How we ought to act at the moment of someone takeing there own life

           I’ve been rolling around in thought about Robin Williams’s suicide. A tragic course of events for sure. Well for us the public he always bought his A game, from the serious role in Dead Poets Society to playing Genie in Aladdin, but we only now see the role that he had outside of the public; the role of living with depression, anxiety, mental illness.  As I posted on Facebook last night this was a loss was not one that needed or ought to have happened.

            Having been in the place where I was just two steps from actually committing the act of suicide something stopped me. I think now several years latter that it was an inner longing of the hope I knew remained. I still cared some how. But to often it comes to the point where the thoughts, the plan, the letters the notes come about and hope and desire to live ends. I wish I could have been in the place of his death with Robin to talk to him to listen to his pain or as I say in pastor counseling/listening; sit in the shit with the person, dwell.

            In working in peer mental health I see the spark of hope persistently poking through as one client states of his depression ‘the frozen lake’. Some how kindling that spark that fire even in the frozen of a deep Alaskan winter.  But I know as a peer, a professional and as a family member, that at a certain time after you as a helper can not do more then hold hands with the person and call them to remember who they are from the soul. But it then is in the persons hands, giving it over to their soul their spirit to defend and concur the pain inside their brains.To kick ass and get the golden perhaps platinum metal of valor, honor and strength.

It pains me that only when the death of celebrity do we discuss the power that mental illness has to scare, to cause stigma, to be sad and scared. But we never discuss it when it is manageable and treatable when it’s the persistent sadness, lack of interest, the over sleeping the odd eating patterns the crying jags. When there are a many options for treatment and management. 

Likewise as a person of faith who is a peer, it is our God given duty, to love. Especially when people cannot love themselves. Not to heal but to love to simply love. To act as the way Jesus acted reaching out to less then desirable of society. To celebrate them as fellow children of God.

"I was much further out than you thought and not waving but drowning.”

Todays title is from a quote from Stevie Smith

Its been a while since I have been able to create a post to write for the blog. I guess its because I have been yet once again smacked again in the face and butt with depression. Depression has been a companion at different lengths away from my late childhood. I got the help I deserved in seminary and have been facing the challenge of acceptance a mental illness for two years. It has not been an easy walk, often with God being in silence. Radio silence. But i’ve stuck with the work of treatment and ‘staying in love with God’ and trying to hide my un-welness. I was good very good, I am still very Good. 

http://www.sevencounties.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=8106

But yet I hurt and it breaks through to those who can see beyond the mask. I am afraid of a pattern developing that I will be ‘well’ for 6-8 months and then spiral back into dark deep depression. I remain fearful of what this means for me in terms of ordination. I know my call is firm and that as I have stated in my papers for UMC ordination who is the Shepard to those who are so afraid of the shepherds? Who goes out into the wilderness? 

As of the last three weeks I’ve been on a leave from my job and in an intense outpatient treatment program that teaches DBT.  Dialectical behavioral therapy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavioral_therapy) focuses on mindfulness, loving yourself and just getting along better in the world. No small task for anyone let alone those of us who are in pits of all sorts. It’s a little more complicated then that but a lot of the coping mechanisms I see have parallels to Christianity and to Wesley spirituality. DBT for me is about allowing the Grace we already have into our lives and using it to expand our self’s on a path to wellness. One of the big coping skills is observing your breath. 

I have read in several places (all that escape me right now) that the sound of our breath is pronouncing one of the names of God, YHWH. We are born with breath and the name of our creator on our lips. So for me my interpretation of observe the breath is a way to also know that we are beloved and an integral part of something big, very big. Depression is isolating the chemicals your body produces or does not produce betray you, and it lies to you. Telling you of your non-belovedness. And worst of all you believe it. 

I have often been one who sees my ministry as in the mud. But what about in the muck that sucks you down so you cant move your feet? How do you act then, how do you minister and let go to allow yourself to be ministered to? (I’m still working on this one folks)

This round I have been blessed to not be so devoid of God where I have cried out for her to just come and dwell with me. I am guilty of demanding to know why if created in the image of God, why God would allow for chemicals to get messed up. I have yet to get an answer, but regardless God always remains. 

Moving from one stage of life to the next and so on, and for me from un-welness to wellness. I hope to write some more blogs about the experiences of this round of depression and the role my faith and personal spirituality plays into it(for this intake of the DBT program they asked about my spirituality and its role in my life. I was very impressed)

CUT IT OFF!

