Mark Stephenson

Joe, it must be very frustrating for you and your friend to visit different churches and not find the kind of welcome that all of us long for. When Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed in Birmingham, he received a letter from several other clergy in which they opposed segregation and urged him to be patient, but as I recall he responded that the time for patience was over. I can imagine that you and your friend feel the same way, but the challenge for you is that the tools that King and his followers used won't work. Your hope is to connect and find belonging, not use non-violent protest to fight for your companion's rights. As difficult as the fight for civil rights is, it seems that the longing and desire for belonging is even more difficult because one cannot fight for these, they must be offered by the other as gifts. Like you, I hope and pray that you and your companion can find a congregation that will offer these gifts with joy. 

Joe, yes, this pastor's communication shows a wonderful sensitivity to this man, and shows a desire to teach the congregation how better to understand and interact with him both with the invitation to the man to exit the service before talking with anyone and with the request for permission to explain to the congregation why this man needs to do that. Loving hospitality isn't rocket science, but it does take some willingness to learn and engage in new ways of interacting. 

Chong,

Thanks for sharing this. Hans Reinders has done some very helpful reflection on the image of God as well in his book, Receiving the Gift of Friendship: Profound Disability, Theological Anthropology, and Ethics. Many people say that to be made in God’s image means that we have certain abilities such the ability to think or the ability to obey or disobey God. But these ideas about the image of God exclude some people with disabilities, especially people with severe intellectual disabilities. The image of God begins with fact that we all share a common humanity and ends in God’s love. According to Reinders, we are “created in God’s love, since love is what defines the God in whom Christians believe.”

Ken, I'm delighted that this was helpful for you. Somehow, in the popular imagination, disability and mental illness have come to be associated with evil and violence. Therefore, many of the villains in movies and TV have disfigured faces, problems with mobility, or mental illnesses of various kinds. But the truth is this: not only are people with mental illnesses and other kinds of disabilities no more likely to be perpetrators of crimes than the general population, but also they are far more likely to be victims of crime than the general population. I assume that the movie and TV producers figure that portraying a man with a severe limp who abuses a nondisabled little girl will get more viewers than portraying a nondisabled man abusing a little girl who, say, has Down Syndrome. Together, we can keep fighting stereotypes. The truth is being told, and more people are listening. It just takes so long.

Michèle, thanks for your story and comments. You describe the enormous challenge that public health officials have. On the one hand, we don't want to go back to the era of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, when people were institutionalized inappropriately. The bar is set very high for involuntary hospitalization. On the other hand, it seems that people usually have to hurt themselves or another before they can be hospitalized against their will. And in the case of your story, even in the tragic instance of the murder of a child, your cousin was still allowed to refuse help. The intrinsic challenge of judging when and when not to hospitalize someone against their will, combined with limited public dollars allocated for mental health and overworked mental health workers results in a lot of suffering that could be abated somewhat. Thinking about these challenges, about the story of your cousin and her child, and about other similar stories in which people refused help even though they could have benefited from it makes me start to feel hopeless. I'm thankful that you are helping me and others at least to be aware of the issues. Perhaps some better way can be found. God, help us! God bless the public health officials and lawmakers with compassion and wisdom. Amen

Randy, how painful for you, for this person and his family, and for the whole church community.  I will make this a matter of prayer, and I hope that other readers do too. It strikes me that we need to pray for at least four different groups of people:

1. People with mental illnesses and their families
2. Pastors and the rest of the people in churches as they minister to persons with mental illnesses and their families
3. Government employees, mental health workers, and the courts: That whole matter of juggling a person's rights with society's responsibility is extremely difficult. There was a time when most people with mental illnesses (and many other disabilities too) were institutionalized, sometimes under horrendous conditions. The legacy of that dark era in Western Society has been replaced by a rights based approach which makes involuntary hospitalization extremely difficult, sometimes much too difficult as you say. Government employees, mental health workers, and courts need the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job to appropriately apply the law.
4. Lawmakers: Writing laws that both acknowledge individual's rights and allow for involuntary hospitalizations in appropriate circumstances also takes the wisdom of Solomon because individual situations can vary so dramatically.

Thanks for making your lament public so that the rest of us can grieve with you and pray with you.

Ken,

I appreciate so much that you stay involved with discussions even though sometimes they are difficult for you.

As to your final question, I think that the right time to be honest is always. But this medium of a public discussion forum on a social network has some severe limitations as you acknowledge. In interacting with others, we can read words, but we don't hear the voice, see the eyes, or experience the personal connection that can come with a face to face discussion. So it is very difficult to guess what someone's intent is simply from what they say or do not say.

It seems to me that as different people post our comments, we are writing out of our own experiences and telling our own stories for others to "hear." (Clearly a lot of people are listening since this already has had 88 page views as of the time I write this.) We're engaging together to get a better understanding of how each of us sees life and experiences the world. So once again, thank you for telling how you see life from your experience. This is helpful to all who read.

God's blessings, Mark

Brenda,

Thanks so much for sharing a bit of your story and your faith that God holds you even when you feel it is so difficult to hold on to God. I really hope we can all grow in the art of listening to one another. That's so crucial to being a loving community.

The questions you raise about inpatient care are very difficult ones. I assume that mental health professionals are aware of the dangers you raise (similar to eating disorder clinics in which the girls share their "tricks" with one another about how to purge or restrict without getting noticed). I hope and pray we can find a better way someday.

God's blessing and strength to you, your family, your pastor and friends,

Mark

Shirley,

Thanks for the heads up about NAMI. They have been helpful to many people. It's good to know about resources when a person and their family can feel very alone and isolated. Sadly, there's so much stigma associated with mental illness that people frequently do not feel safe sharing about their mental illness with people from their own church. I hope that attitudes will change over time so that churches are the first place people with mental illness turn for support. Pathways to Promise, of which the Christian Reformed Church is a member, is a fine organization dedicated to helping churches in their ministry with people who have mental illnesses.

Parents are also invited to share their stories on a Parent to Parent Support Forum which we have just started here on the Network.

Blessings, Mark