Next Meeting: September 29!

I hope that everyone has had a peace-filled, grace-filled month! We will meet this month on Thursday, September 29 at 6:30pm in the Fireplace Room of the St. Agnes Parish Center. Our meeting day also happens to be the Feast of the Holy Archangels (or Michaelmas, as it's traditionally and delightfully called). Wherever you are in your own battle with depression, I invite you to invoke the powerful aid of St. Michael:

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

We look forward to seeing you and praying with you this Thursday night!

What Our Group Is About

Today I read these words by the late Fr. Henri Nouwen:

When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

I cannot think of a better description of what the members of our group strive to do for each other. We can't cure each other, but we can help each other "face the reality of our powerlessness," and know that we are walking together.

Poetry for the Troubled Mind

A group of researchers in the United Kingdom are exploring the concept of bibliotherapy - that is, reading as a form of therapy for those undergoing mental and emotional stress. In The Lancet, Jonathan Bate and Andrew Schuman write of the promises and challenges of what they call "the reading therapy," and point us to an organization called ReLit, which explores the relationship between literature and mental health.

I know from personal experience and from conversations with others that there are many who find consolation in the act of reading (and writing!) their own poetry and prose. In that spirit, I'd like to share with you two pieces by some very talented poets in our group, in the hopes that their words may, as John Milton put it, help "assuage the tumors of the troubled mind."

Mount Pleasant Cemetery
Thomas DeFreitas

A peaceful place, where potholed roads
made quirky pathways in between the stones,
where a wooden footbridge spans a thin-veined brook,
where leaves of broad elms flourish, blush, or fall
according to the temper of the year:
these acres keep Aunt Brenda, Cousin Michael;
my mom's parents, Nana and Grampa Mel;
Arlingtonians whose names (O'Hurley,
Demopoulos, Bohajian, Capasso)
take on the friendliness of good neighbours - 
I've seen them often on my evening walks.
It's likely I'll be buried here beneath
God's clement gaze, beneath unjudging skies,
be shaded by an overhang of branches,
my pulseless limbs compounded with kind earth.

Credo
Mario Pita

When everything is looking awfully grim,
since we all end up buried in the sod,
and prospects for the future all seem dim,
I don’t believe in anything but God.
When there appears no reason to have hope
and chances for relief from woe look slim,
and it’s insanely difficult to cope,
I don’t believe in anything but Him.
While causes for despair add up to many
and matter seems to be all we’re made of,
and we look for a sign and can’t find any,
I don’t believe in anything but Love.
The time will come when death appears to seize us.
I don’t believe in anything. Except Jesus.

(Visit https://snapshotcouplets.wordpress.com/2016/08/29/credo/ to hear Mario read his poem, and to read more of his work!)

Article: Off the Rails

A day in the life of Gary Teter, a Texas man with severe bipolar disorder. It's a harrowing story, but the one ray of hope - though it is a small and fragile shimmer - is the work done by the Magnificat Houses, who run the St. Joseph's Clubhouse that provides Mr. Teter with his most important source of stability and support. This powerful essay gives voice to the voiceless: the chronically mentally ill who are so often shamed, ostracized, and forgotten by our society. Please be warned that it's a difficult read, though not without light. And pray for those who have mental illness, and for those who strive to help them hold on to their dignity.