Tag: Christian

“Mad as a Hatter” (Autumn & Mental Illness Part II)

Crazy? (Well, it was the cat's idea.)

Think of all the words we have for people who suffer mental illness.

Mad, insane, out of one’s mind, deranged,demented, not in one’s right mind, crazed, lunatic, non compos mentis, unhinged,mad as a hatter, mad as a March hare; informal: mental, nutty, nutty as a fruitcake, luny, nuts, whacko, off one’s rocker, not right in the head, round/around the bend, raving mad, batty,bonkers, cuckoo, loopy, ditzy, loony, bananas, loco, with a screw loose, touched,gaga, not all there, out to lunch, crackers, nutso, out of one’s tree, wacko, gonzo…

What did I miss?

Stigma maybe? Uhm. yep.

For some reason, in Autumn it seems like more pronounced incidents of mental illness symptoms surface. Maybe it’s just that I notice it more because I start to hunker down for winter.

Who is “mental”? The unexplainable is quickly isolated as “not good enough”. It’s easier to plug in a label or term, than to empathize.

In truth, any one of us may be”diagnosable” for some period of time in a given month. We may not persist with symptoms long enough to need intervening treatment, but if we are human, we are prone, at some point, to have an unhealthy mind. For some, a lack of noticeable symptoms can make it harder to get help.

For example:
Take a person addicted to pornography: Addiction is unhealthy in the mental/psychic capacity. Through this or any addiction, a person may become attached to unhealthy behaviors, thoughts, and actions, and then digress to mental instability and illness without anybody really knowing until the problem is truly unmanageable, or it has reaped awful consequences. On the other hand, a person having a schizophrenic episode and enduring auditory hallucinations, may quickly signal to others that medical assistance and support is needed. Stat.

The bigger question is which kinds of mental illness do we prefer?

We know much more about the brain, in 2011. We don’t assume someone with epilepsy has demons we should exorcise, or that some one who is hallucinating needs to be discipled and punished so they will stop at once. Many more people understand that if a person has a sick brain, they aren’t trying to. Though a proper diet and exercise can be helpful, they can’t think or will their illness away…otherwise they would. Just like a person with a broken leg cannot un-break his leg by thinking, “This disfunction and pain is fiction, so I think I’ll take a jog!”

Medications create the chemistry needed so many people can feel well again both mentally and physically. Without help, the pain–both physical pain and inner psychic pain–can be thoroughly unbearable. Something like brushing tea or getting up from bed may be too enervating, because it all truly hurts that badly. Too many take their lives because of feeling that there is no help or remedy. The illness simply is–and there is no escape, but one most terrible.

Bi-Polar Disorder (formerly called Manic-Depressive Disorder) is a brain chemistry condition in which the person endures major shifts (or polar opposite shifts) in mentality, mood, and behavior. The high end is termed “Mania” and the low end is termed “Depression”. I covered the symptoms of Depression in the last post.

Here are the Symptoms of Mania

(3 or more of these following symptoms for 14 days or more, or if the symptoms interfere with a person’s regular life, constitute Mania)

• Increased physical and mental activity and energy

• Extreme optimism and self-confidence

• Exalted self-importance

• Irritability, aggressiveness

• Decreased need for sleep

• Pressure speech and thoughts

• Impulsiveness and reckless behavior (spending money, risking behavior, driving, sex, substance abuse, etc.)

• Delusions (thinking things that aren’t real or true) and hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren’t there)

As I read the lists of symptoms and mental sicknesses in Kathryn Green-McCreight’s book (See the Book here.)…friends, acquaintances, family members, neighbors, and so forth, came to mind. Some have mental illness mildly; others endure it severely. Some self-medicate with various substances in order to cope. Nearly all of them are misunderstood, unaided…and (formally) undiagnosed. Imagine, if they could feel comfortable enough to get help, emotional support, and medicine, to feel better…

Is there anyone you wish would get help?

In the next part of this series, I’ll go over the symptoms of Schizophrenia, and helpful options for support, pastoral care, and aid for people with mental illnesses.

I appreciate your comments. And as always, you can post anonymously, if you’d like.

The Story Behind the Song “Jesus Loves Me” (a poem by Anna Bartlett Warner)

Here’s the Story behind the song Jesus Loves Me.

The song most of us have sung, Jesus Loves Me was written by Anna Bartlett Warner  who was born August 31, 1827 – died January 22, 1915. Warner was an American writer, the author of several books, and of poems set to music as hymns and religious songs for children. (Via Wikipedia)

Anna’s family home was quite close to the United States Military Academy at West Point, in New York, in the era just before the Civil War. Each Sunday Anna taught Bible classes to the cadets. Her remains are buried in the military cemetery, and her family home is now a museum on the grounds of  the United States Military Academy.

Undoubtably, her most well-known work (and the point of this post) came from the poem from her and her sister’s 1860s quite sentimental and best-selling novel entitled Say and Seal. It was soon set to music by William Bradbury, who added the chorus we still sing today in one of the most well-known children’s Christian hymns of all time…you guessed it! Jesus Loves Me. Many soldiers on the battlegrounds during the War Between the States sang this hymn and found spiritual comfort.

