Season 4 Podcast 17 “The Cave of Despair”
Above all other living things, we are emotional creatures, and sometimes we feed despair with despair, turning pain to ignoble pleasure or self-pitying hopelessness. Edmund Spenser the English poet in his epic poem “The Faery Queen,” warns us of voluntarily entering into the Cave of Despair.
The Red Cross Knight, freed from the dungeon by King Arthur and carrying heavy guilt, meets a terrified Knight fleeing from the Cave of Despair. Speaking of Despair who lurks in the Cave of Despair, the knight warns :
“His subtill tongue, like dropping honey, mealt’th Into the hart, and searcheth every vain, That before one be aware, by secret stealth His power is stolen, and weakness doth remain. O never Sir desire to try his guileful train.”
Emboldened by pride, the youthful Red Cross Knight ignores the terrified Knight’s warning and, weak though he is from guilt and the deprivations of the dungeon, boasts of his own powers:
“Certain,” said he, “hence, shall I never rest, Till I that treacherous art have heard and tried.”
The Red Cross Knight confidently enters the Cave of Despair, thinking to outwit his sly enemy, disregarding the Knight’s warning and disregarding the fact that despair had already lodged in his heart through guilt of sin, and the long nights of darkness brooding in the giant’s dungeon. Carrying despair within his breast, he did not recognize that the enemy within was the same enemy without that he was trying to outface. Even with a bold and defiant beginning, the Red Cross Knight is soon overcome by Despair’s guileful argument and sly cunning and is convinced by Despair that suicide is his only way out.
Anyone with experience knows that life is a roller coaster of emotions. And many of us have had personal friends who committed suicide. Despair has many companions.
· Abandonment
· Hopelessness
· desperation
· Despondence
· melancholia
· discouragement,
· Pessimism
· Depression
· Grief
But more often than not, in our uncertain, turbulent world, despair comes galloping into our heart uninvited. The following is a quote from the blog of Paula Hiatt at paulahiatt.com. Paula is my oldest of eight daughters. It was her experiences that inspired this podcast on courage in despair:
Two months before I was diagnosed with cancer, I believed I had hit rock bottom, navigating a heartbreaking trial I never, ever thought could happen to me. Who knew rock bottom had a basement, or that basement would have a sewer, and that sewer had a sinkhole. Eventually I was paddling around in the magma where my oars kept catching fire, facing a platoon of bone shattering disasters of which cancer was by far the easiest. Who knew I would honestly wish for those heady days in the cozy comfort of rock bottom.
I’m going to be upfront and admit that I now have far more empathy for suicides than I once had because I now understand what it means to genuinely want to die, anything to stop the horrific emotional pain created by a combination of overwhelming circumstances and a body too weakened by chemo and surgery to properly support my heart and mind. I would not have taken my life because I know the eternal consequences of such an act, nor did I ever beg God to take me. The image of my three beautiful children loomed in my mind more powerfully than they had when the plane caught fire, and I knew I could never intentionally leave them unguarded, that was key, a decision made. I don’t say any of this for sympathy, I don’t need it, but I do need you to know that I speak from the depths rather than the surface.
