#111: Cultivating wholeness through spiritual practice (with Lisa Colón DeLay)
“What I noticed was that whenever I truly invested myself in a spiritual practice, really dug into it with an investment of time and love toward God, God would answer back. God would journey with me.”
This week I am joined by my friend Lisa Colón DeLay to talk about the healing power of spiritual practices. Lisa begins by explaining why we should acknowledge that we live in a white-dominant culture and the importance of learning about non-white spiritual practices, especially embodiment. We discussed a rubric for identifying our core areas of trauma as well as how to move them from areas of non-awareness into conscious awareness, through spiritual practices led by the Holy Spirit. Lisa unpacks many themes from her excellent book, The Wild Land Within: Cultivating Wholeness Through Spiritual Practice, which is an excellent discipleship resource.
Order The Wild Land Within: Cultivating Wholeness Through Spiritual Practice.
Visit Lisa online at lisadelay.com
Listen to Lisa’s long-running podcast, Spark My Muse, at sparkmymuse.com
Follow Lisa on Twitter.
Become a supporter of the show on Patreon at patreon.com/jonathanpuddle.
Order my trauma-informed 30-day devotional, You Are Enough: Learning to Love Yourself the Way God Loves You.
Find every book or resource I’ve talked about recently on my Amazon storefront, in Canada, the United States or the United Kingdom.
Don’t forget about the B-Side!
Once you’ve listened to this, make sure to check out the raw and uncut B-Side interview where my friends and I unpack the conversation in even more detail. Available exclusively on Patreon.
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Transcription
Jonathan Puddle 00:01
Hey friends, welcome back to The Puddcast with me, Jonathan Puddle. This is Episode 111 with my friend Lisa DeLay. A big thanks to everyone who's been sending me lovely messages. Many of you will know I've taken a break from social media and from reading news and from various other things. My mental health has been particularly difficult. You'll probably have heard some of that with my interview with Diana Gruver on The Puddcast last time. And after we were done there, I realized I really needed to take a bit more of a strong break on some things. Social media is tricky for me because it is really wonderful to connect with everybody and I... it's so relationship oriented for me. But also it's it's it's can be a painful place. And there's news that's weird, conspiracy theories and just so much that goes on there that it ends up for me be kind of a net loss, especially in this time where I'm disconnected from my flesh and blood friends. And I lean on social media for things that it cannot provide, I kind of get suckered in, like a sailor being tempted by a siren at sea. So thank you to everyone for giving me so much grace and kindness as I've stepped back a little bit from engaging in DMs and comments. I will be posting you know, the news of this podcast and other things, still kind of automatically scheduling to my Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. But I won't be there engaging in comments. So thank you for extending me that grace, it's been really, really kind of getting some wonderful messages. So this week, I have Lisa DeLay on the show, Lisa has written a really wonderful book called The Wild Land Within: Cultivating Wholeness Through Spiritual Practice. And in many ways, it's very similar to You Are Enough my devotional, but it comes from a different angle and uses a different set of language and tools to come at the same kinds of problems in terms of moving towards ourselves with love and wholeness and grace. And so Lisa, feels like a kindred spirit. She is also writing from a discipleship and spiritual formation perspective, which is really helpful for me, as I'm now involved more in disciple work within my church community. So I really, really enjoyed this book. And I hope that you will enjoy our conversation. Here we go. Lisa, I am so thrilled that you are here today with me doing this. I have been reading your book the last few days. In fact, I was reading it out loud to my wife last night laying on the couch at 11pm. And I am loving it. So thank you for being here.
Lisa DeLay 02:46
Thank you so much, Jonathan, it's really a pleasure to be able to speak with you again. And I'm honored that you would have me on.
Jonathan Puddle 02:52
Oh, honestly, the honor is mine. When when when you had me on your show, and you were you'd said like, "Okay, I've really loved your book, but I've got this book coming out, and I'm nervous that you're going to feel like it's similar." Like I hadn't read your book at that point. So I'm like, Okay, I'm just taking it on face value. Now that I'm reading your book, and I'm loving it so much. And and yes, it's similar. But it's like similar at the level of, I think the Spirit's agenda. You know, we're drawing from similar things. But what I love is that you, you quote a completely different set of people to me, you are leaning on different resources and traditions to me, but the thrust is the same. And so you've written a book, that is trauma-informed spiritual practices, working with our, you know, distorted thoughts, all these different things. But you've come at it from a completely different angle, you've done a really deep work in ensuring that it's culturally diverse and non white-centric, and, and yours it feels to me, like it's more of a discipleship piece more of a spiritual formation piece than I was intentionally constructing. So, so I mean, I I'm thrilled with your book, and I can't wait to recommend it to everybody. So I am super pumped.
Lisa DeLay 04:14
Thank you. Yeah, my, my big hope in the book is actually that people don't do the book alone. That they, it's possible to read it solo, but actually, I'm hoping that it's done in groups or even better yet with a trained director or wise elder or therapist or something like that. Because there's a lot of... it asks a lot of you. It asks a lot of questions at the end of chapters, and it invites you to go into deep terrain that's shadowed terrain that you might not know what's really in there. And there are portions that could be potentially be triggering if you have a trauma in your past and so I'm hoping that people don't feel like they are reading it and then suddenly in over their heads, I would prefer that people go in, like you might go into an actual wilderness. If you're going to an actual wilderness for a month or so you would hopefully not do that completely alone, either.
Jonathan Puddle 05:13
Yeah, for sure. We were, Lisa and I were chatting about this before we hit record. Because she pointed out something to me and I'd love you to kind of walk us back through it about how so many books on spiritual practice, they don't really warn you that you might uncover some worms under these rocks. Like, I mean, I wrote my book, very focused on healing. And so there's this great big disclaimer at the beginning, like "This might hurt, move slowly." But that was very specifically what I was trying to do. And but I thought, it was a really sensible point that you raised, because none of the books that I've read on spiritual practice give you any kind of heads up that you might find yourself in painful, scary territory.
Lisa DeLay 06:03
Yeah. What I noticed—and I studied spiritual formation in graduate school, and so we learned lots of things about the devotional classics over the millennia of Christianity from reading the desert fathers and mothers, and all kinds of classics, and all kinds of ways to create greater devotion with God through different kinds of prayer practices, there are so many rich, beautiful ways to, to pray or have a stronger life of devotion. And it was so wonderful and refreshing—But what I noticed each time was that if I ever really invested myself in a practice, and really dug into it, like it's supposed to be done, not not in a hobbyist type of way, but in with an investment of time and, and love toward God, God would answer back. God would journey with me. And in doing that, because God desires my wholeness and my sin to be remedied, I think the Spirit shows us what where our wounds are, and where our weaknesses are. And that in the process of creating spiritual fruit in our lives, we are rid of these other things. But that isn't... that weeding process, if you will, isn't painless, and can take us by surprise, if we're thinking, "Oh, these are, these practices are, like wonderful therapy, like getting going to a spa and having a massage and a facial." It's, it's not really like that, and I didn't notice any books that I got, were really going to warn you, not so much in Protestantism. I think, in the Catholic tradition, there's so much time and effort spent, there's so much more knowledge in the sense of journeying with someone that they are much more equipped to deal with the suffering part, or the harrowing of the garden of the heart. And your spiritual directors are completely prepared for whatever comes up. But in Protestantism, where we might take these spiritual practices on as little treats or something as little bits of refreshment, it's not really what's happening. It's not really what the spiritual practices are for, they're part of the grace of God that brings us the ministry of the Spirit. And the mystery of the Spirit involves a healing process that is kind of like a physical healing process where you might, if you need surgery, you might have to go under the knife to get something removed. And that's going to create pain, and eventual healing that makes you better. And so I think that there are parallels with the, with the physical and the spiritual in this case, and not to scare anybody but you come out the other side, so much stronger, so much more healed, so much more aware of God, but also how much God deeply loves you and cares for you, and is willing to, is always with you, and is willing to see that everything gets met, all your needs get met and has been with you and has been inviting you the whole time. And then when you sink into the practice, you get a chance to go all the way, move all the way through it. And you don't want to like jump off the operating table. And that will be the tendency if you, if you thought, "Well I thought I was getting a facial not not an operation."
Jonathan Puddle 09:45
Yes, seriously. And unfortunately, in so much mainstream evangelicalism, it is really just like a facelift. Like that's that's the extent of the spiritual transformation that any of us have been told we needed. "Well, you know, just add 15% Jesus to your Western lifestyle and you're good." You know, so to to face up with scriptural statements like, you must die... to get, to gain your life, you must lose it. It's like a heart transplant level operation, right, we're going to cut we're gonna break your bones and carve open your chest and take out your stony heart and put in a fleshy one. There's, um, there's an appropriation, you what you were just saying there about God's presence is always with us. Yes. The Spirit is always, is always, I think trying to till the garden of ourselves. But it seems to me that... I grew up Protestant, you know, broadly kind of Charismatic. And, and I've, I've got a real faith for God to show up and do things. But so much of that I've realized was a bit cerebral. And the more that I look at Protestantism at large, whether we're talking kind of like your mainstream evangelical people, or the more historical Protestant figures, there is something of a, of a disconnect it often seems. I'm painting in very broad strokes, but a bit more cerebral, a bit less gritty and lived. Because when I read the spiritual practices, recommended by Protestants, it does often kind of feel like, well, just try harder, just do these things and repeat them better. But when I go and read Nouwen or Merton, I'm left, like in tears. I'm left going, okay, this is so much more than just doing something. If I actually did this, it would change what I believe. And I'm, I'm afraid to even begin this. I'm rarely afraid to do things recommended in Protestant books. But I actually feel provoked, you know, you mentioned that in Catholicism and in Orthodoxy, the practices seem to be rooted in a different space.
