“I’ll never kill myself to save my soul.”
We are living sombre times. Times when discussions are polarised and biased. Among all this fight, a malicious and silent being starts to emerge in the innermost and, as any animal, gets fed by negative feelings and/or adverse events along the day. This small perversity, as said in many magazines and news, is considered the evil of our century: the depression.
Depression is a silent disease which sometimes is disguised in a smiley person, that when found on its own, lives horrid feelings and thoughts. A sad example of someone who lived this illness and took his own life trying “to save his soul” from this great sadness was the excellent actor and comedian Robin Williams.
This song’s composer and Slipknot’s main singer, Corey Taylor, for many years was always open-hearted about these questions and said in many interviews about the difficulties in his life, being this silent disease one of them. Before writing this song, he got divorced after an 8-year-marriage and watched one of his former colleagues, Chris Fehn, get fired from Slipknot because of a disagreement on money and legal actions against the band. These reasons weighed his feelings.
“Pick a lord and pray to it. You’re so demanding when you want the truth, but your stories don’t read for me.”
There are many means of fighting depression and, unfortunately, oftentimes miracles are sold to make the disease go away. Churches rise proclaiming they have a “god” who heals, and that depression is a demonic thing. I feel so sad knowing these people do not know the Bible as it meant to be and about the many heroes of faith.
One of the greatest preachers in the Christianism, Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), fought against this spirit disease and, in one of his sermons, stated intensely about this feeling:
"I could say with Job, 'My soul chooseth strangling rather than life.' (Job 7:15) I could readily enough have laid violent hands upon myself, to escape from my misery of spirit."
For whom is called as “prince of the preachers”, this sentence pronounced in a pulpit shows that there is not a secret formula which takes down the bad feelings. Many temples which follow the “prosperity gospel” make the use of lies in order to convince people. They scramble with the emotional, with what is exactly convenient for them instead of what is their real need.
“You gotta lie if you wanna believe, but your bibles don’t work on me.”
Oh, Corey… the Bible isn’t a grimoire (a book of spells) which you put your hand over it, recite some words and everything is solved. The Bible has got teachings from diverse brands. There are the good and the bad examples since the mistakes also bring learning.
It is curious to think that the Bible is a book written many years ago by people from different ethnicities, with different jobs and who lived in distinct eras, but in the end, the content gets connected wonderfully. In it, we can observe many other characters who suffered from depression such as Jeremiah, Elijah, Job, Jonah, Paul… even Jesus!
Being a Christian doesn’t absolve anyone from diseases or problems. The Bible itself says that, for loving and following God, we would face difficulties. The difference in all of this is that by knowing and feeling God’s love holding you every instant, facing the problem gets lighter, although it still hurts. It is like a child who is hurt and seeks for his mum or dad to hold them. It is hurting, but they know that it is safe in the arms of who cares for them.
“I didn’t come this far to sink so low. I’m finally holding on to letting go.”
Depression is a daily fight. It is always knocking at your door desiring to drag you down. We cannot let our guards down and permit it to take up who we are. There are helping channels, professionals who mind this area and are ready to take you out of this pit of sadness.
I’m glad Corey is seeking for and fighting, somehow, this disease. I would be even more glad if he also had some spiritual assessment, even though he made it clear he doesn’t like Christianity and this, unfortunately, was on the bad examples he had in the course of his life.
And you, who are reading this text, if you face any kind of feeling like this, understand that someone is looking after you and desires to walk along with you. God, through Jesus, wants to connect with us. He doesn’t promise a life free of trouble or problems, but He promises to bring peace to the heart even when everything is hard, just like the hurt child along with their guardians’ example I mentioned before.
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This text was a request by my friend Pedro Todero, and it was a hard request to think about, but in the end, I was able to take out of the paper, learn something from it and bring it to the light of the day.
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Listen to this song on:
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com.br/albums/B07RV4NJ2H
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/us/track/727923492
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/5mpUKTdskZea0gStWzeHUZ?si=hDUw4hRLSNKHo5OymfFkbQ
YouTube (videoclip): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpATBBRajP8
YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=XYZue7_NQew
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Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTX_MAADFJQ
https://www.songmeaningsandfacts.com/slipknots-unsainted-lyrics-meaning/
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/slipknot/unsainted
https://genius.com/Slipknot-unsainted-lyrics#about
https://slipknot.fandom.com/wiki/Unsainted
https://www.crossway.org/articles/did-you-know-that-charles-spurgeon-struggled-with-depression/
