Out of the Darkness into the Light: A Spiritual, Emotional, and Cognitive Walk Through My Depression

By Uzziah Anthony Harris

Out of the Darkness Into the Light is a cognitive and emotional snapshot that chronicles a mans life during a period of great emotional loss and upheaval. It shares the common struggle of our humanity and frailty that is oftenmost present during times of what some would call depression. From cover to cover it highlights a journey of self discovery and takes you from the pits of dispair, disillusionment, and self pity to a place of triumph and victory. The transparency of this piece is eye-opening and comforting while the victory inherent within these short anecdotal essays is to say the least, inspiring. Some will laugh, others will cry but all will in some way, shape, or form relate to and be impacted by the trials (as well as the resolutions) illustrated within these pages. If one has ever experienced pain or loss, and if one has ever searched for answers and not them through their own introspective moments then this book may be of sound assistance to you. If you know anyone who is struggling to come to grips with themselves or simply in need of a new birth, a new direction and new possibility then have them try this rejuvenating series of life lessons and experience. If all seems dark or even dim help them turn on the light, this book can help them, can help you turn life around.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450263498

Uzziah Anthony Harris

Uzziah Anthony Harris serves as the pastor of A New U... A New Chance [ANUANCE], a church located in Richmond VA. He is an ordained minister who holds undergraduate degrees from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA as well as graduate degrees (both a Master’s and Doctorate) from Virginia Triumphant College and Seminary in Richmond, VA. He has authored two other books: Perspectives on the Real War: Essays of Nation in Crisis(2006) and Out of the Darkness into the light(2010):

Book preview

Out of the Darkness Into the Light

A Spiritual, Emotional, and Cognitive Walk through my Depression

Uzziah Anthony Harris

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Out of the Darkness Into the Light

A Spiritual, Emotional, and Cognitive Walk through my Depression

Copyright © 2010 by Uzziah Anthony Harris

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-4502-6350-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-6349-8 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 12/28/2010

I dedicate this work solely to the God that created me and Whom sent a Savior to rescue me from me…I have previously dedicated my life to those around me, to blind ambition, to myself and hopeless love but this one is for you Father

YOU DIDN’T LOSE ME IN THE TURN

You know I was driving in heavy rain the other day and my mind went back to my early 20’s; I remember while I was driving my sports car in the rain I came through a light while making a turn and the backend fishtailed. I did several rotations through the intersection before the car came to rest and all I could think was that I was glad that I didn’t lose my life; as I come to rest on this day I am equally as thankful that I didn’t lose my life in my most recent turns in the rain.

DEAR GOD;

I just wanted to THANK YOU today because despite all of life’s twists and curves, YOU DIDN’T LOSE ME IN THE TURN. Despite all of life’s meandering back roads and dead ends, and despite its recent slippery down slope YOU DIDN’T LOSE ME IN THE TURN. To be honest it got bad for a minute (real bad;) finances, romances, dreams and aspirations- they all took a turn for the worse and yet YOU DIDN’T LOSE ME IN THE TURN. I lost everything I thought was near and dear to me (I watched it all move so far away,) and sat in the darkness and loneliness of despair only to find I was never really alone at all. I lost all sense of self and self worth and yet you didn’t lose track of me, YOU DIDN’T LOSE ME IN THE TURN. I lost friends, I lost respect and regard, I lost time, and energy and peace of mind, I even lost you so I thought BUT YOU DIDN’T LOSE ME IN THE TURN. And so I can’t take credit for this life (for what it is and what it is to become,) and I can’t take credit for having an opportunity to live it; all I can do is just take one day at a time exactly as You have given it. I am grateful Lord and I thank you because you saw me slipping, you witnessed me spinning out of control, you knew what I wanted was a way out and that my intention was to walk away from You (as if I hadn’t moved far away enough from You in the first place,) and yet You were more stubborn, more determined than I and YOU DIDN’T LOSE ME IN THE TURN. The worst of it is seemingly behind me now; I see the bruises and the scars but somehow through You I am inoculated from the past pain. I even laugh now Lord, and it’s genuine, and every tear isn’t one filled with pain, some actually have joy. Just in case I haven’t told you enough (and I know I haven’t, I am too often still caught up in me,) I just want to thank You for not letting me go…I thank You for not LOSING ME IN THE TURN.

