It’s only March, but we have a contender for the best book I’ve read in 2024. A Quiet Mind to Suffer With: Mental Illness, Trauma, and the Death of Christ by John Andrew Bryant
I think it’s technically categorized as a memoir of his experience with OCD, but memoir doesn’t quite cover it. That’s like calling Augustine’s Confessions an autobiography. Rather, it’s a reflection on what it means to trust Christ amid affliction. To embrace the reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus in the midst of real, ongoing affliction and struggle. To see Christ not as the rescue from your problems, but to see Him as the Mercy in your problems.
Here are my three reasons I loved this book:
It gives an honest depiction of the gospel.
Far too often I hear something like, “Everything was awful. Then I trusted Jesus. Now everything is awesome.” The cross of Jesus is treated like a miracle drug, instantly fixing every problem.
But Bryant treats Jesus as his life (Colossians 3:4), not solving every problem, but sustaining him through every problem. Giving him mercy, even as that mercy is painful. Trusting Christ, even when Christ doesn’t give obvious answers.
We would like for our life in Christ to remove the things that disturb and reveal and frighten us, the Pasts that confuse and disorient our present.
Problems make us look for solutions; questions make us search for answers. Diseases make us search for cures. Illnesses make us search for healing. Tension makes us look for relief. Feeling worse makes us look for ways to feel better.
What is the logic of Mercy if it does not follow this pattern? It must be that Mercy is a strange business….
We would rather not have Mercy if Mercy doesn't get to mean what we want it to mean. We would rather, it seems, not have Mercy if what Mercy means is a crucifixion. There is little, it seems, we can do with a crucifixion. We would like, perhaps, for Christ to offer something other than what He offered. (174-175)
It challenged my understanding of intrusive thoughts and OCD.
This isn’t a book about OCD, but rather a book about the gospel set in the context of OCD. And from it, I learned a lot about the experience of those suffering through the anguish of mental illness. Bryant explains what the experience is like, not clinically but experientially. And he describes what faith looks like in the moment of affliction.
But the specific thing that challenged me was he said that if he tries to fight every intrusive thought, he’s already lost. But this was the only strategy I was ever taught when it came to intrusive thoughts.
One of his analogies is that a mind with OCD is like a haunted house. Rather than stopping to punch every ghost, you just need to get out. You trust the ghosts to Christ, and trust Christ to lead you to safety.
What I know now is that it is a Realm, a Haunted House, the place I am misshapen, my compulsion to depend on myself. And I understand I am too vulnerable to go in there. I am too vulnerable to go into my head, too vulnerable to go in there and figure things out, or make things right, or defend myself, or know for sure. Too vulnerable to go into the Realm of Ceaseless Cognition. Too vulnerable to depend on myself. I will have to depend on Christ instead. There has been nothing in my life more beautiful and harrowing than having to become that patient, quiet understanding. (16)
I’m not sure if the lines that he draws for himself are the same for others with similar experiences. But hearing his experience and his reasoning has certainly made me more humble and curious. I’ve been challenged in my previous assumptions.
The book is beautifully written.
You’ve seen this in the quotes already, but the entire book is filled with metaphor and analogy. Technical terms are put into their everyday manifestations (he doesn’t speak of psychosomatic trauma but about “A body that expects the world to end.”)
I was particularly struck by his mediation on Mark 4. I’ll quote a good bit of it, but it goes on far longer (p 180-188)
The story in the Gospel of Mark that meant the most to me was the story of Jesus in a boat in a storm. The storm is raging: the water is piling in. The ship is sinking. The disciples are overwhelmed, overwrought.
They yell for Jesus, who is sleeping, but who then gets up and silences the waters, and asks the disciples why they didn't trust him. And all of a sudden the question that matters is not the boat or the storm but, Who is this guy?
I could picture myself, with all these intrusive thoughts and perilous feelings, in that boat. The Siren, and this Body That Expected the World to End, made ordinary life feel like drowning. Made it always feel like being about to drown. Like everything was always wrong, like everything was always about to crash in.
Something is wrong.
Something is intolerable.
Something bad is about to happen.
The excruciating, stabbing worry. The feeling of being pulled into the worst that can possibly happen.
The terror of annihilation, a violent, trembling thing in my body.I'm in that boat and I'm bailing out water. I'm making sure. I'm defending myself. I'm figuring things out. I'm making things right.
And I'm in that boat with Christ and His silence.
And in that boat and with that silence, it was as if Jesus had said, "What are you doing?"
I've said it before. It was not obvious, and I still by and large had a hard time understanding that with all I was experiencing that there was still something I was doing.
That I got to have an intention.
"I'm trying to defend myself. I'm trying to make these things go away so I can live."
“Who told you to defend yourself?"
"But I'm responsible. I'm responsible for the wrong thoughts, and the wrong feelings. I'm responsible for them. I'm responsible for them. I'm responsible for figuring them out, for making sure I know what they mean. I'm responsible for making sure I have the right thoughts and feelings."
And in that boat, if the Lord's silence had something to say it was
"Why?"
"Why?"
"Why?"
"Why do you need to have the right thoughts and the right feelings?""So that I'll be okay."
"So that I'll be okay."
"So that I'll be okay."
"So that I'll be okay."
"So that I'll be okay."
"I need to have the right thoughts and the right feelings so I'll be okay. Because that's what life is. Life is a bunch of stuff you have to figure out so you'll be okay."And in that boat, Christ's silence says,
"What do you need to be okay?"
"What do you need to be okay?"
"What do you need to be okay?"
"What do you need to be okay?"
"What do you need to be okay?"
“What do you need to be okay?""I need to not have these terrible thoughts, terrible feelings.”
"Why?"
"Because that is what I am."
"That is what I am."
"That is what I am."
"I am all these terrible thoughts and feelings."Christ's silence says, "That is what you are experiencing. That is the flood coming in. And the wind all around you."
And then His silence says,
"Who are you?"
"Who are you?"
"Who are you?"And I understand. I am not the wind or the rain. I am the one in the boat.
I am the one in the boat. I am the one frantically bailing out water, the one frantically rocking the boat.
And we sit in that boat, drowning, and Christ's silence says,
"John, what are you doing?"
"John, what are you doing?"
"John, what are you doing?"I could feel the water going up and in my mouth. So many terrible, urgent worries. So many terrible, awful things almost about to happen.
"John, what are you doing?"
"John, what are you doing?"
"John, what are you doing?"I am consoling myself.
That is what we are always doing.
We are always doing what we think we need to do to be okay. That is what we are always doing.And I stop. And I understand.
It's not our experiences that are killing us; it's our consolations. My thoughts and feelings were not killing me. My desire to control them was killing me.
I could only be killed by Life as I Would Have It.And I stop. I understand. The wind still howls. The rain still comes in. But we are not sinking. I have become that patient, quiet understanding.
What were the disciples supposed to do?
They were supposed to feel that peril, that sensation of drowning, and look to Christ. They were supposed to wait on Christ to speak. They were supposed to point themselves toward the silent Christ. They were to be changed by the Mercy they waited on. The Mercy who looked at them and said,
"Don't you trust me?"
I find the way he presents his story, and the truth of the mercy in Christ to be absolutely beautiful.
It’s only March, but the bar is set high for my book of the year.
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