A recent New Yorker cartoon portrays two women in conversation at a coffee shop. "In order to get through this," one says to the other, "I've had to find an inner strength that I never knew I had in the medicine cabinet."
Whenever anything is funny it is always true. We all know that medicine allows us to turn to pills when we don't think we can find emotional strength anywhere else.
There's an uncomfortable moral judgment inside this notion. Society suggests, sometimes with pity, that turning to the medicine cabinet for emotional stability implies weakness.
The truth is that clinical depression signals that the patient may be unable to recover alone. What's in the medicine cabinet might restore emotional stability. This is no joking matter.
When we describe all feelings as born from chemistry (legal or illicit) it seems to cheapen the idea of genuine emotion. If your partner is in a drunken state when he tells you he loves you, will you believe him? If I am emerging from anesthesia and tell you you're an angel will it sound true?
Are all of our thoughts and feelings entirely the product of chemistry? No one, except the coldest scientist, wants to think this is true. For if it is, what is Love?
These questions aren't new. What matters? That our thoughts, feelings and bodily health are influenced by chemistry does not diminish us. It simply helps explain the impact drugs have on our lives.
Substances as common as caffeine and alchohol stimulate particular energies. Medicine cabinet drugs like tranquilizers provide support for many who are so sensitive to the world they want to soften their irritability.
The contemplation of Beauty changes our brain chemistry. Focusing on hate also changes what is happening in our brain.
Ultimately, the cultivation of God's Love brings to us the brightest energy that exists. When we are depressed, as I have been, we may feel distant from this energy. When our spirits soar, some may feel very close to God's light.
But, the truth is far more complex, isn't it? Kahlil Gibran wrote that he felt closer to God when he was in the midst of deep illness. Job found God at a deep level through his trials.
Although neither of these found God in the medicine cabinet, it is crucial that caregivers respect the impact drugs have. Drugs can take us to a consciousness that can seem transcendent or cast us into a darkness where we become another personality.
High doses of cortisone sent a late friend and respected lawyer under her hospital bed, terrified because she saw tumors running into her room. Caregivers know these stories. That is why understanding (rather than judgment) is so important.
Our deepest thoughts are sacred and often secret. It is in our hearts where Love arrives holy and ineffable.
God's Love exists far beyond brain chemistry. For God is Love.
-Reverend Erie Chapman
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Journal of Sacred Work 
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