Lisa DeLay 12:09
Yes. Right. So that's such a good point that you're that you're really, really close to that I'm just going to finally unwrap the package. Which is, Protestantism is, is in history, very close to the modern era of reason. You see that so much in Calvin's work, and Luther, using the mind and reason and we're just, that's the lineage of Protestantism, especially in North America is especially influenced by the age of reason and enlightenment. And we don't realize how really un-Christian that is in terms of how Jesus would have thought or lived in these rich, Middle Eastern, very embodied ways. Everything is spiritual, period. There isn't something that isn't spiritual. And so one of the nice things about going back to Orthodox Christians, reading their prayer practices, their their wisdom is that it's incredibly embodied. And we will often act as though I mean, this is just so typical, we don't even realize we're doing it. But we often act like I'm the person who I am, is this brain. And this brain gets walked around from room to room by this thing I call a body. And that's me. But we don't think that our entire organism is our body, including our brain. And when it gets traumatized, it is traumatized down to the cells, all the cells in the body, it's traumatized in non-verbal, non-conscious ways. And so it has to heal in those ways, too. And that's why the practices that are spiritual that involve the body, for instance pilgrimage, or maybe praying in different bodily positions, prostrates, or really involving your body, maybe some people do some form of stretching, or yoga, or just prayer walks or something that's really engaging the physical, your physical form, they are really changed by that. And that's because they're so tend to be so disengaged from their organism. And so that's really a huge deficit, often within Protestantism, and I think it really hurts our spiritual well-being and our healing process too, because we, of course, are paying the price for, for our trauma in bodily ways, but we're not necessarily approaching healing in those ways.
Jonathan Puddle 14:57
Yes, yes. That's so that's true, my experience is the same. Okay, so you, you unpack a bunch of that early on in the book. In fact, you, you kind of start it with this discussion around how we build meaning, and our maps of understanding ourselves and theology and the world. And you talk about kind of like here in the West / Global North, we've inherited not just this rational thinking, but like this actually very sort of Greek dualistic, what you were just hinting at it, right. The spiritual life versus non spiritual life. And, and that there happens to be a wealth of alternative maps that many of us are not actually even aware of. I'd love to hear a little bit about that, and why that's so important that we start there.
Lisa DeLay 15:53
Yeah, and one of the ways that is very evident, just in our own country, if we're talking about North America, and I realized that you're probably podcast, just like mine is heard all around the globe. But one of the ways I noticed right away is that we have a kind of dominant, white-centered, or I would call it Empire theology in the United States, but in Canada, also, is that there is a kind of white centered or dominant theology, and then there's what we tend to consider these other theologies, and black liberation is kind of one of these other theologies. Well, you notice, too, and some of these other theologies, which should be mainstreamed, which should be just included in sort of the orchestra of what God is up to, that they are much, much more embodied. And especially this is true. With black American brothers and sisters and siblings, who grew up enslaved, they were used to different kinds of worship, communication, and spiritualities. And they were silenced in every sort of way. And so their contemplative spirituality are the kind that created the kind of resilience where you survive the horrors of the enslavement period—and the abuses beyond that—were very embodied involve dance and clapping, stomping, call and response. And I get into this a little bit in the book about how much we can learn, even within our own culture, within our own general culture, in this hemisphere of the world, these different ways of approaching spirituality that do involve the entire body that don't just stay in the head, which is kind of the default for many, for many of us spiritually, whether Catholic or Protestant things do stay, usually very cerebral. And I think that that is actually one of the reasons why the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement took off as it did so so very much in Protestantism is because that that was such a missing piece that people were like, "Oh, my body wants to dance, my, my body wants to respond." And, you know, it's been too disconnected from, from the rest of that. And so I think that was a, you know, huge burst of popularity and those those aspects of spirituality that were just not there otherwise. But when we go back to, I talk a lot about in the book about trying to understand what are what are usually the marginalized voices, and that the gospel actually comes from those places, the good news of what God is up to, comes from the outside, comes from the periphery comes from the marginalized, and that those voices are often treated as though they are for other people. They're, they're fine for other people. But that's not real Christianity. That's not real theology. That's not, you know, the, the core of what we should be learning or systematic theology. But I think that it's that's the reverse is true, so that what Jesus was up to and fulfilling prophecy of the blind shall see and the lame shall walk and the captives will be set free. That is the story of marginalized and oppressed people. That is a story of the people that Jesus came into as a culture and was as a person who's brown person who came to a oppressed culture in poverty. And he came as that kind of a person for those kinds of people. And the rich and the powerful, don't have to worry or nor do they care about other other people in those ways, they don't have to worry about them. Those people are statistics to them, those people get in the way. So I tried to bring out some of these even maligned theologies or overlooked theologies and spiritualities, that inform us so much about the totality of what God is up to, the totality of who we are as human bodies IN our bodies. A lot of times what we see unfortunately, as we see with the dualism, is also the, it makes it easier to hate other people who don't look like us with the dualism. So we can despise people who are, the other person is easier to despise, because instead of seeing us, we see us and them, you know, so who is them? What them looks different, right? Them, those people think differently, they look differently, they behave differently, and that's unfamiliar. And so it must be repugnant to us or, you know, it's just so much easier to push that hate outward, or that even if it's not exactly hate, it's still something we're not happy with, or we do not prefer and so it might be punished in some way.
Jonathan Puddle 21:22
Yeah. Yeah. I'm totally with you. I love that. I am trying to think internally about the time period in my life. Because I do, I do have this memory. I can remember, I can remember a time hearing rumors about other spiritualities and other theologies and other ways of understanding God. I mean, even just growing up a good Protestant hearing about those bad bad Catholics, and...
Lisa DeLay 21:53
Haha, right.
Jonathan Puddle 21:55
And my children are, are baptized Roman Catholic, incidentally. So that's a big swing in my life. But But I remember this feeling of suspicion.
Lisa DeLay 22:05
Mhmm.
Jonathan Puddle 22:06
And I don't know exactly what are all the ingredients that the Spirit used to soften my heart and to, to open me up. But I, let's, let's let me let me present a potential devil's advocate here. Let's say you are a, a white woman, in her 40s or 50s, who really does love Jesus, and hass like, given their life, in sacrificial service to him, as much as they understand that. And they do not consider themselves a racist. You know, intellectually, they're like, "No, I'm not one of those racist people." I know a lot of these women and men who have really good hearts, but there are these things that need, they just haven't learned to see. What would be your invitation to that kind of person who maybe doesn't feel that they're missing anything? But where you and I have journeyed for different reasons. And obviously, you know, I am a white man. And so the reasons I've had to journey with that are going to be different to you. What's the invitation, what what would you say to that person?
Lisa DeLay 23:29
Well, often people are well meaning and kind. And they can still prop up racist systems and culture, just ignorantly, or until... be fine with with, you know, saying something anti-racist and helpful until it becomes inconvenient. And I guess that's where the rubber meets the road. So what I would say is that, if it's true that a person is feeling like, you know, I'm not racist, I'm, you know, I just kind of don't want to cause any trouble, but you know, I'm, I'm a good guy, I'm, I would say, I would challenge them to just make sure that you're reading somebody who doesn't look like you, especially a person of color, such as a black theologian or someone who has maybe a complaint. Um, why do they have that complaint? Most people who say such things, maybe know a black person, but are they actually close friends? Do they? Are they close enough that they could call this person at two in the morning and vice versa, like they... proximity doesn't mean that we're not going to do things that actually hurt a certain people in the community. So I would say that, you know, some people will say they don't, they don't want to stand in the way of progress or something like that. And maybe they even are angered by things like George Floyd being killed completely unnecessarily and things like that. But when it gets inconvenient, or we are things like, reparations start to get talked about they you see like some bristling hairs on the neck. And I would say that anytime there's a discomfort there, like a racially charged discomfort, to start listening, and to start reading, and to not decide that you have your mind made up one way or the other about, about something that isn't personally hurting you. Because I think what happens is, we always and this includes me, we think we know how things are, but when they don't directly impact us, we really are very ignorant. Like, I'm not scared of being pulled over by the police. I don't think my life is going to be in danger. If that's you, if you basically don't think you will be killed by the police when you get pulled over, then you don't understand what it's like to have it a different kind of body. And so start, start listening, start reading, what is it like to live in a body you can't change and to live in fear? And some of the first responses you get, "It can't be that bad." I know, it's, I feel bad for them, but it, you know, can't be that bad. And any kind of minimalizing like that is not really listening. You know, when I when the #blacklivesmatter first got started, and I saw pushback, I thought, I felt so brokenhearted because I thought "black lives matter" is one of the least things you can say. Like you just literally like, how can anybody... I just kept thinking, how can this be a thing you would argue about that black lives matter? I just thought. But literally, that was like the most basic thing. They could say, hey, our lives matter. We don't want to be killed. And they would, they would actually get pushed back on that. They'd have... people, "no, black lives... BLUE lives matter." I just, it just showed me how deep the problem really was. That the people couldn't say, "Of course, you're right. How can we help?"
Jonathan Puddle 27:43
Yeah.
Lisa DeLay 27:43
Like, you're getting gunned down and killed, like at random, you must be absolutely terrified out of your mind when your loved one leaves the house in the car, you might get be pulled over for a light out and and if you exit the car, and you make some move, or the person thinks you have a gun and you have a cell phone, you could just die. And it's not an enormous numbers as the media would lead us to believe. But it's enough that people are terrified. And when you simply say our lives matter, you're getting pushed back. So for me, I thought the problem is so much worse. And it's and it's with with the cameras that are always rolling and I think that they are we are getting forced fed reality over and over and over again. And so I, I know it takes it takes a lot of listening. And it takes a lot of reading hard things. And I don't think, ummm. It's gonna break your heart. If you're a white person, and it hasn't broken your heart yet about racism and what's happening now and what has happened and what led us to this point, you might not really be understanding what's going on.
Jonathan Puddle 29:00
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's a really great statement: if it hasn't broken your heart yet. Because Yeah, what what else can you say? Lisa, I'd love to hear some more of your story and where you come from, why and how you've brought all these themes together into this beautiful work.
