Avoiding the Deep Funk

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At 28, Mitchell had a passion for sports, had gotten his pilot’s license and “did really well with the ladies.” One day he jumped on his motorcycle, off to see his girlfriend. He didn’t see the laundry truck that hit him.

“A faulty gas cap on his motorcycle popped off and drenched him in gallons of gasoline. The hot engine ignited and he was turned into a fireball…,” says an online story.

He had burns over 65 percent of his body and most of his face and hands were burned off. His chances of survival were considered extremely low.

Amazingly, he recovered, moved to a small town in Colorado and worked as a pilot. But fate wasn’t finished with him. As he was taking off, a small coating of ice on the wings made his plane crash from about 100 feet. He crushed his spine. Paralyzed from the waist down, he can no longer walk.

That still didn’t stop him. He has become a successful businessman, sometimes politician, environmental activist and author. And he gives motivational speeches.

Power of the Human Mind
“What I want is to be a symbol for you,” he told an audience. “With my scarred face, my fingerless paws, my wheelchair – and real, genuine happiness in my heart – I want to be your mental image of the power of the human mind to transcend circumstances.”

Why is it that some people, when confronted with grief or suffering, show tremendous resilience, able to carry on with their lives with relative normalcy, while others, confronted by even minor adversity, go into a deep funk from which they may slowly, or never, recover?

It’s a question for people much smarter than me. But I have some ideas, and as you may have guessed by the nature of this blog, they’re related to the search for God.

In a recent column in the New York Times, David Brooks makes this observation.

Paul Tillich
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“Some people are broken by … pain and grief. They seem to get smaller and more afraid, and never recover. They get angry, resentful and tribal. But other people are broken open.

“The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that suffering upends the normal patterns of life and reminds you that you are not who you thought you were. The basement of your soul is much deeper than you knew. Some people look into the hidden depths of themselves and they realize that success won’t fill those spaces. Only a spiritual life and unconditional love from family and friends will do.

“…Your life is actually defined by how you make use of your moment of greatest adversity.”

I don’t suggest that adopting faith, turning to religion or searching for God will necessarily result in a greater tolerance for pain and suffering or even more resilience. What I do know is that faith puts things in their proper perspective.

No catastrophe is final. No matter how much I curse, shout or cry about what’s happening to me, faith assures me that ultimately, everything will be OK. I have a loving Father who cares about me and will look after me. I just have to trust.

Pie-in-the-sky?
To the unbeliever, this sounds like Pollyannish and pie-in-the-sky, and it may sound discordant even to some people searching for God. That may be because it doesn’t coincide with the current climate of opinion. But what good is faith if it doesn’t result in trust in God?

Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr is author of the famous “serenity prayer (“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change….”) Few of us may have heard the rest of the prayer.

“…Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. ”






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