Dealing with recession and depression

Dealing with recession and depression

As the New Year, 2009 breaks, the TV and radio are beating out a continuous story about the financial crisis that is upon us. The more we listen to the torrent of depressive words that are rolling over us, like a sunami the more we need to find a way of rising above the waves of doom and gloom.

This is where the daily dose of meditation can come to our aid. The half-hour of stillness each morning and evening, seems to roll back the waters of darkness and depression. One ceases to let the tide of distress take over.

I am reminded of the miracle that the Lord worked for the Israelites as the might forces of Pharo and the Egyptians was bearing down on them. With the burning sands of the desert behind them and the terror of the Red Sea ahead, the Lord opened a way through for them. Moses lifted up his rod, and with the might of the Lord on his side, made the waters pile up to provide a solid dry ground, so that the people could pass safely through on to the Land that flowed with wine and milk and honey.

That journey to the the physical land is a symbol of the pilgrim soul moving in meditation to the inner land of the heart. There does indeed exist an inner space where amid the desert of desolation one may find security and serenity. The morning half-hour and the evening half-hour devoted to meditation may seem a little thing, but the peace and the stability generated in those sacred times, radiate to the rest of the day.

The fragrance of those precious moments permeates our being, and brings all our ways to a creativity, and a consummation beyond our dreaming. We learn to live, no longer out of our own meagre resource, but out of the infinite supply of the heavenly Father. We rest in those words of Jesus, that the Father who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field is constantly looking after us.

I am so grateful to have found a group here in the Priory, Tallaght that brings us together each Wednesday night to spend an hour in silence and stillness before the Blessed Sacrament, exposed before us. The hour begins with a short instruction in meditation, according to the teaching of the late Benedictine monk, John Main. One of the leaders has given me one of his books which has proved a blessing: --The Heart of Creation.