Lisa DeLay 29:24
For a long time I've been interested in how do people transform, how do they heal? I went to graduate school to study spiritual formation around 2007. And I really went to school to be a kind of an informed writer, not just someone writing from my experience, and I gained so much through that education. One thing though, even though I had wonderful professors, it was a very white-centered place, male dominated white-centered place and one, one of the things I learned... I'm Puerto Rican on my dad's from my dad, who was a brown man. And he was a person who was in the Southern Baptist group, fundamentalist group. And he was a pastor and I was a pastor's kid. And so I was always around Christianity. And I was always really painfully aware how much my dad stood out and how much he was trying very hard to assimilate. And it never worked. He never was white enough. And the Puerto Rican culture, which is so rich, and and so infused with life, in terms of music, in terms of dance, it's very, you know, vibrant and lively. Well, all those things to a fundamentalist, Southern Baptists are sinful, they're not white enough. And so they should be erased. At least in the time where my dad was involved, there's no, there wasn't things like he couldn't dance and you couldn't drink and you couldn't go to movies and you couldn't play cards. The list was so long, the list of banned books was so so long. And of course, you couldn't read books by liberation theologists that were those Latinos from South America and things like that. So what he was really learning over and over again, is these white supremist claims, which he was believing and being erased at the same time. And it didn't mean, eventually it's, for a lot of people you... to, to get ahead, if you're a brown person, sometimes you try really hard to assimilate, and it can be very soul killing. And I think he realized at some point, I don't really have any friends here, I just am expected to assimilate but I can't really do that, because I can't change my body, I can't, I can't change who I am. And it, he passed away when I was 20. And I never really forgot his struggle, or his contradictions, he was a man of contradictions, too, there was, that could be its whole book in itself! But I remember, when maybe it was 2013-14, when there were there was huge influxes coming in from on the southern border from Central and South America. And these people are basically treated like infestations. something less human than the rest of us white people. And I take after my mom, my skin is light, and I can pass for white. But I was born in Puerto Rico and spoke Spanish till we moved to the Pittsburgh area, and I don't... I'm a combination person. But since I could see my dad suffering in real time, as a brown person, it's just very... hits very close to home when I saw people being abused and mistreated, who looked just like my dad. And I thought, you know, this kind of, this part of me, that's part of my identity. I'm married to a white man who's so white he burns through a t-shirt, sunburns through t-shirt, but I didn't have to, you know, pick that part of my identity up in terms of my own, like risking my own privilege or something like that. But it hurt my feelings because I thought, you know, these, these are kin people to me, these are not, these people are not unrelated to me. And any one of those people could just as well be my dad. And it began to really bother me how people were othered. And I started looking into, you know, how do we get to this point where we treat other people, you know, most of these people coming from the border are Christians too, by the way, and I don't think we give a crap about that. These people coming up, to have a better life to escape drugs, drug gangs, cartels, and, you know, cities, villages run by people with, with guns who are extremely dangerous, who... they're escaping for their lives! They don't want to leave their homes and they're Christians. And they're, you know, there's a whole bunch of bad things that can happen to them along the way. And there's a whole bunch of ways that they're vulnerable. And I realized that I had to make people more aware of what white-centeredness does. The violence that does and and that's part of why I began to, to try to explore bringing something about spiritual formation, but also trying to help, help us understand what creates the climate within our hearts are, like, you know, I call it the wild land within, but it's all the unseen pieces of us. It's all the things that make us who we are. We're influenced by our culture, we're influenced by things that try to keep white-centeredness the norm, when in the world, of course, it's completely abnormal to be a white person. Most people in the world are brown or black. And I was trying to disrupt some of those faulty assumptions that we have that make us who we are, and make us understand God in certain ways. So that's probably a really muddled answer to what you were asking. But I wanted to make sure that I wrote a spiritual formation book to help us look at some of the wounds that we have, some of the places of shadow within us, and also to try to understand (especially in this hemisphere of the world) that the dominant culture that that is white often is a rather delusional, shallow, look at what's happening in, what is God is up to, what is going on in Christian history, and in the soft spot of God's heart.
Jonathan Puddle 36:20
That is so real! Like if we even just look at our scripture... at our Bible, you know, the hallmark of, of white evangelical, right? "Now it's all about the Word, brother". So if, if we look at our Bible, this the almost the entire thing is the voice of the downtrodden. The voice of the people on the margins, right? We don't hear what's happening in the halls of power.
Lisa DeLay 36:45
Right.
Jonathan Puddle 36:45
And, and, and in the examples in the Old Testament where we do hear what's happening in the halls of power, it's to expose corruption.
Lisa DeLay 36:53
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 36:53
And yet, now that especially kind of yeah.. Global North, we live in the halls of power and those of us who operate in that space. It's kind of like yeah, and no one told us that the faith we were handed is actually irrelevant for being in a position of privilege. We will take a quick break from the show so that I can tell you about my Patreon. This show is supported every month and annually by my patrons. They are wonderful people, every single one is fabulous. Big shout out to Lyndall, Nic, Kelli and Natasha, who have all come on in the last couple of weeks. Thank you so much for supporting me and my work. Thank you for making it possible for this show to be on the air. There's a wonderful little community of folks over on patreon.com/JonathanPuddle, who sow into this show every month and into the other things that I do. And that's one thing that I've really enjoyed remaining in closer contact with while I haven't been doing social media on the current break, I am actively connected with my patrons, and I'm really enjoying those conversations. So thanks for being a part of the community! If you are listening to the show and you've never supported it, if you would like to think about that, I sure would be blessed. patreon.com/JonathanPuddle, you can give for as little as $3 a month or $30 a year, and you will gain access to various supportor only things including the B-Sides, where I sit down with a friend digitally, and we unpack these episodes in greater depth. That's a lot of fun. B-Sides, they're awesome. So you'll gain access to those if you become a patron today. Thank you so much. Back to the show. I'm so thankful that you've begun with that framework, and that the entire book is informed that way, it makes it so much richer. Because you said it just just a moment ago. It affects how we view God. Right? If, if the only, if we do not just just even thinking about what you were touching on earlier, by living living in fear. We talk about our African American, African Canadian friends, people we love, family members who live in fear of being murdered by law enforcement with no recourse. What does it mean to approach God? From that place of fear? That's something I don't know. And it could well be something really helpful for me to learn. For me that's just purely on the selfish space, let alone answering the question, you know, am I my brother's keeper? Well, who is my brother, right and, and moving in solidarity to to humanity. I wonder if you could explain very briefly the Johari Window because you introduce that early in the book and I felt, I wasn't familiar with it. And it was a super helpful rubric that you come back to a few times.
Lisa DeLay 40:05
Yeah, the Johari Window is a heuristic that looks like a square divided evenly into four squares. And this is again, not a real thing. It's just a way to understand something within ourselves that, how can we understand ourselves better. It was developed by two psychologists, they put their names together to make the word Johari. And what it represents is, the four quadrants represent different ways that we know ourselves and that we are known. And the first quadrant is just what we know about ourselves, all the things we know about ourselves, and that other people know about us. It's, it's what is known, it's called the arena. And then the second quadrant is our blind spot, it people know stuff about us, but we might not know it about ourselves. For instance, especially when we're young, we, we might not realize that, I mean, this is just a silly example, but, you know, at adolescence, we might not realize that we have bad manners, or that we're rude or that we're impatient. But of course, other people, especially older, wiser people can see that about us. And as we mature and grow up and hopefully become more wise, that blind spot, region changes shape a bit. And these four perfect squares don't, they're not really squares, ever, they're not perfectly the same size, or anything like that. These windows are squares,change shape in our lifetime. Now, the third window, or square is called the façade. And this to me is really what the book is about, mostly, the façade window, and it's about window two and window three with the blind spot window and the façade window. Façade window is something we know about ourselves but other people don't know. So it's, it's kind of, we can keep things in shadow. And I call it the, I think it was, it was Robert Vore on the CXMH podcast and he said, if it was it was invented now this one would be called the Instagram filter.
Jonathan Puddle 42:25
Seriously.
Lisa DeLay 42:27
And I thought that was a really accurate way to say it. So a façade is often what we present to the world or, for me, like a lot of people, I want to seem smart, I want to seem funny, I want you to like me, I, you know, want to seem like a good person, I think these are pretty typical for a lot of people. And and I'm insecure, just like everybody else. And some, some of us are more insecure than others, and we can become less insecure, as we gain more confidence or as our wounds heal. Now I'm insecure, but I am okay telling you that because I'm more healed than the past. So, um, we all have these façades. Now, some of the some façade is important just for having your own boundaries, like people who reveal too much about themselves, oversharers, maybe they should have a little more boundaries, a little more façade, just to have privacy. But façade is very interesting because it is, it can be it can be a fraud, too, you can put up things that aren't true, to manipulate people or to stay hiding. And this is where healing core wounds comes in. And I talk about core wounds in the book, which we might not have a chance to speak about today. But it's all really important to understanding who you are, where your wounds are, how to move through to understand them and, and to allow God to God's presence in the Holy Spirit to move into those places and heal them. And then the fourth one is just the total unknown, it's unknown to you, it's unknown to others. And you only know about that area, when it becomes one of the other areas when it moves into blind spot area or when it moves into the arena where everyone knows, or when it moves into the façade area. So for instance, you could have an area of total unknown and then you realize, someone tells you, you know, "I don't know if you know this, but you were abused when you were little," and then all of a sudden you think, wow, that explains a lot. And then you make a, you make a confession of this, you say to everybody, I want you to all pray for me because this this thing happened to me and now it explains this, this and this, and, and so it moves into a different area of knowing. And then from there you might have wounds that need to be healed from that but it it shifts from one part of your interior world to a different part. So the Johari window is just a way to understand what, how do we know things? And how do people know us. And it's kind of a helpful starting point for understanding the interior life. And really, when we think about the interior life, and this is really what Jesus talks about, Jesus is speaking about this life when he speaks about the four soils in the Bible, the the different soils that can either receive or not receive God's message and, and God's messages is one of love and hope and restoration. And so you know, we have the the trampled soil, the weedy soil, the rocky soil, and then the good soil. And so we're hoping that through intimacy with God, and the spiritual practices and devotion to God, we can form loving bonds and trusting bonds with God and with others, so that we have good soil for fruitful harvest.
Jonathan Puddle 45:56
I really appreciated that, that heuristic and the for the talk on the four soils as well, I just like I can get so in my head. And in my mind, I'm also like, highly relational. And this is just... the statement, to be reminded, "There are things about you, that you and everyone else know." I'm like, yes, "There are things about you that you don't see, but others did." I'm like, Oh, yes, of course, that's true. But I do not think about that very often. And that's not that's not to say they're all negative.
Lisa DeLay 46:30
Right. Right. Exactly.
Jonathan Puddle 46:31
They're facts.
Lisa DeLay 46:33
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 46:33
And then yeah, the, there are things about me that only I know. Right? And even my wife doesn't know, there are probably many things that I take for granted that she would understand about my motivations and why I do things, that she has no idea.
