Author: Shirley A. Solanka
The ancient words of consolation and reassurance echo, whether from Sunday school or portrayals of graveside services on TV:
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
These words are from the Twenty-Third Psalm, the most well-known of a long series of songs found in the Hebrew Bible. The word “psalm” comes from the Greek word meaning “song accompanied by a harp.” The Psalms, known collectively as the Psalter, were written more than three thousand years ago, and they have been used in Jewish and Christian worship for millennia. Most likely, this is because they express practically every emotion experienced by human beings. For the individual living with bipolar disorder, they can offer a profound spiritual resource for coping with the powerful emotions that can frighten and overwhelm.
It may be surprising to know that the psalm immediately preceding the serene and confident Twenty-Third begins with what is known as the Cry of Dereliction: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” During my long journey with bipolar disorder, I have frequently felt abandoned by the God I have believed in since childhood. The Psalter just as frequently has offered reflections of these darker perspectives that, perhaps paradoxically, have provided me with comfort, knowing that others have experienced such emotions and moods for at least as long as the written word has existed.
One of the most formidable of these psalms is the Eighty-Eighth, in which the author laments, “You have laid me in the depths of the pit, in dark places and the abyss. My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me, and darkness is my only companion.” I have experienced the torment of bipolar depression many times, and during these episodes I was in a place where no one could reach me or understand me. Knowing that this can be part of the human condition has helped me to keep going.
The Eighty-Ninth Psalm provides me immediate assurance that such moments of deep suffering can, actually, contain hope: “I am persuaded that your love is established forever; you have set your faithfulness above the heavens.” The Psalms can give the struggling reader just enough light to trust that they will be brought through a depressed mood into a place of health and joy.
The Psalter also offers descriptions of ecstatic emotion that have resonated with me during times of elevated mood. I am drawn to especially the One Hundred Thirty-Ninth Psalm, in which the writer exults, “LORD, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high I cannot attain to it.” Believing that God knows all our thoughts and feelings, whether dark and miserable or soaring with energy and optimism about life is immensely reassuring.
I find that, because the Psalms move back and forth between darkness and light, they form a dialectic, like that described by Marsha Linehan, the creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. The Psalms show that two different things can be true at the same time – that one may feel hopeless and yet maintain hope, that a kernel of faith can exist at times of extreme doubt. Indeed, can doubt even exist without faith?
And, as Linehan teaches, two seemingly opposing truths can form a new truth – that God can be trusted to sustain me through times of great suffering and can restore me to trust and joy. As the author of the Ninety-First Psalm says of God, “You are my refuge and my stronghold, my God in whom I put my trust.”
The Psalms, most of all, show that I can have a dialogue with God about my illness, or about anything that disturbs me or elates me. I need not be passive sufferers or be solitary in rejoicing. “Whom have I in heaven but you?” asks the author of the Seventy-Third Psalm. And, as one of my favorite lines in the Psalms states, “Blessed is the LORD! For he has heard the voice of my prayer.” (Psalm 28) The Psalms affirm my experience, and through the validation of anguish and despair, or my overwhelming happiness, I begin to access hope.
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