In a scene that brought many people to tears in the novel, a child lays dying and is comforted from his pain, as the main character recites a poem:

Jesus loves me! This I know,

For the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him belong;

They are weak, but He is strong.

Children of God, let it be your simple prayer today.

Blessings.
-Lisa 

9/11; and the Interview & Confessions of a Funeral Director…

 

View my 3 Part video interview with Caleb here.

 

The 10th Anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy a week from this Sunday. We will once again see images and recount the horrors of that day, and try in memorial to accept the reality of this world. Most of us don’t encounter death and our own mortality too often. Most of us don’t constantly see suffering, and witness grief and loss.

Please take some time today, or this weekend to remember that the events of 9/11 still bring pain to many. Loved ones are missed, and we can’t gloss over the national tragedy that left a collective hole in our hearts, even ten years later.

This seems a fitting time to discuss an author who is very acquainted with death. It’s his job to be, and his perspective can be very helpful to us. As promised a couple of weeks earlier, the following is my personal interview with blogger and upcoming author Caleb Wilde, a 6th generation Funeral Director, seminary student, husband, and expectant adoptive dad.

My Questions for Caleb:

 

1. Being a 6th generation funeral director, you have quite a unique vantage point on life, loss, and mortality. How do you think you live life differently than other Christians because of where God has placed you?

 

Caleb: In traditional religious calendars, the day in-between “Good Friday” and “Easter” is called “Holy Saturday”.  “Holy Saturday” is the day the disciples’ hopes and beliefs were engulfed in death and silence, as they viewed their Messiah’s death without the knowledge of the resurrection.

In some sense, I live the life of Holy Saturday.

As funeral directors, we’re paid by families to be a human shield to death, whereby we make death somewhat easier, less real and more proper.  As this human shield, I’m affected.  I’m affected by the brokenness, by the grief, by the hopelessness I see in faces, by the newly fatherless/motherless children, the tragic deaths and the accidents.

All this has made my personal faith more sensitive to questions of God’s goodness and justice.  It’s not easy for me to understand ideas of “eternal hell”, or ideas of “meticulous divine providence” or even “absolute foreknowledge” or “omnipotence”.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m still a Christian.

 

2. What do people misunderstand most about your work?

Caleb: We’re a lot like pastors.  Our jobs are really quite similar, except that one is recognized as “ministry” while the other is “business.”  That’s probably the largest misconception … there’s no way funeral directors can meet with grieving families through the most difficult time of their lives and come out on the other side as “business people.”

Everything else is true, though … we are dark and we are odd people.

In ancient times, death practitioners were ostracized from normal society by rule.  Today, we’re partly ostracized from the norm of society by practice.

 

3. The constant stream of customers (people dying, and their families burying them) can make one grow numb or cold toward the concept and process of death and burial. Do things still surprise you or impact you? What kind of things?

Caleb: There’s something so unnatural about death that (save the very old) it’s difficult to become numb.

 

4. You’ve probably thought about what you’d want your own funeral to look and sound like. Can you tell us about that?

 

Caleb: About two years ago, I started taking one minute video clips of myself, so that by the time I’m 70, I should have a montage of age progression videos that can be used for my funeral.

I’ve also talked about recording a message from myself to my family and friends that could be shown at my funeral as the eulogy.  But, by the time I’m ready to die, I figure they’ll have holographic projections, so I’ll wait for that tech until I record my final goodbye.

 

5. The saddest funeral I ever went to was for a 13 year old boy who took his own life. What have you learned about people during the time of more tragic circumstances that you’ve been a part of?

 

Caleb: Funerals/death are a perfect storm: you have death, the inheritance money, high emotions and family you might not like too much who are around you all the time.

Funerals intensify people’s real character.  You see the best in people and you see the worst.  The bad people will do horrendous things at funerals, like start fights, curse out their family members over money.  And you can see Jesus in the good ones.

 

6. Do you find your work mostly depressing, hopeful, profound, mundane, etc.? Would you recommend this vantage point to others?

 

Caleb: It’s a tough ministry that has little boundaries.  Many funeral homes are also generational, so many of us work with our dads, grandfathers, uncles and cousins, which can make this at-need work that much more difficult to set up healthy boundaries.

Similar to any ministry, I think there should be a passion for death work … a calling of sorts, whereby you know this is what you’re supposed to do.  And being a “calling”, few have witnessed this vantage point.

It’s unique.

 

7. Do you want to stay in the family business? Why or why not?

Caleb: Next question : )

 

8. Tell us a bit about how you view suffering, pain, and death from your unique perspective…which probably has a lot to do with the message in your book.

