Tag Archive - Parker Palmer

Can Depression Offer Us a Gift?

February 6, 2012 in Marriage-Family, Pastoral Counseling, Therapy-Psychology with 0 Comments

In Thomas Moore’s book, Care of the Soul, he writes eloquently about the gift that depression may offer people. It’s an opportunity to embrace emotions that we often don’t deal with, leading us to a better understanding of ourselves and how we want to direct our life. Though he acknowledges that depression can become debilitating to many people, he still posits the idea that there is a side to it (even in the most extremes cases of debilitation) that can be a gift to us, and that as friends and family of someone who is depressed, we play a crucial role. Moore writes:

“When as counselors and friends, we are the observers of depression and are challenged to find a way to deal with it in others, we could abandon the monotheistic notion that life always has to be cheerful, and be instructed by melancholy. We could learn from its qualities and follow its lead, become more patient in its presence, lowering our excited expectations, taking a watchful attitude as this soul deals with its fate in utter seriousness and heaviness. In our friendship, we could offer it a place of acceptance and containment.”

Depression is a very important topic that is often not talked about, especially when it strikes men. But in in our silence on the matter many men are not able to find the help they need. My hope is that the posts I have written the last couple of weeks on this topic have at least peeled back some of the veil of silence and helped you to begin to think more on this issue…especially if you have a loved one in your life who is suffering from it.

Check out my last three articles on the topic:

The Angry…I Mean, Depressed Male: Do You Know Him?

Communication: What ‘To Say’ And ‘Not To’ Say To A Depressed Man

Pressed to the Ground: A Theological Re-Frame of Depression

And though there are many books on this subject, here are three that I have found to be helpful and insightful.

Unmasking Male Depression: Recognizing the Root Cause to Many Problem Behaviors Such as Anger, Resentment, Abusiveness, Silence, Addictions, and Sexual Compulsiveness by Archibald Hart

I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression by Terence Real

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer

Pressed to the Ground: A Theological Re-Frame of Depression

January 27, 2012 in Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Therapy-Psychology with 1 Comment

In my continuation on the topic of depression, especially male depression (here and here), I wanted to share something with you by Parker Palmer. In his wonderful book Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (a must read), Parker has one of the most insightful, haunting, painful, and beautiful glimpses of someone who suffers from depression that I have ever read.

Parker begins the chapter with an excerpt from a book that we all read in high school, but that perhaps we might re-read differently all these years later — The Inferno of Dante:

“Midway on our life’s journey I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost. To tell
About those woods is hard–so tangled and rough.

And savage that thinking of it now, I feel
The old fear stirring; death is hardly more bitter.
And yet, to treat the good I found there as well

I’ll tell you what I saw…
–From The Inferno of Dante, Robert Pinsky trans.” (pp. 57)

Parker picks up after the quote with a gripping statement:

Midway in my life’s journey, ‘way closed’ again, this time with a ferocity that felt fatal: I found myself in the dark woods called clinical depression, a total eclipse of light and hope. But after I emerged from my sojourn in the dark and had given myself several years to absorb meaning, I saw how pivotal that passage had been on my pilgrimage toward selfhood and vocation. Though I recommend it to no one–and I do not need to, for it arrives unbidden is too many lives–depression compelled me to find the river of life hidden beneath the ice.” (pp. 57-58)

At some point in all of our lives we may experience some form of depression as we also find ourselves “midway in life’s journey.” But it is Parker’s account of his own depression that can help offer us a different way to look at it. In a sense, he offers us a paradoxical take on depression that sets up a paradigm through which to view depression that is so foreign to our culture. Most of us want to do anything we can to avoid the difficulty in life, while if at all possible numb out any painful experience we have with medications, alcohol, drugs, sex, etc. But perhaps mental health problems like depression and anxiety are the catalyst to help us see life in a new way.

Of course, this is not a paradigm that is easily seen in the midst of the “dark night of the soul“, but I am thankful for Parker’s words as it has helped me, help clients view their own depression from a different angle.

And so as I close, here is the theological re-frame that was offered up to Parker by his therapist:

“After hours of careful listening, my therapist offered an image that helped me eventually reclaim my life. ‘You seem to look upon depression as the hand of an enemy trying to crush you,’ he said. ‘Do you think you could see it instead as the hand of a friend, pressing you down to the ground on which it is safe to stand?

Amid the assaults I was suffering, the suggestion that depression was my friend seemed impossibly romantic, even insulting. But something in me knew that down, down to the ground, was the direction of wholeness, thus allowing that image to begin its slow work of healing me.

