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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Our depressions may be nefarious blessings.", February 3, 2009
This review is from: A Hell of Mercy: A Meditation on Depression and the Dark Night of the Soul (Hardcover)
Beginning with "onset in late adolescence", the author's chronic depression is a formative theme in his life. Rather than embracing the problem as "just chemistry"- with its inherent limitations- Farrington turns to the world's great thinkers and philosophers to explore a deeper concept, "the dark night of the soul". From Christianity to Zen, Kerouac to Augustine and 16th century Spanish Carmelite monk John of the Cross, the author dissects an deliberates, following whatever path yields answers to a complicated and painful condition. After two marriages and some time as a monk, he emerges from this crucible with a wisdom born of personal pain and a willingness to surrender, quoting Joko Beck in Everyday Zen, "Yet enlightenment is not a picture but the shattering of all our pictures." The result is a spiritual journey from darkness to light and everything in between.
Although the road is often unclear, the path through the dark night of the soul is particularly spiritual, small gems of wisdom scattered throughout the text like miniature grenades, sharp bursts of insight. His choice is stated from the first pages: "BF Skinner was all the rage... I was not prepared to consider that my angst could be soothed... through behavioral modification." The spiritual message is frequently profound and elegantly simple: "I learned that the best protection against this pain was to fully accept it." Although the author's comfort is found in Christianity, that discipline is by no means everyman's answer, the spiritual quest as diverse as humanity itself, demanding only the shattering of the ego. While you are in thrall to depression and the dark night, the two remain indistinguishable, it is "only by their fruits- their outcomes- that you can tell them apart."
On the negative side, there is an absence of footnotes; shortness of length may contribute to suppositions that bear argument. But reading the book in the context of the author's statements, the intention is clear, although the journey is perhaps needlessly painful. Within that context, the need for absolute surrender is a central truth: "It is that surrender, in the embrace of our absolute futility, paradoxically, that real freedom comes." As an apologist for his own self-examination, Farrington is unsparing, willing to explore every avenue in his urgency to transcend the limitations of his disease, understanding well "the terms of that unknowing... are so much better than the horrors and constant anxiety of the self's small world of delusory accomplishment." Clearly, the quest is all about the journey, not the destination, a richly rewarding, contemplative acceptance of "a hell of mercy not of wrath." Luan Gaines/2009.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stripped to the Bone, September 17, 2009
This review is from: A Hell of Mercy: A Meditation on Depression and the Dark Night of the Soul (Hardcover)
Mixed feelings. First, I've never read a book with such a comprehensive look at the Dark Night of the Soul. Plus, a seemingly exhaustive attempt to discern between the Dark Night and Depression. In the end, as Farrington states, it doesn't really matter.
What I liked was his refusal to try and run from, hide, or evade his dark times in a frightened and reflexive way. It is true that many Americans dabble in light-weight spirituality strictly to ease their pain. Not to deepen, not to learn about themselves or the nature of the universe. Even Time magazine recently had an article debunking a lot of the positive thinking movement and it's claim to make us happier.
While "Darkness Visible" was a blow by blow account of a severe depression, A Hell of Mercy was more a general overview of the author's own dark night and reflections on what the dark night is through various Catholic mystics and Buddhist monks. I didn't come away with any deep understanding of what it felt like for Farrington to go through his dark years. It was more of an attempt to describe depression through the words of others that gave it a more philosophical feel. How close was he to suicide and did he have a plan? What was the final snap that made him decide on medication?
To get inside the depressive mind, I recommend "The Bell Jar", "Darkness Visible" or "Undercurrents." There, one will find the first hand symptoms; long dreary days, social isolation, a feeling of slipping away from everyone and the agony of being depressed and loving the depressed. To get more of a (almost poetic) description of depression, this is a good book to read.
It's hard for me to fault this book because, damn, this guy knows his stuff and he can write. The best part is his unrelenting embracing of the necessity to walk through the fire of depression/dark night. It is something that can be treated but it's a huge mistake to try and get around it which is why therapy is as valuable as medication. It is not a self help book and thank God for that. We need more books that have the guts to say that sometimes, all the effort one puts into spirituality may not add up to a mound of dirt. He's not saying it's wrong because spirituality is central to his life. But he tells it as it is - the road is tough and fraught with ego peaks of pride and victory as well as valleys of sorrow and defeat.
The book felt scattered in places, and I don't know what I learned (yet) but I can't help thinking how good it was. However, I did rediscover what I've always known and spent so much time avoiding. There doesn't have to be an answer, a reason or a purpose to living. More importantly, where there is none, you keep going. Without a single reason to take another breath, you do because it's the only thing to do. And then, you do it again.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dazzling Darkness, January 11, 2010
This review is from: A Hell of Mercy: A Meditation on Depression and the Dark Night of the Soul (Hardcover)
In this luminous jewel of a book, Tim Farrington manages to make the journey through profound despair look like a cause for celebration. Drawing on the perennial wisdom teachings of the master of fruitful darkness, John of the Cross, Tim invites us to say yes to the Mystery, to say yes to radical unknowingness, and to rest in the fire of emptiness more deeply than we have ever rested in our comfortable illusions about the meaning of life. By holding up his own broken and beautiful life as a model for this holy letting-go, we are given a companion on the path of sacred suffering and transformation -- a man with profound insight, a wicked sense of humor, and that most fragile and dangerous thing of all: faith.
I love this book.
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