The Deacon's View

(Deacons are ordained to serve both in the church and in the world.  We are to be deeply rooted and active in both places simultaneously.  Our job is to break into what all too easily can become ’sacred comfort’ in the church by exposing the needs of the world that the church is called to serve.  At the same time, we are to carry the reality of God’s grace into a world that has grown skeptical and/or indifferent to the church.
    I restate this description because what I share with you this month is not my “view”, but rather it is connected to what I am doing beyond St. Paul’s.  From time to time, I will use this space to bring you information that I think is important for you to read and think about and even act upon)

    When I came to St. Paul’s a year ago, part of my challenge was to discern my ministry in the local environment beyond the church.  This has been a personal journey of learning the problems and challenges of our local adults ad children...hidden, unseen problems that don’t show up in local papers.  What I address below has to do with a problem that is a national as well as a local issue:  male depression.  Most of what follows comes from a recent article in my seminary alumnae magazine, Fuller Focus.  It was written by Archibald D. Hart, PhD, dean emeritus of the School of Psychology.
    It is now known that depression in men is far more common than previously realized, and that male symptoms are significantly different from female depression.  Women are diagnosed mainly by exploring their feelings.  Men are better diagnosed by paying attention to their behavior.  Women feel their depression; men act it out.  Women get sad and try to either connect with friends or seek to take care of someone else.  Men tend to vent their depression through frustration and anger.  Even men who were normally even-tempered become irritable and moody.  They do no “connect” as women do, but tend to withdraw into their “caves”, giving their loved ones the silent treatment when they are not ranting.  It is this masking of depression by hostility that characterizes male depression (Examples of this abound: work rage, road rage, air rage, and spouse rage.)
    Masked depression in males is one of the most prevalent mental disorders in modern American society, and yet it is perhaps the most neglected in psychiatric literature.  Typically men repress bad feelings through distracting behaviors, or they numb themselves by addictive substances or preoccupations.  The most common masks of male depression:  anger and rage; workaholism; avoidance of intimacy; sexual compulsions or addictions.  Obviously there are numerous other masks.Men typically don’t seek help, seeing it as a sign of weakness, instead of a treatable disorder that is holding them back from life.  Depression is a cry in the soul that something is missing.
    There is available help.  One local physician advises his patients to have an annual mental health check up in the same way they have an annual physical.  Something as simple as just talking to a “safe” person (who is professionally licensed) can be the way back into feeling alive and happy.  Ask your personal doctor or Donna for a recommendation.  
    The Good News of Jesus is that we can experience abundant life now, and that God’s grace is sufficient.  The challenges for the church are to individually recognize our ongoing need to be healed, and corporately to support with prayer and friendship those who are being healed.  And this means all of us!      
                                 ~The Rev. Gay Blundell, deacon