I started to understand that I had been living an ungrounded life, living at an altitude that was inherently unsafe. The problem with living at high altitude is simple: when we slip, as we always do, we have a long, long way to fall, and the landing may well kill us. The grace of being pressed down to the ground is also simple: when we slip and fall, it is usually not fatal, and we can get back up.”

“The grace of being pressed down…..” Perhaps in our darkest nights of depression it is the hand of God that is pressing us down…an act of grace that leaves us grounded and more whole.

[Interesting aside: Parker was reticent to write about his depression until he was asked to contribute an article on the theme of the "wounded healer" in memory of his friend Henri Nouwen who had also suffered at times from depression and wrote about it in several places]

Eliminating Options and Accepting Limits Brings About True Freedom

July 20, 2010 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

This last week my wife gave birth to our second child, a baby boy. The birth of a child is an amazing event, but I am hard pressed to find an event that better brings to focus one’s limitations in life, quickly eliminating many choices and options, but therefore bringing better clarity and focus to one’s life as well.

We live in a culture that says you can do anything and everything you want to do…the choices and possibilities are endless. But I suggest that that is simply not true. There are limits to what we can do and achieve, no matter what are ambition or drive is. Many see this as a hindrance, but I see it as freedom.

Sometimes having limited options and choices is true freedom because it clarifies things. Helps a person focus on something more intently, rather than always playing around with what option or choice to make.

This is experienced by humans in all stages of life, but I especially see this struggle with young adults, primarily those who are making that transition from college into the “real world”/”working world.” There are often so many choices and options before them that they quickly become anxious and paralyzed, for out of fear of making the wrong choice.

In recent years a couple of interesting books have hit the shelves that talk about this dilemma, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, and The Tyranny of Choice (just to name two).


Americans today choose among more options in more parts of life than has ever been possible before. To an extent, the opportunity to choose enhances our lives. It is only logical to think that if some choice is good, more is better; people who care about having infinite options will benefit from them, and those who do not can always just ignore the 273 versions of cereal they have never tried. Yet recent research strongly suggests that, psychologically, this assumption is wrong. Although some choice is undoubtedly better than none, more is not always better than less.

In April I wrote the post Restlessness: Not Acknowledging Our Limits Can Keep Us From Focusing on Anything Permanent, and in February of 2007 I wrote, Vocation and Identity: Part 3-Limitations and Possibilities — in these posts I try to explore the varying aspects of choices and limits.

Parker Palmer puts it best in the book Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

“Everything in the universe has a nature, which means limits as well as potentials, a truth well known by people who work daily with the things of the world. Making pottery, for example, involves more than telling the clay what to become. The clay presses back on the potter’s hands, telling her what it can and cannot do–and if she fails to listen, the outcome will be both frail and ungainly. Engineering involves more than telling materials what they must do. If the engineer does not honor the nature of the steel or the wood or the stone, his failure will go beyond aesthetics: the bridge or the building will collapse and put human life in peril.

The human self also has a nature, limits as well as potentials. If you seek vocation without understanding the material you are working with, what you build with your life will be ungainly and may well put lives in peril, your own and some of those around you. “Faking it” in the service of high values is no virtue and has nothing to do with vocation. It is an ignorant, sometimes arrogant, attempt to override one’s nature, and it will always fail.

Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks–we will also find our path of authentic service in the world. True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as ‘the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.’” (Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer, pp. 15-16)

Part of being human is accepting our limits along with our potential, and living within that tension. With each new transition in life I have had to wrestle with the number of possibilities available to me and make some choices, choices that limit other things that could have been. With every YES that I declare, a NO is declared as well. Meaning when we say YES to something, we automatically say NO to something else. Many people cannot accept this, constantly believing they can do everything…often leading to burnout, depression, workaholic mentality, etc.

When my son was born last week I automatically realized that there were some things on my plate that I could no longer attend to or attempt. I was faced with an ever increasing limiting of time with a growing family. But instead of seeing that as a hindrance, I realized what a beautiful thing it is when something like a family can help one place limitations on their life, and by doing so bringer sharper clarity to what is truly important, and to what truly needs attending to. It is a gift.

Now that I have cleared my plate of many things, the things that do remain can be focused on with more intensity and purpose than ever before. These are my limits, and with these limits comes a freedom that no longer leaves me treading water in a sea of options, fearful that I might make the wrong choice, or limit myself to all the other possibilities.

