We’re moving into the heart of autumn, and finally my yard is covered in the first layer of leaves—a sign that my sons will soon have rakes in hand. I’ve had the requisite Starbucks Apple Crisp drink, and my front door is flanked by pumpkins. Gorgeous days dance with vivid blues and golds, and leaves twirl to earth in picture-perfect playfulness. There’s a beautiful magic to seasonal changes that romances us and suspends disbelief from all but the most committed cynics.
For many among us, though, autumn also brings the early clouds of mysterious lows—a spectrum of depressing moods that, seasonal or not, Winston Churchill called his “black dog.” Longer shadows, distant warmth and the sense that the calendar is hastening to a close brings a vague sense of loneliness and loss. For some, tangible losses or present struggles coincide with all the insulting incongruence of pumpkin frivolity. To one degree or another, I’ve encountered this unwelcome gloom over the years.
It’s even more puzzling when the best weather conditions, school or career successes, and spirited football hype cannot dispel an inexplicable cloud. Alcohol can dull it, but it returns with the same vague melancholy the next day. Schedules and social fun can indeed distract us, but when we’re alone, the old “black dog” begins its distant, lonely howling. Why?
Having suffered through it before—with every worldly need satisfied, and without losses to explain it—I sympathize with those who find themselves gripped by the ugly old enemy. Psychologists and psychiatrists offer their volumes of material explanations, some of which are helpful, and many of which are not. Fellow travelers share their struggles as well; but in the end, a wide variety of the afflicted, with their various chemistries and personal baggage, can agree that heavy spirits are, at times, an inscrutable foe.
With the exception of chemically-rooted depressions from artificial disruptions—surgeries or pharmaceuticals, for example—most of our “black dogs” started as puppies playing at the edges of life. Maybe a perfectly good passion or project consumed us—slowly, but surely—and suddenly, we hit a wall of disillusionment. Maybe years of enjoying the smiles and applause of others have somehow given way to embarrassing insignificance or isolation. Past moral failings and bitter disappointments can harass us, stealing joy and mocking us in the fleeting years that remain.
In all these cases, we find ourselves searching desperately for some feeling of contentment that has grown maddeningly elusive. To make matters worse, all the expert opinions and data leave us wondering whether our depression puts us in danger or just calls for friendship and exercise. The world of online “support” is often a frightening assortment of dire warnings, new age ramblings, and dark confessionals. Clarity is as transient as happiness, it seems.
While we are not all equally prone to low moods, we nonetheless all find ourselves, from time to time, in the same quandary— in need of lifting up, and fumbling for light on a pitifully dark path. No amount of wealth, education, popularity or beauty can illuminate our hearts reliably. Yet, it is one of life’s grandest discoveries that such light does exist, and it comes by the loving providence of the one who composed our mysterious medley of body, mind and spirit.
I love the Old Testament, not only for its ancient battle scenery, so strange to our modern ears, but also for its honest takes on human emotion. Many recall just a few bible scenes from childhood Sunday school lessons—Adam and Eve sharing an apple, Daniel surrounded by lions, or Moses standing before a burning bush. The watercolor imagery is intriguing enough for little eyes, but the accounts instruct even graying adults in matters of the heart.
We learn from David that even those who love God can eventually find themselves in another’s adulterous embrace. Even worse, we see how one sin leads to another; David covered his unthinkable tryst by arranging for Bathsheba’s husband’s death. Yet, this same guilty David wrote many of the Psalms, which included plaintive words of depression, and the Bible says he was “a man after God’s own heart.”
Moses, the prophet who led God’s people through miraculous episodes of redemptive history, lacked the confident eloquence we search for in leaders. His objection, “I am not a man of words, for I am of slow speech, and of a slow tongue,” told of his self-conscious fears of facing Pharaoh. Even miraculous signs and God’s own promises couldn’t convince doubting Moses, who continued to insist that he was the wrong man for the job. Don’t we find it hard to believe God can empower and deliver average people like us?
From Jacob, we learn that manipulative lies bring broken relationships and hardship. From his wife Leah, we learn that God is compassionate to the victims of lies—in her case, the unloved woman. Childless Rachel teaches us that even noble longings cut deep, and jealousy burns still deeper; but later, she shows us her own picture of what God’s compassion for aching hearts looks like.
The oldest story, though, is the one at the heart of it all. We see in Eve that stubborn propensity to question God’s intent, particularly when a sexy alternative sits before us. Haven’t we all chafed at one of God’s commands? All it takes is a clever twist on God’s words to justify a world of deadly disobedience.
Many will still dismiss the Bible’s dramatic histories. Since the dusty setting of those biblical accounts, humans have achieved impressive things, and seemingly without any need for miracles. We’ve constructed the Babels of skyscrapers, planes, GPS and wireless technology. We have cures for everything—acne, distraction, heart disease, cancer, and even once-taboo sexual pathologies. Who gets polio anymore? We grow embryos in labs. Schools raise up our 21st century offspring and let them choose genders. One might reasonably imagine that history’s accounts, while curious or inspiring, have little useful to say about our modern predicaments, which we’ve solved through science, technology, and the state—or have we?
Despite our astonishing advances, we can’t declare victory over earth’s intractable troubles. In our rush to find something newer, cooler and less restrictive than the boring old Christian faith, we’ve acquired a sinister kind of progress. We’ve moved further along in our depravity, reaching new lows and concocting more acts of perversion and achieving greater scales of violence than our ancestors. We also have more divorce, depression and mental disorders plaguing all socioeconomic levels of our society. Children know less of everything good and more of the crude and lewd. Yes, we have seen progress, if the goal is nihilistic destruction.
If our modern calamity teaches us anything, it is that our human hearts are not to be trusted, despite the glib but awfully popular advice to “follow your heart” or “believe in yourself.” We shouldn’t be surprised, for God himself long ago told us as much.
