I have read “Seeing Beyond Depression” by Jean Vanier and I feel
understood
accepted
celebrated.
I have read how a child is so vulnerable, how the child feels the slightest slight
how the child hides the feelings of hate
how the child constructs a place where feelings, thoughts, imaginings can be hidden
and kept safe
while the struggle continues
how this
box where pain and fear are hidden can become a
haunting box
gripping and pulling the child-in-the-person down and down
until the child-in-the-person is sunk again
to the bottom of the bottomless lake
and how this pain confusion anxiety that overwhelms and drowns the person, until the person cannot move to help themself
and wants to be no more
- so awful is his drowning
that
the will to not be is the strongest will of all
until there is a moment of relief
that joins up with another moment
until
it becomes a jigsaw in formation
until
the pieces of relief join up and there can be a flurry of pieces joining up and there can be some
light
of relief
and the sunlight can shine into the darkest deepest places
where the drowning was
and the person begins to
germinate again
just as after the harshest freezing frost there is the
miracle of resurrection
the unwrapping of the sepulchre
the unbalming to the light
and the first stumbling out of the cave, the tomb
the burial place where the drowning suffocating took place
and the soul of the person to make a note resound again
as a miracle
as an amazing escape from the last rites
an escape that might lead to hope of another escape after each bout
until the escaping is seen as not an escape, but a normal process
in the continuous resurrecting of things
All life is resurrecting and when it is not resurrecting, it is preparing for resurrecting
even when it is drowning in the garden of Gethsemane
or in the wood Dante knew
or when
it is in the depression I know so well…
Everything is getting ready to be something else
so
that the surprise that is life
can be
and continue to be,
even when it is not recognised.
There are always closed eyes
always closing eyes
always slowing eyes
always wakening eyes.
It is now time for me to pay
attention to the
birds.
(Easter Monday morning 2007)
ps this is not meant to be a poem, even if it looks like one… even if it sounds like one…