Lisa DeLay 46:50
Right, right. And, and to and, and also, with the façade area, number three, is that a lot of times we are, the more wounded we are, the more we might want to be accepted or impressive or special. And we might jockey and just to hopefully get the responses and the needs met that we need met. And it's important to know that if you have a really big area of façade, you're gonna have a really a lot of extra stress and really pretty bumpy time, and we all have façade. Nobody has zero façade area, we all have it and, and just some extent, a little extent, it's necessary that, for instance, you don't go to your boss and just tell your boss every little, deep, dark secret on your mind at that moment. It just doesn't make any sense. But at the same time, there are ways we purposefully shut people out of our lives that we shouldn't. And we are fakers in ways that we shouldn't be. And sometimes we think it's façade and actually it's blind spot. So we think we're we're hiding something, and we think people don't know. But it's actually a number, the number two area because people can see right through the façade. So we're not that clever. You know, we're not that clever. We think, oh, nobody knows that, that I feel this way. Or, you know, my one friend in college was gay. And she didn't tell me for two years. And then she she said, "I have something to tell you I've been wanting to tell you for a long time." I said, "You're gay." She goes, "Is it that obvious?" Yeah, I mean, we know each other really well. It's okay. Oh, I can't believe it's that obvious! Like, yeah, it doesn't matter. It's fine. But it was like, she thought it was façade. I was like, no, it's a blind spot. Everybody knows you. But you know, that's the thing is that we don't really when we don't know ourselves sometimes, or when we feel afraid or insecure, we might not realize that our façade is a pretty flimsy one.
Jonathan Puddle 49:07
That's so true. You touched on the area of wounding, you unpack these three core areas of our lives, where there's wounding: the very fundamental safety & security and then moving into esteem & affection and then finally power & control. And it was really interesting reading through those, those descriptions. I was reading those last night and, and I'm in therapy as well, and it's been quite clear from my work with my therapist that that I don't really have any major issues in safety & security. My fundamental world growing up was very safe, very secure, loved, fed, clothed. You know, even the, the because I moved around a lot as a kid. So even the uncertainty of relocation and of moving was grounded in love, and there was safety with it. But but where things begin to come off the rails for Jonathan Puddle is in the realm of affection.
Lisa DeLay 50:12
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 50:12
That my parents loved me, but didn't fully understand the language of affection of my soul, and weren't able to attune to me in ways that I really needed. And then none of us would have had that kind of language to describe that disconnection, right until very recently, right? Maybe just unpack a little bit on those on those types. And then, and then I think we're out of time.
Lisa DeLay 50:39
Sure. Well, also, if you moved a lot, and you were a middle aged child, or teenager, one of the biggest things you would have wanted, hopefully, probably, likely, because developmentally this would have been accurate is that you would have wanted to make friends and have connections, and feel accepted and esteemed, or have, you know, some real connections with your friends. So that would have been a really important part. So that might have been a wounding or an area of difficulty or problems for you, if you're bounced around a lot that could have been disrupted and disrupted and disrupted. So that could create a wound that your parents can't possibly fill, you know, they can't fill those friendships that get disrupted. And that is a wound that there can be for some people, it's always there. And for some people, it's it's this little trench. For some people, it's this gully. And for some people, it's this cavernous ravine, and they just over and over, you know, maybe have trouble with keeping relationships, or that they, you know, become worried about abandonment or they become concerned with appearing a certain way or, you know, there's all kinds of things that can kind of go wrong when you have a wounding there. The first one they were talking about, and this is from Father Thomas Keating, and I got this from him, if you go in the book, you'll see where I pulled from these different places, I didn't come up with this myself or anything. But the three core wounds really relate to our humanity and our biological needs. These are not sinful things in any way. They're just because we're, we're human, and we're vulnerable. And we're vulnerable because we're social mammals, and vulnerable in a good way, you know, we're precious and we need each other. So safety and security, because we're not the kind of mammals that are quickly independent, we have this long childhood. And we need to be taken care of and fed and kept safe. And sometimes these, these very early things, usually before our two, two years old, where our memory becomes chronological and verbal, we can experience fearful things that are about our safety and security, that might have to do with safety and security of our bodily safety and security. So some people feel always unsafe in their bodies. And that can have something to do with an early trauma that they might have absolutely no memory of, but they just always feel unsafe in their bodies. And that could be because of some issue or a few issues that happened when they were young. And there might not be a way of knowing the actual incident, but they just have a lot of triggers regarding that. And so there's a wound there that will continue to replay over and over in instances in their lives. And it can become very difficult. And that's why it's very important to get a trauma-informed therapist to help with triggering things. The next one we talked about is esteem and affection. And this can be esteem and affection wounds from the, come from parents that, come from middle school, or youth group or something where you get... everyone gets some of these wounds. Because everybody gets picked on one way or another or has some sort of issues as you're growing up that don't go perfectly smoothly, or even the kids—I've heard, have heard this is true—even the popular really good looking very good at sports kids also have their same issues. So nobody gets through without some kind of wounding. And then the last one is also this very overarching one of power and control. And this is your your general basic human need to control our situations and that there's nothing wrong with wanting to have power and control over your situation. It's general agency over your life. But what happens is that if you have a wounding here, you you have anxiety related to this you have you might be manipulative, you might just have a lot of anxious thoughts or do all kinds of things to micromanage your life. And it's not a place of peace for you regarding this, you can't let things go. It's really typical and can be very extra induced by stress or a world pandemic can do it. All kinds of things can make this area worse. So you see a lot of mental health issues with the pandemic, because it's pushed all these wounds and people extra hard. And power and control is a big one, like you can't go outside anymore, what? You can't do anything that you used to love to do, you don't have any control over whether you're going to wear a mask or not. And who's going to tell me I can't wear a mask. And so there's all these issues that that come to the fore straight out of the core wounds. And what Thomas Keating talks about is how quieting down, centering down and allowing God to work on these wounds in silence essentially, and through other ways, (it's also through therapy) are ways that get down to these core wounds and heal them from within. And so the book does go into some of that. But what's really interesting is that once you realize what the core wounds are in yourself, you can start to spot them. And when you do weird things, you're like, I just lashed out, what was that about? Oh, I didn't feel like I was being very accepted. Or I felt a little rejected by this friend, because I want to have a nice, close relationship. And that felt threatened. So I lashed out, you know, you wind up being able to trace and track while you're doing things, and there's some, it creates a lot of connections you might have not had before.
Jonathan Puddle 56:20
Yes, yes, very, very true. So real! Friends, Lisa's book is called The Wild Land Within: Cultivating Wholeness Through Spiritual Practice. So the stuff that we've talked about here today really kind of just forms the first, first third, maybe of the book. And then from there, she she unpacks, all manner of helpful practices for us. And each of these, I mean, each each area is accompanied by practices that are relevant to each one. And I highly, highly recommend it. Lisa, where can people find out more about you and the book and everything that you're doing?
Lisa DeLay 56:58
Thank you, Jonathan. I'm on Twitter quite a bit @LisaDeLay. And I love it, I'd love it if you'd come and listen to Spark My Muse at sparkmymuse.com or wherever you get your podcasts, I try to put out a new release every Wednesday. And I'm really happy to speak with people who've read the book or have questions or anything like that. I'm also doing usually, every first Wednesday of the month, on Crowdcast, I'm trying to do some kind of class either with... This is live and it's recorded to watch later, I will be doing a class on Evagrius Ponticus, who's a desert father that's talked a book in his desert spirituality is examined, it's, it's a really great way to understand what I call the weather systems of the inner life. And we'll be talking about him at 7:30pm, May 5 is a Wednesday, Eastern time. And that's free, you can just join up for that it would be great to have people come out for that. And also, it would be June 2, do a book club discussion on this book. And it would be fun to hear what some favorite parts are if you have them or ask questions if you have them. But I would love it if people would read this in groups and walk through it together. Don't don't go it alone. Even if you don't, you don't have to have all the answers, and it doesn't have to be a neat, perfect bow on everything. But try not to take it take your healing just upon yourself. Because I think that that that is why God provides us friendships is to realize we're all quite similar. We all have similar wounds. And we are meant to help each other.
Jonathan Puddle 58:46
Amen. So true. Friends, like I said, I recommend it, I highly recommend it. I can't wait to someday be able to sit down with members of my church and go through it together. And I really think it's going to or should, if it doesn't (I can't make a prediction) but I think it should become a classic of church discipleship. Because it's, it's so broadly encompassing, but goes deep into everything. And is it's got all the elements that I think are so critical for an honest, authentic life in North America, at least if not globally, in 2021 and beyond. Like, it's all there. All the pieces are there. So thank you for doing this work and bringing it to us, Lisa, I know. I know, it's costly. Thank you.
Lisa DeLay 59:32
Sure. It's my pleasure.
Jonathan Puddle 59:34
Would you pray for us or teach us some final practice or whatever's on your heart?
Lisa DeLay 59:39
Yeah. Well, one of the things I do at the last part of the book is I offer a blessing and one of the things poet and anam cara John O'Donoghue helped me understand was the power and the joy, of bestowing a blessing. And really a blessing is a sincere in kind bidding of goodness for another, for the betterment to become true, for the better to become true. And it doesn't... a blessing is wonderful because it doesn't require any special action. You just have to hear it. You don't have to perform a ceremony or anything, all you have to do is receive it. So at the end I I have a blessing I hope falls on fertile soil of your heart and I thought I would read it today and send us off. So it goes like this: Enter into the infinite kingdom. This is the land within you that extends from your core and out into the world and among you and all others. May the seeds of the Spirit's fruit find purchase among fertile soil, ready for God's loving work. May what springs up, sprout, enjoy and be so lovely, that you wouldn't have dared dream to dream it. But at long last all was well and lush. May your deepest places be met with the patience of your own grace to yourself and with the kindness of God's light. May you extend the love overflowing from your healed places to make gentle the path for someone else and extend a hand for the next person who may be wearier than you know. Know from your deepest place within that you are loved. May the presence of the Divine the source of love fill your senses with tender embrace, mercies and homecoming. May it be well with your soul. Amen.
