You are there.

"If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there."  (Psalm 139:8)

While in college I had a classmate who suffered from schizophrenia.  One of the things he discovered and shared with me was that there was a high percentage of people with schizophrenia that were atheist.  His take was that it is simply extremely difficult to believe in a God when one's life is dominated by a mental illness.

The romantic notion of body, mind, and spirit all beautifully reflecting the image of God is hard to maintain in the midst of dysfunction.  At the heart of the matter is a question of identity.  When I look back at my life and answer the question "Who am I?", its hard not to focus on the highs and lows that have defined my existence as one who is bipolar.  My former parish put a history page on their website, and they had this to say about my time there:  "During his tenure, we decided on a huge mission project, a senior living community.  Pastor Dave spent endless hours planning and overseeing the building of this community, which was named Luther Park."  They also remember the relationship with St. Nikolai Lutheran Church in Novgorod, Russia that I helped cultivate.

I couldn't be more pleased that these two things are seen as my legacy.  However, as I deal with my own diagnosis of being bipolar I am aware that the question of who I was as a pastor is being defined by two manifestations of manic episodes that I had experienced.  And though they were gracious not to write about it, I am well aware that much of my ministry there was also affected by the depression that I experienced as well.  My very being is being defined by the brain chemistry that results in the highs and lows of bipolar.  And I suppose that one could be content to rest in an understanding of our human experience as simply the product of the incredibly complex chemistry at play in our bodies.

And yet in the midst of it all, God is there.

My faith experience has been shaped deeply by the presence of God during the highs and lows of my life.  During the manic phases of my life I have had a profound sense of a holy calling.  I am not alone in that, I have heard the stories of other bipolar pastors who have had similar experiences.  Though it is worthy of note, that such experiences have been defined by the psychiatric community as religious delusions, a symptom of bipolar disorder and other conditions such as schizophrenia.

And looking back at the lowest points of my life, I have been touched by God's presence there as well.  When I was overcome by my depression and spiraled out of control in my drinking, nearly drinking myself to death, it was at the bottom that I experienced the redemptive hand of God.  That presence came largely through the people God surrounded me with at that moment.  A wife who remained by my side  in spite of my being  in a rage and drinking heavily.  Close friends who literally picked me up off the floor and cared for me.  A bishop who did not abandon me, but walked with me through that time.  A psychiatrist who dropped everything he was doing to arrange a place where I could get the treatment I needed.  The hand of God, present, gracious, and loving in the midst of despair.

If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

So the psalmist wrote.  And so I have experienced God's presence in my life as well.

This I believe is at the core of the Christmas message.  That God comes to us where we are, and there redeems our life.  Yes, manic phases have shaped my life, and yet I believe that God was present in them, redeeming them.  Luther Park is a reality, after all.  Hundreds of people have been touched by that ministry, and thousands more will be.  God is in that.  And in the dying and rising that defined my own personal holy week, October 14th and 15th of 2012, God was present.

Either that, or it was all just a matter of brain chemistry.

I choose to believe it was the hand of God.