      In a Mass during CPE the Gospel Lesson was Mathew 18:6-9. It’s a harsh parable to be sure. Doing CPE in a psych hospital changes a lot of what might otherwise be ok in terms of chaplaincy. The Priest did state quite clearly about not cutting off your foot literally, because in this environment the power of suggestion can be very powerful. But what I was lead to think of in this environment when your brain causes you to sin what do you do? If you cut it out you will die, it is like telling someone to cut out there soul in my view.

          

  As a person with a mood disorder in the six ring circus of the state Psych hospital I was lead to think about the ‘sins’ I know I did in my deep dark hole of depression. Such as cursing out God, not loving my neighbors, not telling or showing the good news to anyone, missing the mark and one might even say my thoughts of suicide where sinful. At the time I felt them to be that way.

 But to me this entire passage is interpreted in light of how you view sin. I see sin as “missing the mark” and breaking a relationship. But can sin truly and willfully be committed when someone’s biological chemistry is causing him or her to do so? When in there true heart they want to do every thing else but sin and hurt the people around them.  So the solution for some might be to cut off the offending part. But this countered with Paul saying each part of the body is important. I am siting with Paul here and not Jesus. 

Well the brain may be messed up and it might sound like the easy route to just cut off the offending part. This is where lobotomy’s had there base. Looking to ancient Greek medicine it was viewed as people’s humors or the four body fluids where off.  The term melancholia is derived from the greek words for ‘bile’ and ‘black’. It was and sadly is still not uncommon for people to view depression as demonic possession and the ‘anger of the gods’. Certainly the person is sinning to have   I think at this moment in time, that some sins in breaking relationships are truly from the person themselves. But more often I am sure that it comes from illness. 

gotten a demonic possession. But again I ask are they liable for the sins they inflict if they are not themselves? If they are possessed or if God is punishing them. I am mixed on this question even as I ask it. It for me goes to the idem ‘love the sinner hate the sin’.

I think of one patient who is a fanatic fundamentalist Christian that is convinced Harry Potter ruined her childhood (she is in her 60’s BTW). She has a nasty temperament and has burned through many chaplains. Part of her burning relationships I know comes from her chemistry, but what I think most of it comes from is that she is lonely and hurting. She does not know how to forgive herself she just wants to cut the offending part, or parts off in her veiws. 

What happens if the offending part just needs stitches, wound care, or antibiotics to cure the oozing, festering, infected wound?  Paul’s route is much harder, learning to love each part, to accept it, to not declare one better then the other. All parts are not always even or 100% but together we are all 100% and with the Grace of God we are 110%

reflections on dark nights

        I have three saints’ well maybe four (not sure about Julian of Norwich, if shes a saint), saints that I follow, St. Francis, St Teresa of Avila and St. John of the cross. Three out of the four are known mystics; perhaps St. Francis was a different type of mystic. But anyways, I have been studying for CPE as well as personally about Dark Night of the Soul.  I thought that I would share with you my thoughts on dark nights of the soul.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul provides an overview. But I have more where that comes from!

I felt very connected to the town of Avila when I was there many years ago and could not explain.  As I learned more about her I came to know St. John as well and knowing that the deep separation from God that I had felt many times was not some freak thing that was happening to me. But rather I was one of many, many people, saints, sinners, great thinkers, and average folks throughout the ages who knew the obscure time. I feel as if I might be one of those persons whom were born with the awareness of the longing.  For me the multiple dark nights have always been a powerful redirection and reorientation in my life, but the experiences have always been incredibly painful during the process, and in the reentry process.  There is no length that a Dark Night must be or a maximum of when it must be over. Periods of dark night are also not uncommon over someone’s lifetime.  

A view of a dark night

To better understand the dark night of the soul has helped me to reframe and create new perspectives on life. The obscure nights helped me to learn how to be ok to be angry with God and to know that the pain is real and not imagined. I also feel that it helped me to understand and fully see the deep pain that is all around us, but that the pain is from humans not being able to know or even sense that deep connection that was embedded into them from God’s whisper into the dirt.

A time,

-->

            As my second to last semester of Seminary draws to an end, I think of the past three years and all of the changes that have happened in my life. I came to seminary thinking one way, desiring different things then now, feeling differently, and in a much different health state.  I wrote my admissions entry about how I was interested in Eco-Theology, and while I still am my call and its related desires have turned my heart more towards behavioral health. I listen to many of my seminary friends and they all have similar changes they have undergone.

