At the weekend theology courses we always have a Sunday service, but interestingly for a Catholic group, we never celebrate the Eucharist. This seems to be gentle but firm rejection of the idea that you have to have an ordained priest around to get anything properly religious done, which...seems very sensible given the shaky ground the Church is on, around here anyway.
So anyway, no Mass today, but instead a service with the gospel reading for the first Sunday of Lent, which is about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness before he begins his ministry. This one has always made me kind of squirmy, what with the devil and all, but today I guess I was in a different mood.
Ever since my dearest brother sent me to the BBC Sea of Faith series, I've been taken by Albert Schweitzer's idea that Jesus was not in fact a god, or god-made-flesh, but instead a man convinced that he was the Messiah. Someone had to preach repentance and ultimately die to precipitate the end times and save the Jewish people, and he thought that person would have to be him. The time in the wilderness, in that light, is Jesus's own description of his struggle with this calling he felt so strongly, and yet quite understandably also wanted to avoid. What struck me today was that I can so easily draw parallels to my own journey through motherhood and depression, aka whatever I have been doing for the last eight years...
The passage is Luke 4:1-13 and I'm cut-and-pasting the New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition from biblegateway.com.
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”
Susannah, full of naive ideas and not possessed of any good root system in the world, decided it would be a super idea to pack up the family and move to a foreign country. She spent many, many mind-numbing hours with her small children, mostly just trying to keep it together. The voices said to her, "You have clearly been called to become a stay-at-home mom. You have two healthy kids and live in a lovely apartment in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Why aren't you more grateful?" And her heart said, "I'm doing the best I can here, but I'm miserable. And somehow I know that there is more to me than this."
Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
And the voices said, "well if you're so damn unhappy, why don't you get a job? You could easily do academic editing, or probably even technical writing, or take a class in data science or programming. It would get you out of the house and you could earn some money!" And her heart said, "but that's just it, I'm responsible for these kids and we don't need money. I do want to get out of the house, but I have the opportunity and therefore also the responsibility not just to participate in this whole consumerist mess we're in, but to make some real positive contribution to the world. Maybe. I think?"
Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
This is the one that really got me today. Is this not, in religious language, the experience of wondering whether you should just jump and get the whole thing over with? There were so, so many days when I just wanted to slit my wrists. Not that I was in any real danger of committing suicide, exactly; these were those times when every minute at the park seemed like an hour, when I had tried to be social but it only ended in stress and shame, when I hated how messy the house was and hated the thought of cleaning in equal measure, when a kid had some simple need for attention and all I wanted to do was lock myself in my room. When the one thought on repeat in my head was get. me. out. of. here. PLEASE. And the only way out was through - one endless minute at a time, one foot in front of the other, knowing that even if I was making a hash of things, there wasn't an easy way out.
But now, there's light at the end of the tunnel. I still don't have a real job, I still don't know what I should be doing, but now I have whole days when I plug along pretty contentedly. And I look back and what seemed like such a disaster...by the grace of God somehow wasn't. The kids are okay. Cool, even, in their own special ways. And the fog of (situational) depression is lifting. Though it will probably be back, at an opportune time.
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