TO THE EDITOR:

Last week I wrote about how I don’t see depression as a problem, but rather view it as a memorial to pain, an invitation to grief. While there is a lot I could unpack there, I hope that it could have been a message allowing for lament and for one’s very real and personal hurt to be held, not sidestepped or ignored. Know that you are not merely a passing body in a faceless crowd. We each have a story. We each have a name. And your story of both goodness and pain can bring healing to others (although that is never justification for abuse or neglect or hurt caused by another).

If this pain is to turn into healing, then we must listen to what others are expressing. Even their pain is so unbearable that we’d rather tune it out; say something like, “That’s their problem, not mine”. It’s like getting a twisted ankle and saying, “Sorry, ankle, that sucks for you” and doing nothing to enter into healing. I might offer up “thoughts and prayers” and then continue my sprint, but that wouldn’t help in my body’s healing. I wouldn’t be very loving to myself if I didn’t listen and honor all parts of my body.

This shows us a way of thinking we must repent of: believing we are simply individuals or small family units, living in our bubbles. COVID has magnified this subtle belief of society so much so that in our heart of hearts we now know it can’t be true. We need one another. It’s been ingrained in us that we don’t but listen to what the twisted ankle knows - it wasn’t meant to be cut off, the rest of the body was just meant to slow down. To listen.

Brody Hed

Becker, MN