Depression, Spirituality, and the Quest for the Holy Grail

I just returned from Society for Pastoral Theology annual meeting.  The last night of the meeting I had dinner with three very good friends discussing spirituality and health.  As theologians we all felt that often the discussion regarding spirituality and health have been dominated by social scientists (although great, there’s often something lacking).  The discourse [...]

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Do Nothing

I started another blog “sirojdonothing.blogspot.com” and would like to invite those who are interested in the topic to join in the conversation.  This blog aims at engaging conversations on the profound wisdom of nothingness, emptiness, and finiteness in the way we approach life.  It is also an exploration of Chuang Tzu’s writings and his paradoxical [...]

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NF (Intuitive-Feeling) and Dreams

One of my Korean friends at Claremont School of Theology who is  MBTI (Myers-Briggs Personality Type Inventory) certified told me that an NF has lots of dreams and remembers them.  I’m an NF and this is so true for me.  Not only do I have lots of dreams and tend to remember them.  I am [...]

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Depression, Optimism, and Possibility

I met my supervisor about two weeks ago and her first question was, how are you doing.  I responded, “Tired.”  She laughed and said, “Nothing is new here.”  And she proceed to tell me about how she was doing, that she was thankful for her life, her friends, her fellowship, and her ability to sustain [...]

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Depression, Work, Relationship

I have just completed a course on Spirituality and Mental Health and was not surprise to learn that quite a number of students in my class had been through depression or are still struggling with depression.  The one thing that I enjoy is to take sometime to listen to the narratives and perspectives of people [...]

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Depression, Connection, and Disconnection

Having lived with depression most of my life I think I’ve come to learn a thing or two about depression.  It amazes me how the realization takes place in the presence of others.  It was through conversing with people suffering severe depression that I’ve come to see a thing or two about one of the [...]

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Depression, Addiction, and Spirituality

Lately I have met a number of very spiritual people who struggle with different types of addiction (from mild to moderate obsession). They all have experience depression (some more severe than the other). One of the most interesting aspects is the recognition that prior to depression, most of them were rather disciplined, in [...]

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Think Small, Be Ordinary, and Flow in the Stream of Life

Perhaps a glimpse of freedom is reflected in an image of a person who finds satisfaction in just being ordinary. It is freeing to be ordinary. When one has to strive to be something more than what one truly is, one moves into the area of the ‘conditional.’ In this circle, life is determined by [...]

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Madness, Psychology, and Deconstruction

Just came from class (spirituality and mental health) where we read selected chapters from Foucault’s Mental Illness and Psychology. I found the discussion to be very meaningful for my own personal growth and reflection, listening to various thoughtful perspectives. At the end of the conversation we reflected on a quote by Foucault “Psychology can never [...]

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Emptiness, Nothingness, and Silence

What if most of what we have been told about life, what we have worked so hard for, isn’t true?That people who do well in schools are smart. That smart people become successful. That successful people are happy. That happy people are those who are respected by the society. That to step beyond the societal [...]

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