Thank you, I’m a little better tonight. Not well, but capable of functioning at a minimal level.

The most insidious thing about depression (I know I’ve written about this before) is the false sense of clarity it gives you. “Now, at last,” you feel, “I’ve cast aside the self-delusion and the rose-colored glasses. Now I see the world plainly, as it is, and I understand that it’s all death and corruption and doom.”

Naturalism in art, as generally practiced, I think, is almost a cultural form of depression. The Naturalist artist prides himself on painting (or writing about) decaying corpses and deformed children, congratulating himself that he has pierced the veil of illusion to portray the world as it actually is.

This same artist, however, very likely has a spouse or lover on whom he dotes, and children who delight him. But he will not include those things in his art, except in order to set the the viewer or reader up for some shock. He’s not a hypocrite, but he’s as delusional as the Pollyannas of this world, only from the other side. His view of reality is one-dimensional and consciously selective.

That’s one of the reasons I appreciate the Bible.

You’ll often run into people (especially on the Net, particularly on Facebook) who will delightedly point out all kinds of awful things somebody (usually not they themselves) found in the Bible—atrocities and rapes and injustices—and natter about how the Bible is really pornography and anybody who takes it seriously must be some kind of deviant.

These people are as superficial as the Christian Triumphalists, whose understanding of Scripture is frequently shaped, not by actually reading the Book, but by books of Biblical Principles written by religious celebrities. Or just some celebrity preacher’s TV sermons.

I wrestle with many things I find in the Bible, and I cannot claim to have solved its mysteries (I’ve written about how I deal with those things elsewhere, and won’t address that subject tonight). But when I go to the Bible I come away with the sense that I’ve encountered something entirely true to life. It is not a happy book about bunnies, nor is it a “realistic” novel by Zola. It contains real pain, real tragedy, and real hope.

Some Christians may be glib. The Bible, whatever else you may say about it, is not that.

I may or may not post tomorrow. I plan to be at The Festival of Nations at the River Centre in St. Paul, as has been my wont in recent years. It closes early tomorrow afternoon, so I may get time to post something, if only a scream from the heart of an overtaxed introvert. Or not.