Caught in the Doldrums

I’m generally energetic. Life just happens and ideas flow.

I’ve been depressed. And it took months of rest and medication.

Then I’ve been somewhere else, somewhere that doesn’t have a name, but “The Doldrums” seems fitting.

The Doldrums refer to a phenomenon in equatorial parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans where low pressure can make the winds disappear, trapping sail-powered ships for days or weeks. There’s just no wind in the sails.

My pastoral doldrums are not bad enough to warrant time off but they also mean I’m not functioning normally. The hardest part is that often the Doldrums are predictable. They’re probably related to serotonin or barometric pressure or hormones or something I don’t fully understand. And not understanding is not a place I prefer to be. So, in addition to feeling “blah,” I beat myself up, assess my emotions, stress about how I got here and how I’ll get out of here, and worry about how I’ll get my work done.

In addition to feeling 'blah,' I beat myself up, assess my emotions, stress about how I got here and how I’ll get out of here, and worry about how I’ll get my work done.

Often the Doldrums looks like this: I’m just not interested in anything anymore. I don’t hate my work, I just don’t remember what used to get me so excited about it. Or I get emotional for no apparent reason, like the shock absorbers that help me absorb the bumps of life are shot. Or I just can’t sleep. Or I find myself outside of my own life, like a critic of a movie instead of a character in it.

I’ll be sitting with someone, listening to their story and instead of feeling with them, I find myself hovering over the conversation, thinking, I really should be more present here. I care about this person, but why am I feeling nothing? It’s even worse when the hovering happens in the middle of a sermon.

However the Doldrums affect me, they often mean that the small choices of life and work become mechanical, as if I had to consciously control each heartbeat, each inhalation of my lungs. It’s disturbing and tiring to be so conscious of things that are usually automatic.

During these Doldrums, the worst time of the week is Sunday night, when I look over my calendar for the coming week. I can’t imagine how I will have the energy or emotional capacity to deal with all that the week holds. And yet, as I write this, I find myself looking back on a period of weeks that have looked like that, and I write to share what I’ve learned.

The Doldrums teach me it’s okay to be human. And that I’m not alone in my humanity.

At prayer gatherings and business meetings, without hijacking the entire meeting, I’ve had to admit when I’m not feeling great. I’ve found that there’s a kind of anxiety that only makes it worse when I pretend I’m okay. So when I admit I’m not, I feel half the weight lifted. And the weight is lifted further when others in the group seem unperturbed by my humanity.

Somehow I find that although I don’t have the strength for my own burdens, I often have energy to listen to the burdens of others. The act of listening to others draws me out of myself and reminds me there are other stories going on around me, some of burden, some of joy, and God amid them all.

The Doldrums teach me to say true things.

In those prayer gatherings and business meetings, when I admit I’m not feeling great, I feel it’s my job to still add, “But I know I won’t be here forever” or “But I’m trusting God is with me.” And, as I do, the discipline of saying it for the sake of others reminds me of the truth I just spoke.

The Doldrums teach me to slow down and pay attention.

The worst enemy of the Doldrums is hyper-drive: that manic, goal setting, A-type mode. If I assess my life and work through the lens of big goals and hyper-productivity, I only feel worse. And so, instead, I am forced to be in the moment, to focus on listening to the one person in front of me, be fully in the prayer I am praying, the sentence I am writing. When I take time to walk and reflect, I have to choose to set aside self-condemnation about all the grand plans I’m not accomplishing and to instead pay attention to every tiny bit of beauty God has set in my path, as banal as it feels to get excited about a bird or a leaf.

The Doldrums teach me it’s not all up to me.

To get through the Doldrums, I have to ask for help. It’s incredibly humbling. I seem to be going to work and accomplishing things but at the same time can see all that is slipping through the cracks. I have to pray for all those things, ask others to fill some gaps, and trust that God is attending to them.

The Doldrums force me to be filled by God.

In this low place, I’m rarely very good at the kind of Bible study that feels like I’m accomplishing something. I usually can’t focus long enough to complete a full thought. So my devotional time has become a daily visualization of 2 Corinthians 4:6-7, which says:

“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”

I lie in the dark and imagine my body entirely made of clay. Not a heavy lump of soft clay but a thin shell of brittle clay. I’m entirely empty, a fragile, person-shaped jar. As I breathe in, I’m aware that the Spirit of the living God, the God who spoke light into being, is filling this empty vessel with himself, letting every corner be touched by warmth and light. The outer shell almost wants to become thinner to make more room for him. After several deep breaths, I stand to return to my work, and I feel no less fragile in my own self. But by faith I am filled with something big and bright and beautiful enough to illuminate all Creation, something that will never fade.

This week I finally feel myself moving out of the Doldrums, and I’m more than happy to be free of the weight they’ve placed on my heart. I hope that these lessons remain with me. If the Doldrums teach me to be human, to say true things, to slow down and to trust God, I can see that the Doldrums have their place in my ministry. If the Doldrums make me long for the fullness of God’s Spirit, they have done good work in me.

Mandy Smith is lead pastor of University Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her book The Vulnerable Pastor: How Human Limitations Empower Our Ministry (IVP) will be released in the Fall.