I can only assume that He calls me to trust Him to provide friends and stories and nourishment to see me through. That if I abide in Him—simply show up, ready and willing—He is strong to grow the fruit. That His power is made perfect in weakness. And that He is the source of all knowledge and wisdom and understanding.
I sit in the library again, this time reading my NT textbook, and I come across a psalm from the Dead Sea Scrolls: “Blessed art Thou, my God, who openest the heart of Thy servant to knowledge!…For without Thee no way is perfect, and without Thy will nothing is done. It is Thou who has taught all knowledge and all things come to pass by Thy will. There is no one beside Thee to dispute Thy counsel or to understand all Thy holy design, or to contemplate the depth of Thy mysteries and the power of Thy might.” (1QS 11)
And even as I feel like a scholar digging up some ancient scrap of parchment, I realize that scholarship isn’t worth beans if it doesn’t flow out from God’s revelation. There’s nothing like knowing the Source of all knowing.
Afternoon Bus
By Alice Hodgkins
On the median on 16th Street there is a double bed
—frame, boxspring, mattress—
all made up with cotton sheets and a quilt with pale pink roses.
Cardboard perched on pillows announces, Free!
I am heading home from two hours spent in quiet sunshine trying
to squeeze blood from my pen,
and I think that bed is perhaps the finest expression I have ever seen
of love or anger or poetry.
Practical Ways of Coping with Depression (Part 2)
By Anne Shannon, MA CCC
Anne Shannon is a full-time counsellor in private practice and part of Regent’s network of local counsellors. At the beginning of lockdown, she made available to Regent some further ideas for self-care during the pandemic. Students can find these through the Mental Health Resources link on Moodle (in the sidebar under Student Life). See our previous issue on mental health for Part I of this article.
Last week we looked at some physiological and emotional tools to help cope with depression. This week let’s look at a few more.
ACTIVITY:
Connecting with family and friends is much needed. It may not be easy, and it may require lots of extra energy you feel you don’t have. Think of 1-2 people who you trust, feel safe with, and enjoy as people. Talk to them regularly, just about life, or things you share in common. Enjoy a meal together, laugh, do something together.
Laughter is very helpful for shifting physiology, as well as helping to shift perspectives. Even if it’s a comedy you like to watch, or jokes you like to share.
Dance: this includes movement, and your body. It is also connecting if you are doing it with others, and expressive if you are listening to music.
Do something you enjoy, even if this is hard because you have lost your usual interest. If there is a hobby or craft you know you enjoy, or can do with your hands, try to engage it in small ways as a way of saying: This is something that matters to me, regardless of how I am feeling, or my ability to focus on it. If it is hard to focus, only do it for a shorter amount of time.
Establish a regular rhythm to your days and week: Having a general regular routine (that can be flexible) is helpful to create a rhythm to life. It needs to have variety, but a regular rhythm helps create a sense of movement through time that helps with the sense of meaninglessness or despair that depression can bring.
The regular tasks of life can be helpful, at different times. Tasks like laundry or washing dishes are tactile, and have a sense of restoring order that can often help shift moods and feelings. Organizing a closet or tidying and putting things in their own place can also help; seeing something visually come together helps with the feelings of the bigger intangible things that feel out of control or chaotic. This is harder if we have young children, but it can be helpful to create a time towards the end of the day to set things back in their places.
REFRAMING OUR PERSPECTIVE:
Using our five senses to engage in life and notice our interacting with the world.
This is a more extensive exercise I often teach. A simple summary is to take a few minutes to notice the world around us through one or more of our five senses. Nature is a helpful place to do this. But we can do this anywhere, anytime with anything. You will notice our world is full of sensory things!
• Focus on something around you.
• Notice it through one of the five senses.
• Describe it with the sense: i.e., the texture is smooth, hard, cold
• Describe how you feel in response to it: soothing, calming, ahhh
That’s it! This exercise does many things, but here, in this simple form, it helps us notice the world around us, and pulls us into a different perspective. It is also helpful if we notice calming, soothing things, so that we can focus on engaging those things at a moment we need that and help us take care of our emotion. An example: if we notice that candlelight is warming and calming, we might light a candle and watch the light when we need that.
What you tell yourself.
Depression often brings with it a strong sense of meaninglessness, despair, and hopelessness in life. That grows out of the dulling down of the sense of goodness in any interactions with things of life we enjoy. When this is strong, it can sometimes help to catch ourselves (when we can) and realize that our thoughts and feelings right then are part of depression, and while they feel very true in the moment, are not actually true of life.
It can help to turn it into a short, simple statement we can remember to tell ourselves. Like: “This is depression speaking; it’s only depression’s view of it. I can decide if that is true or not. While this feels true right now, I still believe _________ to be true, even though I can’t see that right now.” Or even more simply: “This is what depression is telling me. I don’t actually think this is true.” Or: “Depression is only an experience I am living. It does not say who I am, or what my future is.”
This helps to begin the separation of the experience of depression or anxiety from who we are. Usually both depression and anxiety can feel like they have the truth of who we are, and what life is, especially when they are overwhelming.
Living in pandemic isn’t helpful with depression and anxiety. Being asked to “stay in place” and the sense we can’t plan anything only make the meaninglessness and despair loom larger.
Make small plans for the day or the week, the things you know you can do. Or over a set of 3 months.
Make plans to work on things that you know you would do regardless, pandemic or not. A project that has a beginning, middle, and end is a great way to engage movement through a project and capture that feeling. Especially when it’s a project that matter to you.
Remind yourself that in history, people have made it through pandemic, and it has ended, and people picked up movement in life again.
* * *
None of these tools are a magic fix, or formula. Together, especially the ones you find are helpful to you, they begin to shift the experience and you find it easier to figure things out in life again. Sometimes you have to try different ones, at different times, because they don’t seem to be as helpful as they once were. Different feelings will create that. Then you just go back and find something else that helps in that season.
Lastly, know you are courageous and strong. By acknowledging this is hard and you need some help, you have taken the biggest step towards shifting the experience of depression. That is what turns this around.
Hope these are of help to you!