Are We Out of Our Minds?

Or, Better Living Through Hydrocephalus

Recently I seem to have lost my mind.  That sounds bad, but it’s a good thing. 

Literally.  

Worshipping God with Our Minds

I was raised in a Dutch subculture not known for emotion.  We resonate with the “minds” part of worshipping God with all our hearts, soul and minds.  Even those without much education tended to be a deliberate, cognitive group.   In college, I chose a philosophy major, because I liked understanding what was going on.  When God called me to head to seminary, it was clear in my mind that He had plans for me.  And in ministry I could brave a lot of leadership challenges because in my mind I knew that God was with me. I was pretty focused on worshipping God…with my mind.  

However, during the past couple of years I’ve had a lot on my mind, you could say.  Or, actually, a lot less.  Let me explain. 

Losing My Mind

Several years ago I’d slowly begun experiencing more difficulty focusing than I’d had before.  I figured it must be some accumulated burnout from leadership.  But by late 2022 my symptoms were only getting worse.  Eventually I was diagnosed with hydrocephalus, a congenital problem where brain fluid is blocked from draining to the spinal column.  The backed-up fluid displaces the area where my brain was supposed to be.  As a result, I had been slowly losing my mind.  I even was able to see it on the brain scans the doctors showed me.

The solution for that is pretty remarkable.  The doctors installed a shunt to allow my brain fluid to bypass the problem and drain to my abdomen.  I woke up from surgery speaking and thinking clearly for the first time in a long time.  My wife recalls what it was like to see me back in my right mind.  

Unfortunately my shunt developed an infection, surfacing on a solo trip through O’Hare airport.  I passed out at the airport, after which some nice paramedics put me on an ambulance and brought me to a hospital until family members could bring me to another hospital closer to home home.  The shunt process repeated again, until finally a third shunt worked without infection.  

But by then the brain trauma had taken its toll.  My wife remembers how in the hospital I would hardly respond to conversations or doctors’ assessments. However when she leaned close to say good-bye in the evening I would instinctively pucker up for a good-night kiss. During those days she’d simply pray that the Holy Spirit would be with me “in there” so I wouldn’t feel alone.  

Needless to say, 2023 was a nightmare in our home.  I would need someone to help me walk from one room to another because I kept veering into walls.  I hear stories about that year and I cringe at what it must have been like for those closest to me.  To see me reduced to a toddler, often with little assurance that I would get better. 

But I didn’t really mind.  I have very few bad memories from that year.  Frankly, I have very few memories of that year, period.  I was dumb and happy.  I’d spend my days on the sofa, watching TV with loved ones who would jump up to help me whenever I tried to walk into the next room.   If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that was pretty good.  

And mostly, I didn’t know any better.  Not that year. 

In My Right Mind

Since then I’ve regained pretty much all that I had lost during that weird season.  My family and I are so thankful.  I still love word plays, bad jokes and fixing up old cars and houses.  

I’m the same me that I’ve always been…but different.  

I know.  

Mentally, I’m still the same philosophy major/leadership type I’ve always been, but my heart is different.  It’s a lot bigger.  I still think carefully about everything I do, but sometimes in the middle of all that thinking my heart will interrupt me with some crazy emotion like discouragement or gratitude.  It’s like while my brain was displaced in my head some of my heart slipped into that empty space.  And as a result I now have days when I’m feeling almost as much as I’m thinking.  (I know that may sound crazy.  I assure you, I’m still trying to figure it out!)

Actually this probably shouldn’t surprise me at all.  The Gospel has always talked about the importance of some sort of near-death experience where we find ourselves going down and coming back up changed.  The New Testament words for repentance carry a down-and-up trajectory.  And the Bible has always talked about salvation as a death-to-life experience.  I thought I understood this.  I’ve gone to church all my life.  And as a pastor I’ve even read the New Testament in the original Greek, where the Apostle Paul describes how we are crucified with Christ in order to spring back with Christ’s new life.  There are a few of Jesus’ followers who have experienced death in a literal sense.  I’m eager to talk about this someday with Lazarus in heaven someday, for instance. 

I suppose I’ve never really taken this death-to-life language very seriously.  Mostly a metaphor, I’d figured.  I’ve never had a “Damascus Road” experience, having spent my life pretty much on the straight-and-narrow.  I didn’t meet Jesus face-down in some gutter, I met him in Sunday school.  

But these days I’m reading the gospel a little differently.  To be clear, the gospel hasn’t changed, I have.  I’m still the same person—but clearly different.  

Losing Our Minds Together 

I’d like to invite you to join me in reading that same gospel differently.  I share my story in hopes that it might help you take your own “near-death” experience more seriously.  What might God be letting die inside you?  What might he be trying to bring to life in you?  

We are living in times that threaten us.  When economies around the world shudder our personal finances are shaken.  Each day brings new headlines of political turmoil here and around the world.  Our denomination seems to be crumbling even faster than our former denominational office building.  Perhaps you’re feeling the quaking in your health or your marriage or your family. 

Something inside us wants to cling to these things, well…as if our life depended on them.  The thought of letting go of something that you think has always made you who you are, well, frankly it can scare you to death.  

If that’s you right now, I’d like to urge you to let that happen.  After my experiences of the past couple years I’m discovering that our hearts often long for the things that our minds prefer to overlook.   Often, that transition requires some kind of funeral.  Maybe it’s yours. 

If so, I invite you to let His changes scare you to death.  Trust me, it’s not all bad.

Actually, it’s the only way to really get a life.