Rereading Pascal

I have an idea of what I want to write about today, but the topic depends on the story of my life. If we can divide people into those who at least think about writing an autobiography and those who don’t, I would fall in the first group. But today is not the day either for me to write this imaginary book or for you to read it. But here’s the summary as it will no doubt appear in future book reviews.

When I was a kid, I was happy. When I was in high school, I was still happy, but, even more, I was convinced that I was right to be happy and that people who weren’t as ebullient as I were somehow wrong. I started attending a church that taught what would now be called a prosperity gospel, where I heard that God loves us and wants our happiness always. My life concurred.

Then things changed. I can point to three main events in my life around the time I turned 20 that reshaped my thinking. But I also have evidence that my brain chemistry altered. For decades, my favorite Bible verse was Ezekiel 36:32: “It is not for your sake that I will act, says the Lord GOD. . . . Be ashamed and confounded for your ways.” I became convinced that being sad was right and that people who weren’t as melancholy as I was were somehow wrong. I started going to a different kind of church, but still people there would tell me from time to time that I needed more of the joy of the Lord, and I would respond, “King Solomon, inspired by the Spirit of God, said, ‘With much wisdom there is much sorrow.’ ”

I see now that I said much of this more clearly and more efficiently in this post about Chesterton. Today I must say that Pascal’s Pensées helped me as much as Orthodoxy. Here was another intelligent (understatement of the year) Christian telling me that I was correct in being ashamed and confounded in my ways. Pascal’s never-written book (this masterpiece comes to us as notes scribbled on little bits of paper!) moved me profoundly like no other book I’ve ever read. When I reread it some twenty years later, I came face to face again with an overwhelming Power that made me join Job in covering my mouth.

At some point, after thirty years of feeling miserable, it occurred to me to try an antidepressant. The first day I took one, I actually felt (I know people say this, but I really felt it!) a great weight being lifted from my shoulders. Hour by hour, it seemed to me that the folds of an enormously heavy curtain were being raised off of me, one by one. From that day Easter has been more of a celebration for me than ever: I consider myself to have lived a thirty-year season of Lent. Every once in a while, I have days when the pill doesn’t work. The world doesn’t get so dark because I know that I will be better the next day, but I think on those days, “No wonder I was so miserable all those years: I felt like this all the time.”

Last month, I read the Pensées again for a third time, and it seemed different. The sharp insight into human nature, the love of God, the brilliant, powerful writing were still there. I was still aware that I stood in the presence of one of the Greatest of the Great Books. But the experience didn’t move me to drop to my knees in humility and godly sorrow this time. And I started to wonder: have I lost something valuable by taking an antidepressant?