Anhedonia

It’s amazing what happens when we try to shake things up.  I was listening to a broadcast from Focus on the Family, because it was playing while I did some dishes.  It was speaking about the condition of anhedonia, albeit speaking about it as symptomatic of pleasure overload, distraction and distortion overload.  I had to look it up, to see if it was being used correctly.  Turns out it’s the medical name for the condition of the victim of depression when they are unable to obtain normal or even abnormal joy from commonplace activities.  Now, this got me thinking about shaking things up, mostly because I’m in a sort of transition time myself.  Anhedonia does not allow for people to be shaken up.  They are melancholic and joyless, adrift in a world that seems to have nothing for them.  It’s the world’s name for spiritual depression, and it eliminates the quest and the boon of the Joy-Giver Jesus when it’s given that categorization.  I believe to the utmost that it is important to see Bible playing out in practical, real, and daily life.  So I call it spiritual depression when I detect it.

It’s hard to be told to become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know when a) you know a lot of people b) your temperament is melancholic c) You are looking for a reason for the joy you are told you should have.  Or, to rephrase, to have reason for the hope that we have.  That’s the Biblical version of what I’m saying.  I’ve been in a place of being demonstrative of all three of those…still am on many occasions.  But then it gets overcome with thanksgiving for the blessing of, for example, a beautiful day with a comparatively large amount of freedom from that which depresses.   Here’s hoping for beauty from the ashes, then.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Keeping Things Straight

Nearly a month and no posts.  Back to old habits, I guess, but also geographical laziness as well.  I wasn’t able to post for some time a few weeks back, and I wouldn’t have had anything to say, anyway.  Sad, but true.

Anyway, I’ve been struck recently by thinking about the basic nature of the relationship between Christ and the apostles.  The study I attend has just gotten into Matthew Chapter 13, and we’ve spent considerable time on the parable of the sower and the seed.  The reference is Matthew 13:1-24 for parable, interesting commentary and exposition, but I’m particularly concerned with verses 10-17 for this.

We have to keep in mind as we read some of the passages of Jesus’ teaching in the Bible that he’s the Rabbi, teaching everyone.  The disciples were just as much in the dark about some of His words as we are today, even in parable form.  We can take things to a greater depth than is demonstrated in the Scriptures, because we have the complete Word to guide and to shepherd us, to comment on itself and enrich itself in moving back and forth between old and new, between gospel, epistle, wisdom and poem to open our eyes, our hearts and our minds to the very richness of God in His revealed word.  But we have to remember that what we take to great depth can always go deeper.

Out of all of this, I want to get to this:  In verses 13 to 15, Jesus says this about the people who follow Him:

“This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.  Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.  For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.”

The thought that’s occurred to me on this is that even the disciples don’t always want to see the great grace that is  God’s to give, because in seeing it they will become completely and utterly devastated by their sin.  And if even the disciples are afraid of seeing, hearing and understanding…

We’re in good company.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.