Season Affective Disorder (SAD) is a thing. It’s when body, mind, and spirit are burdened by a sun that’s left town, only to return at a later date.

SAD isn’t a bad week, it’s the brain telling us the light is slipping away. That gray is not its favorite color.

As Mary and I make ready to come join you, I’m sensitive to the struggles some of you have already shared with me. I hear the melancholy – a deep heaviness, especially for those who live with depression and anxiety year round.

I suspect almost everyone reading this week’s blog knows what does and doesn’t help:
● Light therapy, talk therapy – yes;
● Isolation and and rumination – no;
● Eating well and exercising – yes;
● Coping in unhealthy, sometimes addictive behavior – no;
● Looking for what’s still right with the human condition – yes;
● Allowing this government to “rent rooms in our heads” – definitely no.

You who anguish with this very real disorder, know that there are those who get you. You are not defined by your malaise. As a matter of fact, you’re to be honored for the strength you may not even feel or see. But we do.

Last and most important, feel the embrace of this religious community where our suffering need not be checked at the door. Because “come as you are” means just that.