Jonathan Puddle 1:01:34
Amen. Thank you, Lisa. Friends, head over to lisadelay.com. Go follow Lisa on Twitter and elsewhere. She's on Instagram and Facebook but is most active on Twitter. Make sure you go and sign up for that course that she's offering, starts in just a few days. And definitely head to the show notes to grab the link to purchase The Wild Land Within: Cultivating Wholeness Through Spiritual Practice. I cannot recommend it to you enough. I'm even tempted to issue a reprint soon of You Are Enough and, and include mention of her book in there because I really want you to go and get it. I think it's gonna be really powerful. And it's really helping me out a lot right now in this season where I'm just kind of zoomed out a little bit... no pun intended. What I mean is, I have changed the boundaries of my life. I'm not referring to Zoom, though I am "Zoomed out"... zoomed right down into my family and just focusing on the kids, my wife, here and now, day by day, from having had some some dark days, but I've had some really good days too. So I'm just trying to do the things that my body and soul need to maintain and even keel. And yeah. So I covet your prayers. Thank you so much for again, the kind words that many of you've been sending in. If you're not following me on social media, you are not missing much right now because I'm not there. But you can follow me @JonathanPuddle on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. You'll find me at jonathanpuddle.com and find my book You Are Enough: Learning to Love Yourself the Way God Loves You, available wherever you find books. Grace and peace to my friends. We'll see you hopefully next week.
Jonathan Puddle 00:03
Hey friends, welcome back to The Puddcast with me, Jonathan Puddle. This is Episode 110. There's new intro music for you, hope you enjoy it, you'll get to listen to the full song at the end as usual. My guest today is Diana Gruver. Diana reached out to me a few months back, she has got a book out came out last year called Companions in the Darkness: Seven Saints Who Struggled with Depression and Doubt. And she said, Jonathan, I just think this might be of interest to you. And, and I have loved it, you'll hear me brag about it on air, but I really, really enjoyed it. I highly recommend it. Honestly, if you have any measure of connection with depression in your own life or in the lives of others, I would highly recommend it. I am frequently asked for books on depression or for resources for Christians struggling with depression. And this is going to be my, my go to from now on. It covers a whole bunch of great things, including some of the medicines, some of the science, but really, it's rooted in stories of faithful Christians in the past, who also struggled with depression and with doubts about their spiritual life and about God's closeness. And with those people, we can find companionship for our own journeys. So I'm thrilled to introduce you all today to Diana Gruver. Diana, I am so excited to welcome you to the show today. Your book came to me at just such a wonderful, timely moment. And it has been a joy. I laid in bed finishing reading it this morning. So thank you for writing it. Thank you for joining me today. Welcome to The Puddcast.
Diana Gruver 01:48
Oh, thanks for having me, Jonathan. It's really good to be with you today.
Jonathan Puddle 01:52
I was on lockdown isolation because my daughter had COVID, when I really properly picked up your book. You know, you had gifted it to me, I want to acknowledge that. Thank you! You said, Hey, I think this book might be like of interest. And not only did you send me a book, but a candle, and a whole little package. And it was wonderful. But it sat on my bookshelf. Because, you know, I don't know if you experienced this, but there's times where I get a book or something. And I'm like, I just don't feel like reading that right now. Or it's just... it doesn't click for whatever reason. And then mysteriously through the work of life and of God, you pick it up at the exact moment that you needed it... even though it's been on your shelf gathering dust for six months. And so my daughter got COVID, we're locked down, we can't leave our property, and Jonathan Puddle did not do well. With that. It was very, very bleak and very dark for me. And I picked up your book out of guilt.
Diana Gruver 03:00
What a great reason to pick up a book about depression,
Jonathan Puddle 03:03
Literally the truth. I'm just being very candid. And I loved it. from the get go. It was just what I needed. It was so hope filled. For me, depression has always been circumstantial. And that... obviously that's in some senses like an oxymoron with depression because it's often categorically un-circumstantial sadness. But all that's to say I have I have battled with depression seasonally, for five or 10 years. And it's never been chronic for me. And so let me just get that out there. My father has had clinical depression for 20 plus years. So I've had very close access to that. I see what that's like, when you defined like clinic like chronic depression, clinical depression, it was really helpful for me even to be like, okay, yes, Jonathan does not suffer from that. I am in the category of more circumstantial, more seasonal, it comes and it goes. So even just that classification was so life giving for me. But I was in one of those really dark stages. And I had times during that isolation, where it was possibly the worst depression I've ever had. Just agonizing, just deep gut-wrenching pain of soul, the lack of sleep. And then and then, for me flipping to the anxiety, anxiety so bad one day, I had to go take a bath just to put myself back into my body, only to an hour later be at the absolute depths, and unable to sleep. Just like... sweet Jesus help me or kill me, either one. So but but these, this book and the way you've written these stories, these biographical elements of these beautiful men and women of God of the past and how they suffered and how they faithfully journeyed on was such a gift to me right when I needed it. So thank you so much.
Diana Gruver 05:05
Oh, thank you. That's so encouraging to me. You know, you write in isolation. And as I mentioned in the book, part of the reason for writing, it came out of my own experience, but then to put it out in the world and hear stories of how God's using it, and how it's encouraging people, it's an encouragement to me. So thanks.
Jonathan Puddle 05:24
I would love to hear more of your story, maybe put us into the picture and who you are, where you've come from what? And incidentally, you're a brilliant writer.
Diana Gruver 05:35
Thank you.
Jonathan Puddle 05:36
I've just really loved your prose. So, bravo.
Diana Gruver 05:39
Well, thanks. Thank you. Yeah, so I live in Pennsylvania with my husband and toddler age daughter. I write part time, and I mom the rest of the time, and we live close to family now. And it's a gift to be able to share life with with them and share our daughter with them. But as to my own story with depression, it wasn't something that I would have expected myself to struggle with. I think growing up, I was usually pretty optimistic. I had a great childhood, really supportive parents. But when I was in college, it came. And I think the most disorienting part of that, for me was that I didn't have a specific event that I could tie it to. So it felt kind of illogical, really, that I would just be engulfed in such a deep sense of darkness. I might, I wasn't diagnosed until my senior year of college, but I think it started before then, it wasn't as bad. And so I would always shrug it off as, "Well, I'm in a funk", you know, I'm crying more than normal, things are a little gloomy. And then over time, it would pass. But then that senior year, it got bad enough and debilitating enough that I had to face it for what it was. And thankfully, our college had a counseling center. And so I was able to see a counselor for several months and was able to get on medication, which was really helpful for me. And then it reoccurred again, about a year and a half later, when I was living abroad, I worked at a group foster home. So being in a different situation and removed from my normal support network and some of the secondary trauma that comes with with that work in that environment, I probably should have expected it. But I was young, I didn't know. And I did it. And so it came again. And it was again, something that I had to wrestle through. Since then, it's not been quite as as deep as it was in those seasons. But you know, it's still a part of my story. And it's still something I know I need to be really aware of. And so in in some hard seasons of life since then, including the last year I think you're not alone in in that experience of there's so many of us struggling during the season with the pandemic and the isolation that comes with it and the uncertainty that comes with it. And just knowing that I really need to keep a good finger on how am I doing? When do I need to get help? You know, what, what do I need to put into my, the rhythms of my life or the relationships in my life to make sure that I'm trying to stay in the best place that I possibly can?
Jonathan Puddle 08:36
Yes, yes, that is the nail on the head. I have, I have had some days recently where it's been like, okay, I can feel that I'm sliding. And my children will get home from school in about four hours, and then I will feel this familiar feeling of entrapment. And of, "everyone has needs, and I'm not enough to meet them". So what do I need to do between now and then, you know, what do I need to eat? What exercise do I need to do? If I'm going to watch some TV, maybe it needs to be funny and not brooding sci-fi. And, you know, that level of intentionality, of practices of rhythms is so real. And yet, as anyone who suffers from depression, like we know, like, that's the hardest thing.
Diana Gruver 09:29
Absolutely. Yeah. And even to admit, ooh, this is where I am right now, I'm crying more than I should be. You know, there, there are too many days where that's happening. There are too many days where it just takes a little bit too much energy to get out of bed, you know, a little too much and it's too overwhelming. Some of these normal everyday tasks are just a little too overwhelming than they should be. And so I think the first thing for me is acknowledging, oh, that is there. This is what I'm feeling and and that means that I'm you know, feeling kind of that tug of depression. So what do I need to do to try to take care of myself?
Jonathan Puddle 10:05
Yes, yes. How do you... have you, have you... Is there a self compassionate piece in there for you? Because I know for me for many years, the question of, oh, why am I feeling this way? And I would very quickly beat myself up.
Diana Gruver 10:22
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think part of that comes from, this is not because I'm not strong enough, it's not because I don't have enough faith or enough willpower. It's not a personal reflection on my character, or my ability to do life. And, and I think that's something that I've really had to learn. And frankly, the the stories in this book have been helpful for me, because you know, if these giants of the faith have felt these things that I'm feeling, it gives me a little bit of freedom to feel them too. And to know that, yeah, it doesn't mean I'm weak, it doesn't mean that that will be the end of the story. It just means it's where I am. And in order to be faithful to care for the body that God has given me and to live faithfully in the story that he's placed me in. There are some things I need to do to make sure that I stay healthy, not just physically, but also in my mental, emotional life as well.
Jonathan Puddle 11:23
Yes, you grabbed my attention. Okay. So, backtrack, the book is called Companions in the Darkness: Seven Saints Who Struggled with Depression and Doubt. And so you've got these biographies of these amazing people, some of whom, you know, I've read loads on, I feel like I knew them inside and out. And yet, all of a sudden, you revealed all these aspects of folks. Like Spurgeon, you know, it's kind of I think, pretty well known that he had a lot of dark, you know, patches in his life. But Mother Teresa, I did not know that stuff. And that was devastating. I read some of her quotes out to my wife. And my wife was like, "Oh my God. This is horrible!" So you, but you write in your introduction, which just tickled me. "Can you imagine the audacity of [basically accusing people of being a bad Christian], to the brothers and sisters in this book of telling Charles Spurgeon to read his Bible more, or David Brainerd to pray more, or telling Mother Teresa to just choose joy?" I'm like, "Oh, dang." And then you wrote, "The faithfulness of their lives did not make them immune. And it will not make me immune." And I underlined it, and that was one of those like, Jonathan, this is not a reflection on your faithfulness.
