The Well and the Rope

Read Psalm 69.

The sides are too slippery;
there is no fingerhold by which
to climb out of the well
where I have fallen. Doesn’t matter now
why or how or when I fell;
it only matters that I can’t get out and
I’m sinking in the soft mud and
all my clambering
only drives me deeper.

The voices return when I’m in the pit
—the accusations, the jibes,
the litany of my failures—and I cannot
shut them out or
turn them off or
talk back to them with any
conviction. Their testimony rings true:
I am a sinner unrepentant,
a failure undeserving,
a mistake uncorrected.
I feel like a waste of space.

What’s that? Are you kidding me?
Praise the Lord?
How can I sing praises
from the bottom of this well?
How can I sing the songs of Zion
while exiled in a foreign land?
If I had a harp
I would hang it on the branches
of a willow and refuse to play.

I don’t blame God,
but I fear God. I long to believe
in divine compassion, but my mind
and heart are full instead
of pictures of a tyrant,
a bully,
my father writ large.
All I can do is hide.

And yet to whom else shall I call?
Who else will hear my cry?
Who can help if not the Spirit?
I cannot put my trust in pharmaceuticals,
for the problem is more than chemistry.
I cannot think or talk my way out of the pit.
The water is up to my neck, and
I am sinking, and
I have to stand on tiptoes
merely to breathe.
How long can this go on?

I wait in silence.
I watch with red-rimmed eyes.
I find no words, and yet I pray.

Slowly, ever so slowly
I see the black turn gray at the lip
of the well. Slowly
I begin to make out the outline
of the bricks in the wall.
My prayer has come before the God
of mercy, God
the deliverer, the God

who hears the needy and

does not despise God’s
own who are in bondage.

Dawn breaks and
my heart revives, for
my wordless prayer,
the inarticulate groaning
of my spirit
has come before God, whose Spirit
understands the inexpressible language
of the ones with no foothold.
In a whisper God calls me Beloved,
says I am enough
just as I am,
comforts me with words of life
and hope
and courage,
and tosses down a rope.

_________________________

If you have ever felt the way the narrator of this poem feels while in the well, I encourage you to seek help. Depression is not something you can “snap out of”—it’s a serious mental illness that requires treatment just as much as diabetes or heart failure or any other physical illness. For some, depression is episodic and linked to one’s life circumstances. For others it is a chronic condition that must be monitored and treated. The results of inaction can be dire and traumatic for those suffering and for those who love them.

My depression is of the chronic variety, and this poem describes what it feels like when I am stuck in a depressive “pit.” It’s no fun. I am currently experiencing a relatively mild depressive episode. I have not had a severe one in many months. For this I credit the medication my health care team has settled on (it took a while to get the combination of drugs and dosages right), some talk therapy, and the practice of centering prayer that I have engaged in for the last several years.

Teachers of centering prayer assure us that there is a continual conversation going on in our depths between our spirit and God’s, whether we are aware of it or not. This practice of disciplined silence is a way of tapping into that wordless but powerful conversation. I have no empirical evidence to back it up, but I believe my centering prayer practice has had a positive effect on my brain chemistry and has worked in tandem with my drug regimen and the other ways I have sought to improve my mental health.

If you would like to try centering prayer and other methods of encountering God, I encourage you to join the prayer practices group that meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month in the church library at 7pm. Our next gathering will be Wednesday, January 31.

I wish you the best on your journey. Don’t stay in the well. Grab the rope.

Grace and peace,
bob