In the novel Father
Melancholy’s Daughter, Gail Godwin creates a narrative of a priest who is
prone to bouts of depression, who earns the nickname “Father Melancholy” from
his parishoners. Throughout the book,
Father Melancholy describes his depression as getting lost behind a Black Curtain,
and he can’t find his way out. When
encouraged by his wife to take antidepressants prescribed by his well-loved
doctor, Father Melancholy says that he wants to get to the bottom of it, to “look
the damn thing in the face… to help me see… well, I don’t know what,” so that
he could emerge triumphant.
His emergences in the novel are always sudden. The passage that struck me most about his
emergence was when he told his wife that “these mashed potatoes are creamy and
delicious, the ham is tasty, and I have a new book from the library I’m looking
forward to reading later.” And as a
firsthand sufferer of bouts of depression, I can assure that these sudden
emergences sometimes happen; you don’t realize how much better you feel until
the moment hits you like a smack to the head that life is, indeed, a beautiful
and blessed thing.
What strikes me most about Godwin’s novel, though,
is that she never draws Father Melancholy’s bouts of depression to the story of
Jonah and the whale. It seems so
obvious: Father Melancholy gets lost behind his Black Curtain, much as Jonah
was swallowed by the whale. They both
spend a time in darkness, aching and wishing for light to come, and desperately
praying. And suddenly, the whale vomits Jonah
onto shore, just as one evening Father Melancholy realizes that his mashed
potatoes are creamy and delicious, and that he is looking forward to reading
his new book.
And what about our need for these dark moments, for these times in the belly of the proverbial
whale, that we may eventually emerge on the shore to see the world in a
different way? So much research has been
done on diagnoses of “mental illness” – be it depression, bipolar disorder,
schizophrenia, etc. – in those involved in the arts. Nancy Andreason, a physician-neuroscientist
who has studied the correlation between creative persons and mental illness
states an interesting perspective to our need for these dark moments: “Did
mental illness facilitate [their] unique abilities, whether it be to play a
concerto or to perceive a novel mathematical relationship? Or did mental illness impair their creativity
after its initial meteoric burst in their twenties? Or is the relationship more complex than a
simple one of cause and effect, in either direction?”
So is mental illness – depression, bipolar disorder,
schizophrenia, mania, or even alcoholism and drug abuse – a precursor to
creativity or simply something that comes with it? Do artists of any type spend their time in
dark periods so that they may be spit upon the shore and gain a new perspective
with a beginner’s mind? Is this why
people of such creative genius are able to make amazing connections that many
have never thought of before? Does
mental illness allow creative persons to feel more deeply and bring those
feelings to the rest of the world in new, beautiful, and amazing ways? Do our dark periods, as Jonah in the whale’s
belly, ultimately become a gift to us so that we gain a new perspective?
Perhaps we all need to be as Jonah; take a dark
period to really examine ourselves with no distractions, no light – just
ourselves in an enclosed, quiet, and completely solitary environment. And once we realize the Lord’s call for us,
may we be spit upon the shore and see the world with clearer eyes and a more
open heart.