Self-Care Is Not Just About Doing, But About Being–And Some Books for the Journey

October 13, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 7 Comments

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[image by Tamara Areshian]

In my last post, When You Refuse To Take Care Of Yourself, You Are Refusing To Take Care Of Those Around You, I just briefly reflected on some comments by Rob Bell at the Catalyst Conference 2009 and how I felt they played into self-care.

Self-care is a large topic. For example, what does it mean? I know there are lots of different definitions, but I tend to think of it in terms of how one cares for themselves physically, spiritually, emotionally (psychologically). Anne Jackson adds a fourth one talking about relational health. These things involve some basic things that are sometimes difficult to integrate into our daily lives. Things like getting enough good sleep. Eating well. Setting personal boundaries. Exercising. Spiritual devotion and exercises. Etc.

A couple of observations.

Self-care just isn’t about doing the right things–it’s really a way of thinking that is connected to our identity and who we are as people. So it doesn’t matter too much if you do all the right exercises, but deep down inside you have a distorted view of who you are. Going through the motions is not the same thing as caring for one’s self.

You might say that self-care is as much about being as doing.

Also, the amount of literature on this topic is glaringly absent in many Protestant, Evangelical circles. Please tell me I’m wrong and point me towards it, and then I will stand corrected. I’m not saying there isn’t any period–I’m just saying that Protestant, especially Evangelical theology tends to leave out the topic of self-care.  It’s often the Catholic literature that one must turn towards to find any help on this issue. And many have as I have.

Again, we tend to want to go do something…to fix something. That is the wrong view to take on self-care. Ultimately there are some things that we do do…but it’s as much about who we are and about being, rather than doing.  That’s a difficult concept for many people who equate doing and busyness with godliness, spirituality, success in ministry, etc.

So what I want to do is recommend some books that I think do a good job of blending two things together: 1) Getting at the root of self-care, and issues around identity, and how they play out in our behavior. So don’t go in expecting just to find a to do list. These are books that get at the roof of the matter, and often that will take you to an uncomfortable, but necessary place. 2) Providing some practical steps for self-care and things that you can practice and hopefully integrate into your daily life.

There are lots and lots of books that I can recommend, but let me start with some basic, very accessible books that I think are MUST READS. Yes, I did say MUST READS. But then again–I’m biased. So I will start with a list of 11 (10 books and a novel series) for you. Every one of them is great and has deeply influenced my life in some profound ways around the issues of how one’s identity and being shapes their view of self-care.

  1. In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership by Henri Nouwen.
  2. The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen.
  3. The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom by Henri Nouwen.
  4. Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer.
  5. A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life by Parker Palmer.
  6. Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic by Anne Jackson.
  7. Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion by Wayne Cordeiro.
  8. Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing by Soren Kierkegaard.
  9. The New Man by Thomas Merton.
  10. The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith by Janet O. Hagberg and Robert A. Guelich
  11. The Starbridge Series by Susan Howatch (6 novels in that series–this series gives you a close up look of those involved in ministry and what happens when issues around self-care, identity, boundaries, etc. are ignored–fascinating reading).

So please add to my list and tell me what books have helped you out in this area of self-care.

Pushing Beyond the Limits of Your Pie

August 6, 2009 in Uncategorized with 4 Comments

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[image by net_efekt's]


Marathon Training
In the Spring of 2006 I had this deep yearning to run a marathon, something I had never done before, yet something I always wanted to do. Training for this marathon was going to require some shifting of things in my schedule, because 3 days a week of running, over a 16 week time frame didn’t fit into my schedule too easily. I was a full-time college pastor, a graduate student, newly married, and I had lots of interests. So I made the decision that some things in my life had to go if I wanted to add that much running to it. So what eventually went was teaching myself guitar, extra tv watching, as well as fast food and late, late nights.

Now don’t get me wrong, I actually tried to add that much running to my life without getting rid of anything else, but I kept coming up against my personal limitations as well as natural limitations. Primarily, energy and time. I didn’t have the energy to do everything I wanted to do, and the days were created in such a way that I could not add more time to them than God had already allotted. I pushed and pushed, but I couldn’t make it all fit.

Looking at our Limitations
I think we often do this in our lives. If you can imagine your day in terms of a pie graph, how do you visually break up the different elements of your day? Work, sleep, eating, relaxation, relationships, etc. The pie graph has limits because you can’t add something to that graph without shrinking one of the other elements, or all of the elements, or eliminating one or some of them. It is impossible. Yet, we try to hard to add things to our lives without acknowledging our limitations. We think we are super human and can do it all. But really, that just leads us to exhaustion and poor boundaries eventually.