Diana Gruver 12:48
Yep.
Jonathan Puddle 12:49
This is not a reflection on your worth.
Diana Gruver 12:52
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you mentioned Charles Spurgeon, he gave this lecture to his students at one point that was preparing them they're they're pastors in training, preparing them for it if or when depression showed up in their life. And his big takeaways for them, I think, are really applicable for all of us. And they were don't think that something strange is happening to you if you have this experience. And don't think that all is over with your usefulness. And I think if we in, in just generally, but especially in Christian community can have that kind of attitude towards depression, where we don't lead with the accusations, you know, that you mentioned in that quote about, we just need to have more faith, we just need to choose joy. We just need to read our Bibles more, and it'll all go away. So if you're struggling, maybe you're just not keeping up with those things quite the way that you should be.
Jonathan Puddle 13:47
Is there some secret sin you haven't confessed?
Diana Gruver 13:49
Exactly, yeah. But if we can approach it with a little more matter of factness that, sometimes this happens, we don't need to add more guilt or more angst or more of that, you know, kind of tumultuous introspection when someone's struggling with depression. And we can also have the hope that that doesn't mean that their usefulness is over. It doesn't mean that God can't use you. It doesn't mean that God isn't using you or he isn't with you. It's just something some of us have to walk through.
Jonathan Puddle 14:21
Yeah, yeah, that's so good. So why this approach? What what drove you, inspired you to bi... biographize? bi... to write biographies? How does what is there a verb about to biograph? Is that the verb?
Diana Gruver 14:36
I don't know. Now that you're asking it this way, I can't even think what it what would it be? Biographize. That sounds good. Let's go with that.
Jonathan Puddle 14:46
Why did you do it this way and pick these particular people.
Diana Gruver 14:51
So I didn't know these stories when I was that depressed college student and I wish that I had. And you know, I can't help but think what my experience would have been like if I'd known them in that season. It wasn't until several years later, I was in seminary and I studied spiritual formation. But the the program was very heavily weighted in church history. And so I started to notice some of these stories pop up. And I think in part because I had had this experience with depression, it was still fairly fresh in my mind and my memory. I noticed them. And I was, I was drawn to them, it piqued my curiosity. And for some of them, I mean, the first two that I remember noticing, are... were Luther, and Spurgeon. I thought, why have I never heard this part of their story before, you know? It has such a gift to offer us of hope, and just the wisdom that they have to share with someone who's walked through this. So I started looking into a couple of them a bit more. And then over time, just was thinking about, you know, not only for myself, I wanted to know their stories, I wanted to hear their wisdom. But there were other depressed college students like me out there that maybe I could offer them those stories, the depressed moms and the depressed dads and the depressed grandparents, and, you know, the depressed young professionals, they're all there. And they need those stories, too. And so it... to be able to capture their stories in a way that offered companionship. And I think one of the biggest things when we're depressed is we need to know that we're not alone in that. And so if I could offer a bit of that companionship to people, not just through my story, but through people that we still look to, and celebrate and hold up from history, who have struggled much like we have, I think that offers a great amount of hope. And it does, as we've been talking about it, it really starts to unravel a lot of the stigma that comes with depression, and frees us up to just say, Okay, this is where I am, how do I survive? And I think their story is all for us, both of those things, you know, they undermine the stigma. And in addition to pursuing a lot of the important things we need to do with getting mental health get connected with good mental health care, and some of the more practical day to day things. Okay, how do I survive this? How do I keep going? And we have these brothers and sisters that can share their wisdom with us.
Jonathan Puddle 17:31
Yeah. I actually, I think I cried a few tears in the chapter on on Luther. And it came home to me again, just this morning reading the ML, the chapter on MLK. Partly because when I was... when we were in lockdown, and I was reading the book, you know, a month or so back, we were in a pretty difficult spot with some kind of church leadership, politic matters. And the accusations that were leveled against Luther, "Why are you being so divisive? No good will come up this." Word for word accusations that had recently been leveled against me. And there was a great sense of companionship and hope and peace, that came to hear Martin Luther accused of these things, and to hear the way that... to consider the way that you would self-doubt, that you would be frustrated, that those words take a toll.
Diana Gruver 18:35
They do.
Jonathan Puddle 18:36
And certainly, you see that in MLK's life, right? That those words have a real cost. And so a woundedness of spirit is not odd, is not is not in any way incongruous with your experience of life. And that as you hoped to do, it did bring me great comfort. And I felt the companionship, even in a mystical sense, right, of the fellowship of the saints that have gone before us, the believers, however that works in a spiritual and metaphysical way. I felt a sense of oneness with Martin Luther and with these countless other brothers and sisters, and an encouragement to keep going. And that was what I needed.
Diana Gruver 19:30
Yeah, I end the book with a little story from Pilgrim's Progress that Charles Spurgeon spoke about once and there's this moment where they're crossing a river and Christian feels like it's sink... he's sinking. And his friend yells ahead of him, you know, "The water is deep, but the bottom is good!" And Spurgeon talks about how Christ offers us that comfort, but other people around us also offer that us that comfort, and I couldn't help but think of that story. And the way that he applied it as I kept reading the stories and studying the stories in this book, I think all of them do that for us. They say, yes, the water is deep, this is not fun, this is hard. And the words of other people wound your soul, and depression wounds your soul. And all of this is heavy stuff. But the bottom is good, there is a bottom there that will allow you to keep standing. And they can offer that to us. They've offered that to me. And I think the beautiful thing that is that as we wrestle through our own stories, and and come to some level of acceptance of, "This is where I am, this is where I've walked. This is how God has carried me through," we can offer that to other people, as well. And so, yeah, I hope that people who read this have a sense of companionship, they know they're not alone, they have that, that hope in the camaraderie of people who have walked that road before them. But I also hope that they're encouraged to share their own story, you know, because you and I can be companions too. And we need that just as much as we need the stories from history.
Jonathan Puddle 21:17
Yes. Was there a particular one of these seven folks who you identified more with or who you have a particular soft spot for?
Diana Gruver 21:25
I have a real, Oh, man, I have a soft spot for William Cowper, which I think is a little ironic, because out of all the stories in this book, I think his is the saddest to me. He was a hymn writer and a poet in 18th century England, really good friends with John Newton, who people may know as the man who wrote Amazing Grace. And John Newton actually was the one who recruited Cowper to write hymns with him, in part to try to help alleviate his depression in in milder forms. But he struggled chronically with depression throughout his life. And it included some more psychotic elements, which eventually convinced him that he was outside of God's grace and would never be saved. And, and that sort of despair that came with his depression, I think is why his story is particularly sad, particularly heavy. But you know, in spite of that, he had such a warmth to him, I was able to get a volume of his letters, and I just couldn't put it down. Just the way that his personality jumped from the page, he would write these little poems as thank you notes to his friends, and he talked about going for walks in the English countryside and about the antics of his pets. And, you know, in spite of his depression, he's just still had this, this warmth to him and the way that he engaged the world. He loved to garden. And then also, as a writer, seeing how writing gave him a way through depression. He once said that writing poetry was his best remedy. And, obviously, there were seasons where his depression was so deep, he couldn't, he couldn't work, he couldn't do anything. But as he could, he wrote, and there was something in that, that I think the, you know, the, the generative groundedness for him of writing poetry, brought him some comfort and gave him something that he could pour himself into that was purposeful and fulfilling. And as a writer, I relate to that, you know, I ironically enough, I've said to people that I think at various points, writing this book about depression has kept me from deeper seasons of depression, not only because I've had the companionship of these people, and I've been able to put some of their wisdom into practice, but, but that generative work that I could pour myself into that felt purposeful, was really helpful for me. And, again, it's not a cure all, but I really relate to that part of his experience. And yeah, he's he's a gem that William Cowper.
Jonathan Puddle 24:13
Yeah, I definitely, I put myself into the English countryside, partly because of your descriptive writing. And, and yeah, I definitely craved a little English country cottage, and some hens. One of the things that you that you write here, this is on in Hannah Allen's story, which I which I'm so glad you included because she's not famous, and it's not like a well-known person, but it's just like, again, kind of a sad figure. But there is hope in it. I was so glad for that. I was like, oh, man, this this is bleak. Until it's not. Praise God.
Diana Gruver 24:52
Yes. Praise God.
Jonathan Puddle 24:54
Isn't that all in our lives?
Diana Gruver 24:55
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 24:55
If we're honest. So you I really I love the way you balance a bunch of these things. And you wrote here, "Depression is a spiritual issue in the sense that everything in our lives is a spiritual issue, our habits, our thoughts, even the minute list of decisions. But we cannot classify depression as a solely spiritual issue with solely spiritual causes, and a solely spiritual cure." I thought that is that is a really great, is really great non-dual thought. But it's, it's also really, really holistic. You've written elsewhere in there, I wonder if you'd maybe give us a little bit of your thinking on this, since the synthesis of the spiritual, the physical, mental, how depression works, as you understand it in a few different ways.
