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Darkness is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness by Kathryn Greene-McCreight. (Brazos Press, 2006). $16.95. 176 pages (paper).
by David E. Sumner
Over the course of decades, I have discovered that nothing inflicts more pain on more people than depression. I have observed its pain in dozens of students, relatives and friends. It caused the suicide of a friend in 1996, whose body I was the first to discover, and a niece's husband in 2000. I counsel regularly with a 37-year-old nephew in whose path it has thrown numerous obstacles. I see it among students when they start missing class or failing a course-and not seeming to care.
Depression and suicide present vexing challenges for Christians since our faith is supposed to give us meaning for life and hope for the future. And it does for most of us. Yet, the evidence is beyond dispute that Christians suffer from depression and sometimes take their own lives. Both people I knew who killed themselves were devout, church-going Christians.
Every now and then a book comes along that offers a dramatic breakthrough into understanding this troubling disease. Prof. Kathryn Jamison's 1995 book An Unquiet Mind was one of them. Darkness is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness by Kathryn Greene-McCreight surpasses that one. The author chronicles her five hospitalizations, suicide temptations, and painful struggles with startling honesty. This book rises above the crowd of "here's my story" books because of her brilliant intelligence and ability to combine personal experience with theological insight.
Ms. Greene-McCreight is an ordained Episcopal priest, a mother of two in her thirties, the author of two previous books, and holder of a Ph.D. in religion from Yale University. She currently teaches religion at Albertus Magnus College and is an assistant priest at St. John's Church, both in New Haven, Connecticut.
She writes from a faithfully biblical perspective on mental illness. She includes throughout the book, "...bits of scripture and quotations from the great figures of the Christian tradition to show how the 'great cloud of witnesses' (Heb. 12:1) helped, supported and encouraged me in my illnesses. These are integral to the book, not just frosting," she writes. She doesn't claim to have found a miraculous recovery. "Thirteen years now after my diagnosis of major depression...after good times and bad," however, she says, "Jesus has chased it away with the help of medicine and therapy, a loving family and supportive friends."
While the book doesn't purport to offer easy solutions, it will help victims of depression and those who befriend them. There's nothing here to criticize and everything to praise; she offers an inspiring story from a brilliant mind.
--Dr. David Sumner is Professor of Journalism and Head of the Magazine Program at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. He is a journalist and former Episcopalian.
