Roll on, church

"The conservative Diocese of San Joaquin (CA) voted Saturday to split from the liberal-leaning Episcopal Church, becoming the first full diocese to secede from the denomination in the debate over the Bible and homosexuality." - CNN

Do you ever feel like the world is spinning backward--evolution, the progress of human thought and achievement seems to not only to have stopped, but to have regressed--and a church body, supposedly a symbol of "good" and "love" can vote such a pronouncement--can say, effectively, that a group of people are "wrong" because of who they are. I realize the naivete of this statement--history is stuffed with such pronouncements, so many behaviors based on hate, fear, but how can we credit it? This God that so many sects and factions claim to know, claim to represent, profess to know the meaning of, who is supposed to be about love, has compelled a group of Episcopalians in the San Joaquin valley to denounce a group of people because of their sexual preference. In 2007. Just the sheer inhumanity of it, the blatant UNLOVE this kind of action belies, screams of the demonic, the evil, the discord and woe that sparks war, poverty, famine, and that dearth of spirit that keeps us apart as people, as cultures, as nations--the evil these very San Joaquin Episcopalians claim to fight against.

I think I'm finally understanding now why some members of the choral community to which I belong have had such visceral reactions to one of the venues in which we sing where a church also has services, a church aligned with groups that abhor homosexuality, that publish doctrines of exclusion--I understood the basic argument, that we as a group that believes in inclusion, in fact, a community that comes together exclusively for the love of singing no matter what the singer's belief system, shouldn't perform in a place where this kind of hatred is professed, but I thought that our very presence, like those of the brave Black students who sat at segregated lunch counters in the '50's and '60's would make a difference. The fact that we sing with respect, songs from many cultures, would obliterate, for the brief moments our voices rose high into the rafters, the stink of this kind of evil.

But, damn, I feel the despair. The sapping of energy from having too many fights to fight. The wisdom of choosing battles. The great cry from a suffering world that is too loveless, too afraid, too at odds with its own humanity.

The eternal question.

I read a beautiful article about a famous author who dealt with crippling depression for the last half of his life. He, of course, wrote some of his best work during this time and this idea has spurred me on to write more even in the black pit I now find myself, struggling with the notion that depression is a biological disease and not a character flaw, a chemical imbalance and not the result of not "applying" myself enough in therapy, or of eating too much sugar, or of not having a significant other. To tease out these distinctions is, I think, essential to healing, and of course very very very difficult.

Someone sent me a book by an author who thinks that all disease is brought on by inner turmoil and can, therefore, be cured by resolving that turmoil. Before I was sick, I leaned toward this notion, but now I think there are some diseases that happen through a cascade of factors now of which have anything to do with anything currently measurable, and certainly can't be attributed to personal problems or failures. Depression, though often brought on by circumstances, is, at its root, a brain malfunction. What's really interesting is that I have been able to impact my brain chemistry, not just with medication, but with the concious effort to manage negative, habitual thoughts and by building up pleasurable experiences, kind of an engineering of joy, through a lot of practice and skills training.

And so, though I am low today, blue, blue, blue, for many reasons--and though, due to physical illness, I don't have the energy and wherewithal to practice my skills today, I endure. I survive. It ain't pretty, it's very painful, it's quite raw and it IS NO FUN. But it is a progress of its own.