For example, when I work with clients there are 3 things that I tell them they must have in their pie graph if they are going to maintain some proper mental health. Exercise, Diet, Sleep. When a client can have healthy habits in those three areas it’s actually quite amazing how that can enhance one’s life. And then we add things like relationships (time with wife, kids, family, etc.). And work of course. What about play? Hobbies?

I ended up running two marathons in 6 months (Chicago in October of 2006 and Los Angeles in March of 2007), but I had to make sacrifices and put some things in my life on hold as I mentioned above. I signed up for other marathons in 2007 and 2008, but we had our first baby that summer. I tried to go out and run, but the combination of late, late nights, and no sleep just took their toll and I ran into my limits again. Marathons could not fit into my life. Now it’s 2009 and my daughter sleeps well and I have once again decided to run a marathon this December but I have had to make some choices because I’ve learned that God has created me to live within certain limits. Limits that cannot be overcome…even with the latest technology.

So as I enter into a new season of marathon training I have decided that certain pieces of my pie are going to have to shrink if I am going to add the marathon training to it. I’m definitely not decreasing family relationships, or work, so I have decided that I have to shrink my technology use if I’m going to make room in that pie for more running, as well as more sleep to run well.

“Everything in the universe has a nature, which means limits as well as potentials, a truth well known by people who work daily with the things of the world. Making pottery, for example, involves more than telling the clay what to become. The clay presses back on the potter’s hands, telling her what it can and cannot do–and if she fails to listen, the outcome will be both frail and ungainly. Engineering involves more than telling materials what they must do. If the engineer does not honor the nature of the steel or the wood or the stone, his failure will go beyond aesthetics: the bridge or the building will collapse and put human life in peril.

The human self also has a nature, limits as well as potentials. If you seek vocation without understanding the material you are working with, what you build with your life will be ungainly and may well put lives in peril, your own and some of those around you. “Faking it” in the service of high values is no virtue and has nothing to do with vocation. It is an ignorant, sometimes arrogant, attempt to override one’s nature, and it will always fail.

Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks–we will also find our path of authentic service in the world. True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as ‘the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.’” (Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer, pp. 15-16)

Depression: Hope Through Hospitality

July 23, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

The fourth and final video I shot for LifeChurch.tv on depression aired today and is titled Finding Hope. Monday’s video was An Anchor in the Journey-Exodus 17:1. Tuesday’s video was Depression-At the Movies continued. Wednesday’s video was Walking Through Depression.

As we end this week looking at depression I wanted to focus on the idea of hope, because without hope in our lives, it is very difficult to move forward, especially out of things like depression and anxiety. The theologian Jurgen Moltmann says:

Hope is a power in this life to begin life again, to be reborn in an affirmation of life from deep depression. At the same time, hope is a comfort in the world to come beyond death. These are not contradictions. The more hope gives strength in this life, the more comfort it gives in the life to come.

The great writer Parker Palmer (who I referenced in a couple of videos) says this about his own depression. In fact, I recommend his book Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation where he talks at length about the role of depression in his life.

I got tremendous help from a therapist at one point — in one of my depressions — who said to me, “Parker, you seem to keep treating this experience as if depression were the hand of an enemy trying to crush you. Would it be possible to re-image depression as the hand of a friend trying to press you down to ground on which it’s safe to stand?” Well, those words didn’t mean much to me immediately because when you’re there, you can’t hear that kind of counsel. But they grew on me, those words did.

So as we go out into the world, let me encourage you in how you might play a vital role in helping others through depression…through the dark times in their lives. There are many ways to do this, but let me leave you with one idea: HOSPITALITY.

“One way to build upon people’s strengths is to show them hospitality. The counseling session needs to be a place where counselees are welcomed, encouraged, and complimented for what they are doing well, not where their past wrongs or present pathology is dredged up….Showing hospitality has for centuries been one of the vital tasks of pastoral care (Depression and Hope: New Insights for Pastoral Counseling, 61).

Just as a therapist welcomes, as well as provides an encouraging environment where one’s strengths and possibilities for the future are opened up, those in the Church need to do the same.

My hope is that one day those suffering from depression will not just seek the safety within the therapist’s walls, but will find a safety within the walls of the Church.

Questions:

  1. Do you know anyone right now who is suffering from depression?
  2. What can you do to come alongside of them and show hospitality?
  3. What might hospitality look like for someone in the context of depression?

