Tag Archives: Mental Health

What’s Next?

Kingdom Building

October 2, 2019

Scripture Reading:
Psalm 137

By the rivers of Babylon—   there we sat down and there we wept
   when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
   we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
   asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
   ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ –Psalm 137:1-3

I feel we are caught in a political tornado where the real issues of providing for the Common Good are buried deep under piles of distraction. Funny, I have begun to picture what the world will look like after the storm, and the rebuilding begins. Spending at least 20 years of my life coordinating planning for a large human service agency most likely ingrained planning for the future in my being. The Psalm above indicates the wishful thinking of its author and some fellow exiles taking a few minutes playing their harps by a river remembering their homeland, Israel, when the locals tormented and taunted them.

I do believe we need to live in the now, be present in whatever situation we may find ourselves seeks facts to drive our decision amid the propaganda as we seek to do justice. My experience tells me that a reckoning will come, and the trash will be swept away, and we will start rebuilding.

I attended a public meeting regarding mental health services yesterday and was pleased to hear the progress that is being made in discovering new treatments that are promising and that we are providing preventive service starting at early ages. The bad news is that one out of four Oklahomans need some type of mental health service and we are only able to serve one out of three of those who need help.

These distractions in our world serve a purpose. They slow or stop progress and support the maintenance of the status quo where the rich get richer and the rest of us muddle through the best we can. At this public meeting, I also heard once again the suicide rate in the USA doubled in ten years for persons between the ages of 25 and 65. We can do better than that.

Prayer: Lord we need you to see us through the times of chaos but help us use that time to find better ways of loving each other for the Common Good. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Loving not Judging

Lent
March 8, 2019

Scripture Reading: Romans 10:8b-13

The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ –Romans 10:11-13

We live in a world where some, even in the name of God, are trying to enhance their own powers by divide and conquer methods. Thus, we need to hold fast to the teaching the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. It is hard to play my god is better than your god when we finally agree there is only one God. Abraham is identified as the father of monotheism and is claimed as the father of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

Jesus addresses this issue in Matthew 3:12: His winnowing-fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ And Matthew 25:32: All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

Only God can in the final analysis discern who is calling on God and who is using God to their own ends. Our job assignment does not include judgement. We were selected to love. Christ earned the judge assignment by already fulfilling the task of loving when he gave his life for all. That does not mean that we do not have to deal with the forces of evil that set us against each other while they thwart the very heart of Jesus’ teachings.

We had another incident of a young adult child killing his parents in Oklahoma City this week. This time reportedly because he sensed them telepathically telling him that they were Satanist. He has a history of mental illness as did the last such incident where a young man killed his father. Addressing the mental health needs of people was one of the examples Jesus set for us as he went about healing the sick. The least people of faith could do is call upon our government to provide quality mental health services to all who need it. Surely, the loving, healing care of people with both mental and physical illness is a life legacy left to us from Jesus. Health care is a right not a privilege and therefore must be a major component of the Common Good.

Prayer: Lord, guide us in seeking justice for those who cannot seek justice for themselves. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Death Where is thou Sting?

Living in the Spirit
November 10, 2017

Scripture Reading: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Sunday worship comes naturally to me. My first congregation met in one of the schools located every three miles in rural areas in preparation for homesteaders. Most of these schools serve the dual purpose of being a church. Mine disbanded when I was five, and my family moved to a church in the small town of about 300 people located near our farm—a town about half the same size as Sutherland Springs, Texas.

I attended church on Sunday, November 5, 2017, in a church with a membership larger than my hometown. Returned home after worship to my normal routine of watching the previously recorded Sunday news programs only to hear the news that a man had entered the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas and killed Twenty-some people with others injured. The presumed shooter eventually, apparently killed himself. He had a history of violence and assumed mental disorders. 1 Corinthians 15:55 popped into my head as one woman asked, “Can you feel your heart break?”

‘Where, O death, is your victory?
   Where, O death, is your sting?’

Such senseless death indeed stings those left to grieve in the moment of its occurring, and our hearts go out to all those caught in the pain of such loss. I am emboldened to continue the fight for improved mental health services and not to allow so many to fall through the gaps. Anyone with a traceable history of mental health issues or even violence should also have a traceable treatment history. Most of our nation does not have the services available to treat the most serious chronic mental health problems let alone those flying beneath the radar.

Prayer: Lord, strengthen us in the quest to heal troubled souls and offer new life to those lost in the struggle of mental illness. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.