“A man’s own folly ruins his life; yet his heart rages against the Lord” (Proverbs 19:3)
Good
intentions alone cannot bring a person out of depression if the miserable one prefers to remain in misery. As the proverb states it, we’d prefer not to acknowledge our anger and frustration but rather to project it onto others—even at the Lord. I recall an instance of this from my earliest years of priesthood in New York City. Being young and naive, I was afflicted with the delusion of an unconquerable optimism. I thought I could do the Lord’s work by taking on all challenges that came my way. One duty was to serve as chaplain to the Orthodox students at Columbia University. About one third of the Orthodox students were Greek, and there was a chaplain for them—a priest whose name I’ve forgotten, about a dozen years older than my twenty-five years.
In my delusion as a self-appointed healer of all emotional wounds of those who came my way, one young woman sticks in my memory as a formidable challenge. She shambled into my office and slumped down like warm Jell-O into the chair across from my desk. She whined about life’s lost meaning. She had no one in her life. Obviously she was not pleased with her appearance, or perhaps didn’t even think of it. She wore a frumpy shmata, brown granny gauge stockings, stringy greasy hair unkempt, and she barely responded as I tried to help her discover the joy of living. I wanted her to find a way to be happy—with life, with college, and with herself.
It came into my head to consider the possibility of inviting her to stay with us several days or a week at most. I knew my wife would be able to put the girl’s life in order by changing her appearance, her attitude to herself, and to find Jesus Christ that she had abandoned recently. The Greek chaplain and I would meet each week to share our thoughts about the students with whom we had met. I explained to him my notion to ask my wife Margarita if she would agree to invite the Slav immigrant to spend a few days with us. We had no children at the time, and the back room in our little apartment could serve as a spare bedroom for such an occasion.
“You intend to do what?” the Greek priest asked. I repeated the idea. “And do you really think that presvytera will go along with your bizarre plan?” “I don’t know,” I opined, “but she has a good heart.” He blurted out, “And what, pray God, is the state of her mind?”
I started to realize where he was going with his comments. I kept silence, because he was my elder, and because I sensed that my idea was not sitting well with him.
“Father,” the priest sighed, “you will soon come to realize that people make their own misery or happiness. They are as happy as they want to be. It’s not something that comes from outside. It’s a matter of the soul. The girl you described may take you up on your offer, if indeed your young presvytera will go along with this questionable idea of yours. And what do you think the girl will learn from your endeavor? Even if you and your spouse come up with the funds to give the girl a complete make-over—clothing, shoes, cosmetics and all the rest—what will you have accomplished? It will be like putting expensive clothing on a scarecrow, if that’s not too severe a comment. What essentially do you think will change in the attitude and outlook of the girl? She may indeed turn on you both, considering you shallow bourgeois Americans fixated on externals. You are interfering in her decision to be miserable. You are tossing up static in her clear channel to gloom and depression. Forgive me, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
And I really cannot decide if he was right or wrong.