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Action
as a Solution
Fr.
George Smiga
Luke
20:27-38
November
4, 2007
Dr.
Carl Menninger, the famous American psychiatrist, was asked
to treat a woman with severe depression. He decided to visit
her in her home. He found her slumped in a chair. Her house
was dark and quiet. She admitted to him that she had struggled
with depression since her husband died several years ago.
As the two of them talked, Dr. Menninger noticed that this
woman loved violets and grew them. Throughout her house there
were pots filled with bright purple and pink and blue flowers.
This led him to an unusual prescription. He asked the woman
to look in the local papers every day and send a pot of violets
to anyone who was experiencing a major event in their life:
a birth, a death, a wedding, a graduation. Within a month
the woman called Dr. Menninger and said that her life had
changed dramatically. The people who had received these unexpected
violets were often overwhelmed with the gesture. They would
write back to thank her, send her a little present themselves,
and even come to visit her. Over time people began to call
the woman the “Violet Lady.” Her life was changed because
she had replaced her depression with an action, an action
of service towards others.
Now
when we experience disappointments in life, when the people
we love leave us, when we have to face rejection or failure,
it is easy to slip into depression. We keep playing over and
over again in our minds the way things used to be, the decisions
I should have made, the words I could have said. Questions
keep streaming through our consciousness: Why did this happen
to me? Could I have done something to avoid it? Why is my
life so unfair? Such questions are understandable, but they
are largely questions without answers. Instead of helping
us, they tend to pull us down more into sadness.
So
how do we cope with this kind of discouragement? How do we
pull ourselves out of a sort of pervasive depression? Denial
doesn't work. We can, for a while think of other things, but
sooner or later, the sadness washes over us again and we find
ourselves where we started. Positive thinking is good, but
after we have looked at the many good things in our life,
our pain returns and takes up center stage. Even prayer does
not always work. Sometimes as we ask God to remove our sadness
or pain, that prayer only reinforces the things that upset
us and continue to draw us down.
The
surest way out of sadness is action—doing something, taking
on a project, giving ourselves in service to another. When
we act, we take the focus off ourselves. Action redirects
our pain, producing good for ourselves or for others. Such
action refocuses our lives and pushes depression aside.
Dr.
Menninger knew this. This is why he prescribed action for
the “Violet Lady.” Zacchaeus, in today's gospel, knows the
same truth. If anyone had reason to be sad or depressed, it
was Zacchaeus. Everybody in Jericho avoided him and shunned
him. They tagged him as a sinner. His good actions were either
ignored or ridiculed. When Zacchaeus heard that Jesus was
coming to Jericho, he could have easily chosen to do nothing.
He could have easily said to himself, “What's the use? Why
would Jesus ever be interested in me?” When he could not see
Jesus because of the crowd, he could have thrown up his hands
and sunk back down into his self pity. But that's not the
choice that Zacchaeus made. Zacchaeus chose to act. He ran
out in front of the crown, climbed up a Sycamore tree, made
a fool of himself, in the hope that maybe he would have a
chance to meet Jesus. His bet paid off big time. Not only
did Jesus see him, but he called Zacchaeus down and said that
he wanted to stay with him.
Zacchaeus
is a model for us. When we get stuck in our sadness, Zacchaeus
tells us that the way out is not by sinking, or sighing, but
by acting. The way out is by doing something, by throwing
ourselves into motion for our own good and for the good of
others.
The
story of Zacchaeus tells us that action not only will pushes
our depression aside, but also leads us to Jesus. And when
we meet him, Jesus will say to us, “Today salvation has come
to this house for the Son of Man has come to save the lost.”
When we are lost in our sadness, the gospel shows us the solution.
Like Zacchaeus, we should rise up from our self-pity and run
out to meet Jesus in good things that we choose to do.
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