Diana Gruver 25:49
I'm so glad you read that quote. Because I think it seems like you know, I heard somebody say that we have a tendency as humans, we're trying to stay on the road in the middle, and there's a ditch on either side. And it's so hard to stay in the middle, we really like to land in one ditch or the other. And so in the case of depression, the one ditch, of course, that we've talked about, is people who make it into a completely spiritual thing, you know. Depression, they would say, as a spiritual failing, and it will be fixed by some spiritual remedy, whatever, whatever their theological bent, or their experience would tell you that it's going to look like. But there's a ditch on the other side, too, I think that says, depression has nothing to do with your spiritual life. And it's a it's a very understandable swing, but I think it's also a ditch. And I think the middle road says, we can't blame depression on a spiritual failing, we can't say that some sort of appropriate spiritual discipline regimen, or exorcism, or whatever is going to cure it. But if all of our life matters to God, if our physical life matters to God, our spirit, our spiritual life, and I don't even like putting that in a category, you know, because I don't feel like there's this huge separation of these segments of our life, like we talked about them. All of this is a means of worship, all of it is a means of service. And all of it is a means of engaging in, in this good world, and, and this good life that God has gifted us. And so he cares about depression, just like he cares about our exercise habits, or you know, our relationships with people. And all of those are opportunities for him to enter in and be a part of that story and that experience. So when I think about depression, I really, I think it's helpful for me to think about it in terms of how I would talk about other physical illnesses. So let's take cancer, for example. Or diabetes, I mean, you can choose your your physical illness of choice. But we would never say that's a spiritual issue in the sense that, "Oh, you're sick, so you must have unconfessed sin." But we certainly believe that it can be a place that God can enter into, we certainly believe that, you know, our faith, or some of these spiritual practices would provide comfort or provide some, maybe a little bit of stable footing to help us through, we would certainly believe that the community of the church would surround us and support us through that. But that doesn't mean we don't see a doctor, it doesn't mean that we separate that into all of these segments, right. And so with depression, I, you know, I think that, that seeking out the care available to us through therapy, through medication is really valuable. I think it can be a faithful part of discipleship and saying, I want to care for myself, because I believe that God has a purpose for me, and I believe he, he wants to work in my life and work through my life. And so I need to be as well as I can be, you know, use those tools at my disposal to stay in that place, you know. And for some of us, that might mean that we experience, you know, relief from depression. Some of us it might not, and that's not a poor reflection on us. It's just like with cancer, some of us get healing, and some of us don't, and we have to wrestle through the implications of that. But, you know, in the midst of that treatment, we also say, you know, as a Christian, I believe that God can be here with me in this and as a Christian I believe that somehow there's a way to pray in the midst of this. As a Christian I believe that there's hope provided to me through the message of the gospel and God's intention and work to redeem all things.
Jonathan Puddle 29:51
We will take a quick pause so I can thank my patrons. A big shout out to everybody who supports the show monthly or annually on patreon.com. My latest patron is Sanda. Thank you, Sanda! So glad to have you. Friends, if you love the show, then would you consider supporting it? You can do so for $3 a month or $30 a year. There are higher tiers available if you'd like to give more. If you do become a supporter, you'll gain access to the B-Sides. Every week I record a behind the scenes conversation about the latest episode. Those discussions often go in greater depth and provide a chance to hear how the topic has been percolating in my heart as well as the heart of my guest. So there's a wonderful B-Side for this episode with my friend, Robert Vore, who hosts the CXMH podcast, Christian mental health podcast. So if you want to become a patron head to patreon.com/JonathanPuddle or hit the link in the show notes. Back to the show.
Diana Gruver 30:50
And so I think that if we can think about depression in that sense, okay, how would I how would I handle this myself or with someone else if they had a chronic health condition? Or an acute, you know, an acute health condition? And how can I draw some parallels here? Because it doesn't, it doesn't need to be this hugely different experience, you know. We have skills as I hope that we have skills as a Christian community, and as individual believers to know how to navigate some of these crises, and depression is no different. And I think we can can find a lot of freedom and also a lot of clarity, when we can help our minds learn to think about it in that sense.
Jonathan Puddle 31:41
Yes, that's so good. That's a really helpful rubric. Yesterday, I had a lot of back pain, partly because I had changed my tires the day before, and have been living a very sedentary lifestyle for the last six months, which is partly because of winter in Canada. Anyway, yesterday, I had back pain, really severe back pain. And so I asked my children to pray for me that God would heal my back pain. I also had my wife rub essential oils on my back. I also took it easy. I also lay in a bath for a while filled with Epsom salts. And as the day progressed, I felt myself less debilitated. And I felt a sense of gratefulness to everybody around me for the ways that they had all attempted to care for me and myself. And I felt a sense of peace with the Lord that I was being kind to someone that he loves. The kindness part is a, is a newer part of my practice. Yeah, that's, that's a newer piece.
Diana Gruver 32:57
And I think, you know, as I think about depression, you know, one thing that comes with depression that doesn't come with some of these other physical illnesses is a lot of the, the emotional pieces to it, that are just symptoms of what that illness looks like, you know, your back pain didn't bring quite the same level of despondency and guilt and self-loathing that depression brings with it just by nature of being depression.
Jonathan Puddle 33:26
For sure, of course.
Diana Gruver 33:27
And so I think for a lot of us, you know, because it because it in because all of us, all of our life, engages our spiritual life, depression engages our spiritual life, right? There are things that happen to us, at least in my experience and the experience of the people in this book when we're depressed, that that seem to come just in part because you are depressed. So a sense of God's absence seems to be a big one. The inability to pray or engage with Scripture the way that maybe you once did is another one. And I think that that is just some of the the fruit and the symptom of what depression is like, and how it, how it affects our brains and how it affects our emotions and how it affects our ability to perceive the world. And so for some of us, there's this, to varying degrees of severity, a little bit of a crisis of faith, right? I'm really hurting and God isn't here for me. Or I'm really hurting and these things that once brought me comfort are not bringing me comfort right now. And that's disorienting, and it can lead to some of that sense of crisis. You know, it adds to that, maybe I'm doing something wrong. Maybe God has left me here, you know, and that's something that I think comes with depression that we can prepare for, we can care for each other for and and can can know, "Okay, this is this is not true. This is a symptom, you know. This is not true." This is the way I'm perceiving this to be. It doesn't mean God isn't here just because I don't (I'm doing air quotes) "feel him" in the way that I normally do. And I think we as as Christian community, as brothers and sisters in Christ can position each other to respond to that better or worse. And so if we can talk about depression in that matter of fact, way, if we can approach it the way that you have, you know, just shared with your back pain, it doesn't remove that crisis of faith completely, no. But it doesn't keep another burden on top of people. And so I feel a great sense of empathy for folks who are, are not only struggling with depression, but they just have more weights heaped on top of them, because of really poorly handled conversations about mental health. And, you know, when I think about things like that, I think about Jesus's words to the Pharisees about, you know, you're taking the law and you're just adding weights to it and keeping it on people's back.
Jonathan Puddle 36:03
Yeah.
Diana Gruver 36:04
And, and so I think that's something I know I've been very convicted by and, again, I hope comes as a trickle down effect of of this book is, let's stop adding more burdens to each other that don't need to be there. You know, when you're depressed, you have enough to carry, you don't need to carry extra guilt, because people have, either their some version of their theology, you know, has added more guilt to you. That's not necessary. You don't need to bear that burden.
Jonathan Puddle 36:34
Yeah. Amen. Thank you for saying that. Or then related to that is the kind of the spiritual bypassing where, where people will, "Oh, well, you know, you just just need to read the Psalms." Or offer some kind of quick pat answer, which, which I guess we know, is actually well meaning, but it's also like this inability, inability and willingness to enter into our pain with us.
Diana Gruver 37:02
Because pain makes us uncomfortable. It does. And I think out of response for that, you know, out of response of that discomfort, we try to either come up with a fix that makes us feel more comfortable that we've provided our remedy, or we do a variety of things to keep it at bay. Because if someone else struggles like that, without clear reason, and without a clear remedy, Oh, goodness, that might come for us too.
Jonathan Puddle 37:32
Yes.
Diana Gruver 37:33
And, and so I think one of the great things that we can do in the church community, again, as an act of discipleship, I will put it in that context, is to learn how to become more comfortable with pain, not in a masochistic way. But in a, okay, I can sit in this space, I can sit in the tension of this space, where I can say God is good, and pain exists. And I can just sit here with my mouth shut, and just keep company with someone else in the midst of their pain. that I think would be the greatest gift for us to learn how to practice and embody
Jonathan Puddle 38:14
So much, yes. Wow. So much of my spiritual formation, which I'm very thankful for much of the time, is in Charismatic, very kind of, "Bring the kingdom now, Lord, by your spirit!" kind of ways. And, and I'm glad that I have that vibrancy, because in terms of faith, and in terms of prayer expectancy, I have a real expectation that God is here, that God is real, that God shows up. But that doesn't mean I haven't experienced times where God doesn't seem to show up, certainly not the way I expect. And, and culturally, it definitely seems like it's given rise (in the larger movements that I'm a part of), to what you just said. "God is real" and "pain exists" it's like, I can't put those in a sentence. I wasn't given permission to put those in a single sentence, which meant I had to live with a really deep cognitive dissonance that I was not given a solution for. And I mean, that alone I think breeds mental problems and problems when you have these underlying dissonances and rejections and weird biases that you that you know, intuitively don't resolve. But you're, but you're not given permission. You know, the only tools that I was given was to rebuke the demons and to claim the blood of Jesus over crappy feelings. OK, so I underlined this again this morning because it just spoke to me. "The emotions..." This is in the Mother Teresa section. "The emotions and comforts and warm fuzzies of faith are wonderful when they come but they are not the litmus test of God's existence, of the Gospel's hope, or the faith he planted in my soul.", I was like, "Oh amen." And then, if that wasn't already, hope-filled enough, you said, "Fruits of love, kindness, humility, and even joy can grow in the dark, we may not see them or rather feel them. But that does not mean they're not there. Depression does not halt our growth in godliness." And that was like a deep soul breath for me. It may certainly feel like our spiritual life is halted. But it's not, is it?
Diana Gruver 40:47
No. And, you know, I, I emotions are great things that, you know, emotions are gift from God. They're part of the way that he designed us to operate. And I don't think we have to live inherently skeptical of them. But they are emotions. And especially when we're depressed, those feelings that we feel... we need to learn... I've heard so many people say depression is a liar. And it is, it doesn't mean that the things that we feel in the midst of that are illegitimate. But it does mean that that a part again of the symptom of it is that we don't perceive reality correctly. And so in that, in that, in, in our spiritual life in that relationship with God, and our perception of what that is like, depression is a liar. You know, Mother Teresa felt like God had abandoned her. And she was alone. And she couldn't pray. And she, I mean, like you said, her words are shocking. No one knew about this when she was alive. They didn't know about it until I think, I think the book that revealed that to the world was published maybe 10 years ago, it was some letters to some of her spiritual advisors. She would say, you know, my, my soul is like an ice block. The place of God in my soul is blank, she said. But as I read her words, and I, I thought through how she responded to those things, I kept thinking, you know, those were her feelings in the midst of that, and they were legitimate, and they were real. And that was what she felt. But did God actually leave for? No!
Jonathan Puddle 42:36
That's it.
