Virtue in a Pill, Pt. 2

The pill has not made me a saint, but it has helped. Last night I only slept for 4 hours enabling me to wake up at 5:30 and have morning devotions -- something I have not done in years. I was able to accomplish a lot with all of my time doing extra schoolwork and housework. Clearly, the pill is making me more like God.

It's so simple, actually. I should have just thought of it before. What the church needs to make saints is not the means of grace, the spiritual disciplines, the hard work of virtue, or even the Holy Spirit. What it needs is a really good brain surgeon. I am, of course, being facetious here in my observations, but the effects of this depression medication on me have indeed provoked a host of theological questions.

Are some people more naturally prone to virtue simply as a result of their chemical makeup?
If so (and it seems to me the answer is "yes"), then are some people who exhibit behaviors of irritability, anger, and impatience actually victims of their own brain rather than free moral agents acting rebelliously? (And is it fair of God to make some people naturally happy while making others naturally dour?) At least one implication seems quite clear to me: the recognition that people are naturally inclined to virtue by varying levels leads me to great hesitancy in ever judging another person. After all, the only difference between him and me might be the fact that I'm taking a pill and he is not.

As for me, I was a better person today. I smiled more, enjoyed the company of others more, and even savored the food that I ate more. I had hoped that such a change in my character would come from a supernatural act of God's Spirit being poured into my life, but I'm afraid it came at the hands of Lexapro instead.

Maybe I'm a sell out. Maybe I have just cheapened the painful process of sanctification and taken a shortcut. Maybe I will one day have this crutch I lean on removed from me and the real Greg will once again rear his ugly head.

Or, as a friend suggested to me tonight, maybe Lexapro is now my new sacrament -- a means of grace given to me by God for my undeserved benefit. I now partake of the body, the blood, and the pill. Together they are making me whole.