Eternally in Your Service,

Uzziah Anthony Harris

Contents

Foreword

Introduction: My Greatest Fear is Failure (for Marianne)

1. For every would be HERO

2. Dear Me

3. The Divine Alarm Clock

4. One more day…

5. Take the time to read the FINE PRINT…

6. Tipping the scales in your favor

7. A little push in the back….

8. Finish line….

9. Take the good with the bad because the BAD can be GOOD!

10. Mr. and Ms. Validity

11. The change has got to be in you:

12. Generational curses and blessings

13. Essence of a Man

14. Don’t want to be a human seeming…

15. A Question of Worth

16. The Input-Output Effect:

17. No missing Ingredients

18. What’s IN you?

19. The extraordinary lies somewhere within the ordinary.

20. True Life……

21. The Litmus test for Life

22. Never quit, Never die…

23. The BIG picture

24. Rags to Riches

25. We fall down, but PLEASE get up!

26. Is it in you or are you so deep in it that you can no longer tell the difference?

27. Fill in the Blanks

28. Get off the Island and Be rescued

29. It is all about You

30. Role Reversal

31. Frontin only to fall behind

32. The P in perseverance

33. Liberated from my rear view mirror

34. The seed called a dream

35. Enough Already

36. (1-2) baby steps

37. A Perfect Mind…one in use

38. Valentine’s Day, EVERYDAY

39. WAIT!!!!

40. Healing for the everyday snakebite

41. My Breakfast Sandwich

42. Foundational Principles

43. BE (exist) – IN (inside, surrounded by) – COURAGE.. i.e., Be Encouraged

44. It’s SHINETIME, (for real this time..)

45. Full Awareness and Inspiration Through Him

46. Make or Break

47. Just Because….

48. Staying

49. Too Much or Little? (Just Do YOUR part)

50. Opportunity Cost

51. Back 2 the drawing board..

52. personal mission statement

Foreword

It is traditionally said that you can not truly know a man unless you have walked a mile in his shoes.. if that is so then I qualify well to speak on the man known as Uzziah Anthony Harris; his shoes as well as the places he’s tread in them have been my very own. I know his story well (almost too well,) African American Male, early to mid thirties, college educated, one step removed from poverty and couple behind upper middle class, trying to find existence as a man while manhood itself still remains loosely undefined in this contemporary society; yet through it all moving toward a dream.

I have known Uzziah Anthony Harris for the past 3 years and it has been a tumultuous 3 years for him; I have seen him cry (I have cried for him,) I have watched him figuratively bleed (and I have bled with him,) I have felt (from a distance and up close) his disappointment and heartbreak and have prayed to God that even if He had to bend him that he wouldn’t break him (permanently.) But break him God did only to rebuild him anew; with a new understanding, a new focus, and a new perspective.

Life however, has a certain equilibrium to it in the sense that even trouble refuses to last always. What goes up must come down (yes) but the antithesis to such an assertion is the good news that what is down eventually rises back to the top. I am glad to announce his coming out on the other side. Uzziah’s life is proof that pain doesn’t have to be a deficit but that pain can be the protagonist that pushes us past our own mediocrity and onto a new path of enlightenment, purpose and power..

That is what his journey codified within the pages of this prose is about, ENLIGHTENMENT- finding the LIGHT inside of you; it is about moving out of a dark place, a place of obscurity, opaqueness, and indecisiveness to one of authority and direction. Uzziah’s writings will give one the power to examine one’s self and then the courage to amend one’s self: it will give you the wherewithal to discontinue stagnation and light the match that MOVES one FORWARD. Read these pages with a watchful eye and an open soul; observe his transparency and realness as he comes to grip with himself for the purposes of helping you come to yourself because I am told that when we finally come to ourselves (see ourselves,) then we are finally able to begin to make the journey from the pigpens of life to positions of prestige worthy of celebration. I am told that one man’s loss is another man’s gain, may you now gain as much as I have from one man’s introspection, from one man’s movement Out of the Darkness and Into the Light.