Diana Gruver 42:37
And certainly, did she stop growing and her faithfulness or her godliness over those last several decades of her life? No! I mean, the woman exuded joy and love in such practical and sacrificial ways. God was clearly working in her. She didn't feel it. But it was there. And you know, if Mother Teresa can feel that and see that fruit, I can feel that and I can expect to see fruit too. And she had this great quote that says, "Thank God that we've been told to follow Christ. I don't have to go ahead of him." So the path is this always sure even in the darkness, the path is sure. So when things get particularly overwhelming, I just stand still like a little child. And I just wait for the storm to subside. And so when we're in that place of turmoil, when we're in that place of darkness, the call hasn't changed. God's promised to be with us has not changed. And so there's something in that that's, you know, I don't have to get all the sense that I get in my own spirit is a sense of franticness you know, I have to fix this, I have to get this right. I have to make this feel okay. And I think her story especially just offers me a word of No, just just be still, just be quiet. God hasn't left you. He's not done with you. He's here. He just just be still a little bit. I think often of the words in Psalm 139. He talks about if I go up to the heavens, God is there. And if I make my bed in the depths, God is there. And he says, even the darkness is not dark to you. And I've started reading that psalm, that part in particular, but as a whole thinking about depression. You know, I used to read that, that's the one that's, you know, "Search me, oh, Lord and know my heart." It talks about searching as anxious thoughts. And I used to think about that in terms of almost the guilty sense, you know, like...
Jonathan Puddle 44:49
Evangelical righteousness.
Diana Gruver 44:51
Yeah, yeah, I'm doing all of this stuff wrong. Look inside of me and see all the bad stuff. And you know, and now I think about it and I think about this invitation to say, God look, look in and search me, you can see what these thoughts are like, you knew me when you were forming me. How can I possibly escape you? How could I possibly say, this darkness of my depression has become so deep, that there's no way you can enter into this with me? And so I think the thing that has really encouraged me and and I hope will continue to to seep deeper and deeper into my own being is our God is one who keeps company with us in the light and in the dark, you know. And he is intent on that, he is relentless in that. And so I can just be still.
Jonathan Puddle 45:49
Yes, that's so good. I love that you put that verse on those little candles because I have it now in my, in my bathroom where I took that bath yesterday.
Diana Gruver 45:59
Wonderful.
Jonathan Puddle 46:01
Psalm 139 and Romans 8:38-39 are probably the very foundations of my theology. Where can I go from your presence? For I am convinced that nothing can separate us. And if somebody then says, "Well, Jesus should be the bedrock of your theology", I will say his name is Emmanuel, which means God with us, which is exactly what those 2 passages of Scripture say. But they are... I've had to wrestle a lot of that with that emotional stuff, right? Understanding our emotions, because I, I was very, very distrustful of my emotions, and I despised them. And, and in my journey, right now, with my therapist, we've been going a lot around the sense that Jonathan felt too much. That Jonathan's parents who loved him didn't have the ability or the language to emotionally attune to him. And so those big emotions that I had... felt like there were too much for the world. And so they were a liability. And so I shut them down. You know, coming to see my emotions as a source of truth has been life changing for me! But that they do not contain all the truth.
Diana Gruver 47:24
Right.
Jonathan Puddle 47:24
Right. My friend, Marc Schelske, he says that emotions are like, they can't lie to you. They cannot deceive you. But they don't have the whole picture. They they're like a check engine light on your car, you have to go and figure out what the light means, right? Like, it could just mean that your gas cap's on wrong. Or it could mean like that your engine's about to explode. And the, I think the way that you delineate that with depression as a liar is really good, right? Because the emotion says, I feel super abandoned right now. And that's a true emotion. That's a true feeling.
Diana Gruver 48:00
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 48:00
I feel really abandoned! And if I'm just rejecting that emotion, and I'm not allowing myself to sit with honesty, this is the way I feel right now. Then I can't have any measure of cohesion. But as you said, "Have I been abandoned right now?" Is that the cosmic truth of this present moment? Well, the Psalmist and Paul would say, "No." In fact, I cannot be abandoned despite how deserving of abandonment and how presently abandoned I may feel. Praise God for that.
Diana Gruver 48:40
Amen. And going back to Mother Teresa, I think you know, our honesty with the way that those feelings feel. She I think really embodies a lot of the the practice of the lament psalms you know, she said all of these things, but you know, the context in which she said them most of the time was prayer. And, and so to say, I feel abandoned, but to feel the freedom to say that to God, you know, and we see the laments all over the Psalms of, you know, the, the rage, the sorrow the, you know, my "my bed is wet with all of my weeping." And to bring that to God, I think is a very holy thing. And even though it doesn't fix the problem, I think it keeps us in the right position.
Jonathan Puddle 49:35
Yes.
Diana Gruver 49:36
Keeps us in the right place. And some days that's enough.
Jonathan Puddle 49:41
Yes, that is so good. That is a really helpful... it's like it's enough, isn't it? This is so good. I'm so thankful for, for you penning these words. I wonder if you'd have any any quick advice for folks who, who are journeying with somebody else, a spouse, a loved one. And they don't seem to get it themselves, my wife is one of those persons who seems to be immune to those kinds of things or or if not immune, she can simply process rapidly. And so I know she often struggles to know exactly how to help me.
Diana Gruver 50:27
Yeah, it's hard. I, you know, I've, I've questioned that various times over the years, is it easier to go through depression yourself? Or is it easier... or well... Is it harder to go through depression yourself, or is it harder to walk through it closely with someone that you love? And I don't really, I don't know that I've come to a decision on that one yet. And so I guess that's the first thing I'd say, you know, if you feel like it's hard, it is. And that's okay. And so the first thing I would say is, you know, just like when you're walking through depression, you need to know you're not alone, when you're walking with someone who's walking through depression, you need to know you're not alone. And that's something that really struck me as I wrote this book is that I could not write these stories without writing the stories as well of the people who walked with them. And so you... we're in good company, if that is where you are today, there are other people who have and are walking that road. And the second thing I would say is, don't be afraid to get help for yourself. And, you know, just as someone who is depressed can't walk through that, and, and find a way through that on their own, you can't either and so, you know, helping your loved one have a support network. So it's not just you trying to Superman or Woman through on your own. And then also surrounding yourself with support. So some trusted friends who you can talk to, maybe a therapist to process that experienced yourself. You compromising your own physical, mental health, or even your relationship with with that loved one, or that friend is not going to do you or them any good, and so make sure that you are getting the care that you need as well. And the third thing I'd say is just be patient. You know, depression is a marathon and it is not a sprint. And sometimes recovery just comes more in fits and starts than in this very clear linear progression. And so too, to know that going into it and just have a lot of patience towards this person that's suffering, patience towards yourself, and patience for whatever that process might look like, you know. Celebrate those victories when they come, you know, if if they are taking their medication faithfully, or if they're you feeling well enough to engage in some of the things they once do, praise God, celebrate that. Feel good about that. But know that there might be days where that doesn't happen. And to approach that, with that, you know, long term view and long goal and view and and have that patience for the process, I think will set you up to have some more realistic expectations of sometimes what that recovery process looks like.
Jonathan Puddle 53:21
Very, very wise. Thank you. That's great. Diana, where can people learn more about you and grab the book?
Diana Gruver 53:31
So you can read some more of my writing and find out more about me at my own website, which is DianaGruver.com. I'm also on Twitter @DianaGruver, and occasionally on Facebook @DianaGruverWriter. And you can find links for the book on my website. It's also on Amazon, at my publisher, InterVarsity Press or anywhere else that books are sold.
Jonathan Puddle 53:54
I'll make sure all those links are in the show notes. Diana, would you pray for us today?
Diana Gruver 53:58
Oh, I'd love to. God, thank you for this space. And this conversation. Thank you, Lord, that we can come freely before you and freely before each other to talk about some of these places of hurt. And and that's not something we need to be afraid of or ashamed of. I thank you, Lord, that that you have offered us companions for the way. That this journey of life is never something that you asked us to walk alone. And that you send people in the present and people from the past to encourage us and to just help us take those next step along the way. I thank you as well, Lord, that that you are the God who keeps company with us that we know that no matter how deep our darkness may become that you will keep company with us there. I just thank you for that God, that is a gift and that is a source of hope beyond anything I know. If there are people listening today where you are struggling with depression, I ask that you would give them the strength to keep clinging to hope and turning to hope that you would bring light to their darkness, that you would bring people around them who can support them and help them to get well. And then you would help them to know there's some means that they are not alone in the dark. Just thank you, God for your faithfulness to us, your love towards us. And we thank you that you are the one who is redeeming all things. In Jesus name, amen.
Jonathan Puddle 55:46
Amen. Thank you, Diana. Friends, go click the show notes to order a copy of her beautiful, wonderful book, Companions in the Darkness: Seven Saints Who Struggled with Depression and Doubt. And also, now that you've listened to this, make sure that you head over to patreon.com so you can listen to the B-Sides. My friend Robert Vore, who you may know already, he hosts the CXMH podcast, Christian mental health podcast with Dr. Holly Oxhandler. He's a wonderful guy and a counselor and does really great work in this space. And he joined me to do a B-Side for interview with Diana. We discussed all manner of things to do with depression, suicidal ideation. Speaking of people in a way that is vulnerable, even when we include their flaws, because that's one of the interesting things that Diana does very well in her book, which we don't discuss on air but you have to read the book to see it, is that she doesn't gloss over any of the real problems with some of the people that she tells stories of. You know, Martin Luther, classic example, one of the most influential people in the last... ever in the church history for sure, but also a raging anti-Semite. Terrible views on women, all kinds of stuff that we wouldn't endorse or support today. And Diana does a really great job of putting all of those beliefs that we don't no longer agree with into the proper context, historically, but also not glossing over them and not just sort of being like, yeah, everything was great. And she does that in a really great way. Robert, and I discussed that on the B-Side. So if you want to hear that conversation, you'll need to become a patron, you can do so for as little as $3 a month. And you can find the links to do that in the show notes. In the show notes you will also find the text transcript of this entire episode. If you know somebody who would like to read this, if you have a friend, maybe you doesn't find listening to podcasts something that works for them, you can go to JonathanPuddle.com, hit the episode link to this episode, or the show notes and you'll find a full text transcript for this. Thank you to my patrons who make it possible every month. Alright, friends, that's enough from me. So glad that you're here. Thank you for listening and sharing. Find me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, tik tok @JonathanPuddle. Much love. We'll talk to you soon.