            In class yesterday my friend Chris played “For Every Season” by the Byrds. Based from Ecclesiastes 3:1-9, titled ‘a time for everything’. Almost every funeral I have been to has had this verse ready its sort of like the 23^rd Psalm-death stuff. But I have found more within the past 18 months of my life that this is a poem/scripture that is all about life.  With the season of spring supposedly coming in the Northeast where I live I am preparing my seeds to plant my veggies for the summer, I’m stressing out about finals and trying to figure out what I’m going to do after graduation. But I see that everyone around me has this happen too.

            I am taking CPE this semester at a Psych hospital. As followers of my blog you know that this is something very near and dear to my heart and the place where I meet Jesus in the other every moment. I lead a group called “Morning Centering” where we listen to music, I give a talk, they sometimes talk with me about the message and then we finish with music. I was not at CPE for about a week and the area that I do the group on had completely changed. The dominate personalities of the area where discharged out of the hospital. I had mixed feelings about this, I was excited that they had reached according to the hospital a level of wellness. But I was sad that I did not get to say goodbye to them.

            There absence changed the group dynamic completely, with a woman who was quiet now taking a large leadership role.  One of the first times I was with the group it snowed like crazy and I talked about how snow is the poor mans fertilizer. And how sometimes in the winter when it all looks dead it is merely regenerating, resting, renewing. A message I need to tell myself often and that soon the spring flowers would be blooming, and that they would be beautiful because of all the moisture in the ground.  Thus leaving us to contemplate a time for everything, a season for our lives at this moment, a chapter of the book of life completed. A time that we cannot always see…

Geting Brave

-->

*warning I drop an Fbomb in here*      

   This January term I am taking a class called “Ministry with Persons with Disability’s”, so far I am loving it. Today we talked about my area of passion Mental Illness/ Behavioral Health. We had a speaker in the morning who is an educator and pastor in the field of cognitive disability’s and mental health he also known the pain of depression. In the afternoon our instructor gave us a PowerPoint presentation and a women asked the question “why don’t people just tell”. I felt that pesky Holy Spirit rising in my stomach and told it to quiet down. But she went on and another classmate gave her answer and then the Holy Spirit burst forth and called me to tell my story.

            Telling your story of MI, is something painful, courageous, daring, stupid and a host of many other things.  I told they good the bad and the ugly. I discussed how I lost my job, got discriminated against in the seminary by people who I thought would care because they are Pastors by profession. And just how wrong I was. How I was wounded deeply by the church cut to my core, and how I felt that I could not go to church again because I was afraid to get hurt again the way I got hurt in the past. As a seminarian I know that one church does not reflect the entirety of the UMC or the whole Christian church, but it got me thinking about those not as ‘hearty’ with the stupidity of the church saying ‘fuck this shit’ and walking away forever. This hurts me even more then my personal wounding.

            But with the assistance of that dam pesky Holy Spirit, I got brave and preached it. I was not intending to preach it. My classmates thanked me for speaking out and offered encouragement. But also knew the grim reality’s that I and others like me might face in the shadow of the church.

            My favorite Gospel is Mark. I like how its quick and dirty and Jesus just does what needs to get done, its not flowery or sweet with a nativity story its dirty! Its messy, its crazy. Its also the gospel of the dimwitted disciples(another post to be made). But most importantly it’s the gospel of courage to me.

            Mark 16: 1-8, the original ending of Mark, recounts how the women came to do the final tending of the grave of Jesus. But then a young man dressed in white tells them

 “⁶But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.”

They end up running away in amazement and terror. But something happened, Marks not the only book that makes up the New Testament. We have acts, we have Paul’s letters and the other pastorals, so they must have told someone.  That or we have an elaborate fairy tales on our hands.  But I think that it is more that they took the courage of the faith they had in Jesus who was a great prophet to them, maybe they knew he was God.  They where likely still afraid and I would be, but they decided that faith was greater then fear. That the courage to share that faith was more important then the fear. 

       I am still afraid of a lot of things regarding my MI, how will I manage it as someone who will be losing there parents insurance in two years, might I have to go inpatient, how will I afford this, will the church let me ‘in’, can I get ordained, can I get a job in ministry, can I get a job period? Lots of fears will my potential future children have MI like me. Could I willfully and knowingly bring that upon a child?           

  But it takes all of my courage to walk on, to know that I will manage. I will make it work; I will find a church that will ordain me, a job in ministry. It will happen. It might not happen in the way I expect it to or plan it at all, but I have to have the courage to know that it will somehow work out.