Disclaimer: This blog post is not to be a substitute for professional help or advice. Please consider seeking out professional help if you consider yourself to be at risk for depression.

Identity & Relationality

March 23, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

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“The Quaker teacher Douglas Steere was fond of saying that the ancient human question ‘Who am I?’ leads inevitably to the equally important question, ‘Whose am I?’–for there is no selfhood outside of relationship. We must ask the question of selfhood and answer it as honestly as we can, no matter where it takes us. Only as we do so can we discover the community of our lives.

As I learn more about the seed of true self that was planted when I was born, I also learn more about the ecosystem in which I was planted–the network of communal relationships in which I am called to live responsively, accountably and joyfully with beings of every sort. Only when I know both seed and system, self and community, can I embody the great commandment to love both my neighbor and myself.” (pp. 17-Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer)

I love that excerpt from the book. It really expands the whole concept of identity and vocation as being simply about “me”, “I”, et cetera and expands it to the community and the relationships that we have. It is one thing to ask questions about and wrestle with what I should do, but it’s a completely different thing to ponder about whom I’m to live out my vocation before, and from whom am I to gain a sense of identity from. For Palmer and others, any sense of identity comes from the relationships that we are a part of, and outside of those relationship, we do not get a clear picture of our own identity.

Let’s play this out:

  • As Christians we gain our sense of identity in our relationship with Jesus Christ. Outside of this relationship with Jesus Christ our lives bear no meaning and our sense of calling, vocation and work is lost. Think about who you would be without your relationship with Jesus Christ? Is it Christ that helps give shape to your identity and meaning to your vocation and calling? Continue Reading…

Identity in Weakness

March 19, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 5 Comments

weaknessThis post is an ongoing reflection on the book Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

In the previous post I discussed the issue of our limitations. That we live within the tension of facing both our potential and possibilities when it comes to career, calling, vocation, as well as facing our limitations and how that may shape, form or guide our direction.

We sometimes are trapped in language games and when we don’t use the right word we can sometimes fail to really understand or grasp what we are talking about or the issue at hand.

Continue Reading…

Paradigm Shifting, Life Shaping Books

March 17, 2009 in Uncategorized with 15 Comments

It seems we all like books. And we especially like making lists of books. In 2005 I wrote The Five Books I Would Recommend to a College Student…or Actually, to Anyone!, and listed in another post the Top 100 Religious Books of the 20th Century According to Christianity Today. If you want you could access lists for the 100 Best Novels and 100 Best Nonfiction Lists, and yes, there is even a list for the 100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library. Sorry women, I couldn’t find your list.

But what I’m interested in here is another list. Books that have been paradigm shifting, and life shaping for you.

When we think of books in those terms I think the lists we have are often reduced, because just not every book, or every other book….or even 1 in every 1000 book or so is paradigm shifting, and for that matter gives shape to your life.

There were many more I could have listed, but I have listed my 10 below. It’s interesting to notice how many of them come out of required reading for graduate school or my vocational interests. So though these books are important to me, I wonder what new books will be added as my vocational interests broaden over the years. As a former pastor, current therapist and social media/tech dabbler, the books I choose might be very different than someone else in the same lines of profession, and maybe very, very different from someone in different vocations. Maybe?

What 10 books have been paradigm shifting and life shaping for you?

The Latin Quarter, Paris, France

These are my 10, and I will just say why in 1-2 sentences, or maybe just a few words…AND they are not in order of importance (except the Bible), but rather alphabetically by author’s last name.

Continue Reading…

Limits and Potential: Living Free Within That Tension

March 16, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 5 Comments

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“Everything in the universe has a nature, which means limits as well as potentials, a truth well known by people who work daily with the things of the world. Making pottery, for example, involves more than telling the clay what to become. The clay presses back on the potter’s hands, telling her what it can and cannot do–and if she fails to listen, the outcome will be both frail and ungainly. Engineering involves more than telling materials what they must do. If the engineer does not honor the nature of the steel or the wood or the stone, his failure will go beyond aesthetics: the bridge or the building will collapse and put human life in peril.

The human self also has a nature, limits as well as potentials. If you seek vocation without understanding the material you are working with, what you build with your life will be ungainly and may well put lives in peril, your own and some of those around you. “Faking it” in the service of high values is no virtue and has nothing to do with vocation. It is an ignorant, sometimes arrogant, attempt to override one’s nature, and it will always fail.
Continue Reading…
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