Depression II

My new chapbook, #46 Stones for Seamus is out.
($6.00 postpaid from
ed pacht
223 Wyandotte Falls,
Rochester NH 03867)

This is from the chapbook.

March 8, 2008. For the past few days I've been feeling rather depressed. There seems to be no particular reason for it, but it is there, and very real indeed. There has been a lot of good happening, but also a few things not to my liking. I know better, but my mind and my emotions seem to seize upon what is unpleasant and to bypass all the good. That is not God's fault, nor is it really mine. In the eternal battle of the children of Light against the very real powers of darkness, the temptation to despair is among the enemy's most effective weapons. I'm feeling that force, very much so, but I know better. Depression may be with me, but so is God, and He is good. ...

Depression II

Life is good, and I know it.
God is good, and what He made is good,
and that is also what I know,
but what I know I do not always know,
and what I feel is not always what is true;
and in a world that He has filled with beauty,
often gloomy grayness fills my sight and mind,
and even in the glories of the grand creation,
even in the wonders of the small unseen,
and even in the knowledge that for sin there is redemption,
and that ugliness is outshone by gold,
even knowing as I know, that nothing I can do in error
has the power to undo His loving work;
even then my mind is tinged with darkness,
even then I hover at the edge of bleak despair,
even then I groan, complain, and anguish,
even knowing, as I know, that He is there.

Darkness often seems to fill the world around me,
and the light I know is shining is to me almost unseen,
but in the darkness it is surely shining,
and its beams are pressing up against the gloom,
and the fog of doubt and deep uncertain feeling,
planted by unfriendly, ever-hurtful hands,
and spawned by Hell's fierce darkness of despair,
cannot hold against the unrelenting force of Light,
and shall yield.

And I shall rise,
and shall see beyond the gloom,
where Light forever shines,
and so shall I,
perhaps, it seems, not now, but then,
for God is good and does not ever change.