Off to see the Wizard

I was driving down highway 285 into Denver (Lakewood) last week and came across a man carrying a cross. As I was going 70mph, I did not take time to note his dress or hair style nor stop for a photo. The cross was large, taller than him, and as a result rested on wheels. This man’s commitment goes only so far, it appears.  

There is no photo of the man easily available, and so I grabbed the photo shown above, said to be of Roy Scott and Moab (Utah) pastor Rick Pacheco. Scott has apparently vowed to take his cross coast to coast. I do not know if he is the man I saw on 285, as there have been others around the country doing the same thing. 

It is a slow go, as William James is a man of intricately woven words, so that reading The Varieties of Religious Experience (A Study of Human Nature) is but a few pages a day. That’s all I can endure. To be precise, it is one cup of coffee, and then on to lighter fare. James takes us though scores of conversions, all of them emotional, none based on any form of reasoning.  If I could be so bold as to sum up the conversion experience in one thought, it is this: People in extreme pain. 

The first thought most people will have on seeing our 285 man is “Coo coo ca choo!” I do not want to be either too quick to judge or to easy to forgive rocks in the head, but as I thought about him, I felt sympathy. He has suffered, enough so that Jesus Christ to him offered release. He was able to accept himself as a sinner, but one for whom forgiveness was extended and who so was able to offer the same relief to others. The nature of “sin” often involves drugs and alcohol, but then often enough more serious offenses against self and others.

Whatever makes a man a more peaceful man is all right by me, you know, within reason. I worked for many years with a petroleum engineer who as a younger man was a holy terror, drinking and sexual escapades far beyond my own white bread experiences. Stories abounded about him, but the one that I tend to hold as possibly closest to reality is that his wife, a practicing Christian, had him on his knees and brought about conversion, the light. That experience marks a point in time, behind which lay depravity and ahead of which was decent good behavior and good works of kindness and charity. 

Let’s call him, “Jim”, as that is his name. He’s not only a good man, but a brilliant businessman and oil patch engineer. And, he’s also annoying, that is, he tends to go overboard on redeeming others as he once did with the other side of that coin. But as I think about it, I think that the Jim we have with us is a far better man to know than the Jim of old, and that our world is better off for that.

Religion did that for him. 

I’m reading another book, Depression in Later Life (An Essential Guide), by Deborah Serani.*** I am going to go with something I learned long ago, that in being open and frank about my own problems and weaknesses, others do not judge so much as relate. Yes, I’ve been troubled these past few months by depression. I think of it as an old World War II movie, where each night around 5PM, bombers appear on the horizon and they attack me. I am reminded of every mistake, every person who ever got the best of me, and every moment of stupidity in my seventy-five years. Never my good traits, my good deeds, my acts of charity and kindness, only the bad.

I don’t care much for the book so far, as it is too full of common psychiatric illness, and there is a whole section that I skipped on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I regard this as nothing but voted-upon fiction. The DSM, as it is called, is a reference guide for psychiatrists and psychologists, and carefully lays out all of the intricate details of various disorders, from unipolar to bipolar to authority oppositional. For each, they lay out signposts, and say things like, for major depression, having “7 of the following 19” symbols, the “7” made up by me, the 19 not. But they do vote on these things in that manner. 

Among those 19 you will find:

• Confusion.
• Delirious mania.
• Distractab
• Elevated mood
• Flight of ideas (oh look, a bird!)
• Impaired decision making
• Irritability
• Impulsive behavior

My problem? I am neither bipolar or even clinically depressed, but I am human. I’ve been through periods of despair and grief, disappointment, rejection, loss of love and committing acts I regret. But I got better. For that reason, I am a reasonably happy man going through a period of sleep deprivation that brings on negative thinking, usually about myself and my past. Only the bad stuff. 

How to get over it? There is talk therapy, which is helpful for many, but not my style. I am a lone wolf. So I did what I have always done, bought a goddamned book. 

Just two night ago we got home after dinner out, and our back deck, on which I’ve installed motion-sensitive lights, was lit up. Our first thought: Bear. I went to the back door, and summoning all courage, opened it. There was a dog. I clicked my lips at him as in “Come” and he ran up to me, and I opened the door. He came in. He ran around the house, up the stairs and down, and then over the back of the couch, nearly toppling my wife. 

I was able to hold him still, and read off the phone number on his tag to my wife, who called it. A man answered, and I asked if he was the owner of Oz, the dog’s name on the tag. Yes, he said. Thinking him a close neighbor, I offered to let Oz out again if the owner would whistle for him. 

He asked our address, and I gave it to him. He entered it on his phone and said “Oh my god, you’re 25 minutes away!” He set out to come and retrieve Oz, so I offered him some water, which he drank, and then I sat in my easy chair, pictured to the left. As I did that, I realized that this dog, still a puppy, was spoiled by love. He jumped up in my lap and laid down as he has likely done many times before with his owner, and we waited. 

He was calm, and I took great comfort in holding him, scratching his neck. He was confused, but when the truck came up the driveway, he lit up. He recognized its sound! As dogs do. 

We returned Oz to a grateful owner, who said that he has a litter mate, Cooper, also missing that evening, both having escaped several hours earlier. We hoped Cooper would come around our back deck too, but no. 

That night I went to bed, and slept through the night, the first time in weeks. I know we did a kind thing for Oz, taking him in and getting him back home. But Oz did something for me as well. He eased my pain. He brought me comfort and joy. 

And no, we’re not getting a dog. Oz (and Cooper, it turns out, who was also returned home that night) are puppies, and hours and hours of training lay ahead. Not for us. We want to travel. 

But thank you, Oz. You made my day, or my night, I should say. 

Regarding the book by Serani, I probably won’t read it through. It delivered the key sentence, “Negative thought patterns”, and mere awareness is the cure. 

________________

*** This morning, the Monday after writing this post, I opened the Serani book, and as I went along, skipped this, skipped that, ignored the part on suitable medications for depression, and then the part on all of the batteries of tests they run searching for dementia … I skipped over so many parts that I closed the book for good, and just now disposed of it. I should return it for credit, but I am disgusted that I bought it in the first place, so the act of tossing it is gratifying. I can only take it one step further for symbology: Burn it.