Tony Avon Harris, Jr.

Perspectives on the Real War

missing image file

Introduction: My Greatest Fear is Failure (for Marianne)

I wish I could talk to Marianne:

Then I would tell her I AM NOT AFRAID OF MY POWER BEYOND MEASURE BUT MY POWER UNOPTIMIZED.

It is not that I feel ill-equipped but sorely ill-effective..

My light doesn’t frighten me, NOR DOES THE CONCURRENT DARKNESS that dwells inside of me but this strange feeling that this great light that He put inside me will flicker and eventually fade away refusing to light the path of those who need it most.

I am talented

I am fabulous

BUT I AM also HURT, and sometimes CONFUSED

BUT I AM also FRUSTRATED AND AFFLICTED

I am UNSURE of ME

I am a child of God but sometimes Daddy don’t seem to hear me

I don’t shrink for the world around me and yet my growing and expansion has been my perpetual pain.

I CONSCIOUSLY give to those around me the support and permission to shine and grow; but for myself I SAY NO and unconsciously question the potency of my brilliancy.

I fear that I will never experience my own and expected level of excellence and so instead of liberation, I know incarceration- a slave to my own heart, mind and things within.

They tell me that the standard of my life is TOO HIGH for ME, and my anxiety is that I’LL DIE BELOW my own bar.

How is that for a GREATEST FEAR?

I wish I could talk to Marianne (I wonder what she would say?)

What do you do when you can no longer live off of the pain? When you can no longer afford to be driven by the fuel called pain that has been previously buried so deep within your soul?

I offer you a new gasoline paid in full using another currency, live your life now budgeted by the Hope and Inspiration that is God given- today recognize that He has made you whole. Your life can be a little clearer now (no longer do you operate under a haze, and no longer is life a meaningless gaze into a maze for which there is no end.)

Your life has new meaning and now you travel a NEW PATH, You are walking along a different road –a reconstructed journey compliments of a pain now reconciled: I call it THE OVERCOMER’S AFTERMATH

When I think of MY DEPRESSION I am reminded of a conversation I once had with a man who was clinically counseling me at a very pivotal point in my life. I remember firing off a litany of circumstances that had befallen me (many the result of my own faults and volition.) I can remember sharing with him that I often thought of how much easier it would be for me to no longer exist and that I was depressed; his response- somewhat awkward in my opinion but was one I will never forget for manifold reasons, it was Who told you that you were depressed and furthermore what IS depression? He continued on and said to me You see if I were going through what YOU were going through FOR AS LONG as you have been going THROUGH IT I would be unhappy too! Furthermore I would say that to feel any other way given your circumstances would be highly abnormal and THEN Tony I would be worried about you (he smiled.) I came to understand MY DEPRESSION that day not so much in the clinical sense, I am not a psychiatric professional nor do I approach the subject matter from such expertise but in a more spiritual sense. I approach the subject from the standpoint that most of us at one point or another have found ourselves depressed, suppressed, and compressed; held down by something or by some things or situations that causes us to drop and to sink to a level of sadness and hopelessness that can be best described or likened to (in my opinion) darkness. Many of us completely own this darkness as depression either because of what someone told us or because of our own preconceived notion of what we have thought depression to be, we allow ourselves to be encompassed by it until there is no discernable way around it, we can only go through it. It is for this cause that I have written OUT of the Darkness, INTO the Light; it is my spiritual, emotional, and cognitive biography- a chronology of how God took me from where I was: in darkness, depressed, suppressed, compressed, distressed, down and completely out to a place of peace, prosperity, purpose, and YES pleasure, a place full of light! I have written 52 anecdotal entries; faith statements if will not so much based in empirical evidence but rooted in the truth of my soul. You may read them once a week over a 52 week period, or once a day over a 52 day interval- but try not to read them all at once. I share them with you in the hopes that you or someone you might know would be encouraged, enlightened, and inspired even; that they