 

Caleb: I’ve built my understanding of God around suffering, pain and death.  It’s a local theology.  And my understanding of God, suffering, pain and death in light of my faith is the content of my upcoming book, “Confessions of a Funeral Director.”  Hopefully, it will be out in less than a year.  You can get an idea of how death has affected my view of God at my blog, www.calebwilde.com.  My book, though, will contain much more narrative than my blog.

 

9. What’s your best idea for a Smart Phone app.?

 

Caleb: I live near Lancaster County (PA), home of the Amish and Mennonites, so there’s a lot of intermarrying in these parts.  Not to mention, most of the towns in the rural areas of Pennsylvania have families that have lived there for centuries, so many of them are related.

I have an idea to partner with Ancestry.com and create an app the lets you bump smart phones with another person and it will tell you how you’re related to them.  My theory is that this will greatly help the evolution of humans by creating a purer gene pool.   The apps name is “Bump it before you Hump it”.

 THANK YOU, Caleb, and best wishes on your book. I’m really excited to get a copy. 

The working title for Caleb’s book is Confessions of  Funeral Director. A bit more on that here.

So, my reader friends, what are you curious about? Ask Caleb your deep, dark, or even silly questions!

Guest Post by Greg Richardson (Strategic Monk)

Please enjoy a guest post by Greg Richardson. Spiritual Direction has been utilized by Christians (and other seekers of truth and growth), for nearly 2,000 years. Before the age of psychoanalysis (which began as an atheist response to wellness) , people trusted spiritual directors for “soul care” (whole care of mind, body, spirit, emotions, etc).

Greg reveals why there is a renewed interest in this area, and how God, through his Holy Spirit, teaches us about the reality of God’s omni-benelovence and omni-presence, as we walk with him. A spiritual guide is very helpful on the journey.

Greg Richardson

From Greg:
Spiritual direction is the art of spiritual conversation and listening carried out in the context of a trusting relationship.

Spiritual direction follows a model drawn from biblical and other ancient practices. When Nicodemus comes to Jesus in John 3, for example, Jesus guides him by asking deep questions and listening to how he responds. It has a long history, including the early Desert Mothers and Fathers, roots in Celtic Christianity, and many other examples.

Interest in spiritual direction is now increasing, at a time when people thirst for spiritual depth and connection but grow disenchanted with traditional forms of organized religion. Silence and listening are rarer and rarer in our time. We long to know that someone is listening to us so we can hear ourselves.

A spiritual director is a faith companion who listens to your life stories with an ear for helping you discern the movement of the Holy Spirit in your life. God is the true guide and director, while your human spiritual director is like a coach or midwife, supporting you as you pay attention and respond to the inner voice of God. The director is primarily interested in your experience of God and how you can follow God’s call. That process is a spiritual journey into the truth about God, yourself, your relationships, your work, and the world.

The premise of spiritual direction is that God is present and active in your everyday life in a multitude of ways that we often do not notice. When you slow down, breathe, begin to reflect and take a long look at what is happening around you, you begin to become more aware of your experience of God’s loving presence. The better you know yourself, the more you know God; the more you know God, the more deeply you know yourself and your direction and purpose. Intimacy with God leads into transformation, healing, and action.

Spiritual direction takes many forms. I have met with people in churches, in coffee shops, and in homes. I go on walks with people, listen to them via email and telephone, and meet with people on Skype. I have met with people once at a retreat or a conference, intermittently at key points in their lives, or regularly each week or each month over a period of years. With some people I say very little; with others I do more prompting or suggesting.

People tell me many things. Some people confess things of which they have been ashamed for years. Some people get angry, some cry, some laugh. I listen, ask questions, and help them hear their own stories.

I am a spiritual director. I am trained, certified, and experienced, and a member of Spiritual Directors International. I spend time listening to people’s stories; we let go of the past and put concerns about the future out of our minds so we can spend time in the present.

Greg Richardson is a spiritual director, leadership coach, and consultant to nonprofit organizations in Pasadena, California. He is a recovering lawyer and professor, as well as a lay oblate connected to the New Camaldoli Benedictine Monastery & Hermitage in Big Sur, California. Greg’s website is StrategicMonk.com, you can reach him at StrategicMonk@gmail.com. Follow him on twitter, here: @StrategicMonk

Do you have questions for Greg? Please leave you questions or thoughts.

Pilgrim’s Progress & Liberace


My mom read Pilgrim’s Progress (in updated language) to us as kids. I liked it. It captivated me. Some of John Bunyan’s Christian devotional classic has also brought me spiritual comfort in recent times, as well.

But, each time I read it, I can’t help but thinking Mr Bunyan is beating me out of my senses with such heavy-handed allegory. Like the Liberace of Christian standards, Bunyan’s book says, “Helllllllooooooooooooo! I’m AN ALLEGORYYYYYYYY! I’m TELLING YOU SOMETHING!””

Do you feel this way about Pilgrim’s Progress?
If you haven’t, read it, or listen to it here for free, and tell me what you like or don’t like about it.

And brighten your day by enjoying this fun 1980s Liberace Video
(You can tell he’s making fun of himself, and you have to love that sense of humor.)
.