The Soloist, the Recluse, and the Church
May 17, 2009
Aldred Neufeldt
Text: Psalm 98
John 15:9-17
|
The Soloist ‘The Soloist’ is the title of a new ‘movie that is getting some media ‘buzz’ these days. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s based on the real life story of Nathaniel Ayers, a gifted musician who developed schizophrenia during his second year at the Juilliard School. Ayers returns to Los Angeles, becomes homeless and ends up playing the violin and the cello on the streets, when Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez discovers and befriends him.
I’ve not yet seen the movie (or read the book for that matter), but understand from some reports that it does a fairly good job of reflecting the world of schizophrenia, even though it’s sugar coated. Real life rarely survives the Hollywood treatment.
While I don’t know Nathaniel Ayers, I have known quite a number of others with schizophrenia – many in a professional capacity, some as friends and acquaintances. One Is Lara. Lara was the daughter of one our friends of longest standing, the eldest of two. I say ‘was’ because Lara died suddenly one year ago this month.
Lara’s early life was that of many middle class Mennonite families some 40 years ago – her father a teacher and then administrator at various levels of the school system, her mother a stay-at-home mom. Lara did well at school. The family loved music, and Lara enjoyed singing and also became a competent violinist, talents which she and her family regularly contributed to church and other functions. She had an interest in travel, spending a year as a high school exchange student in Germany and hosting a student in turn, developing good friends in the process.
This normal trajectory of life began coming apart in her early 20’s when Lara started hearing voices that weren’t there. At first she sought to ignore them, but they came to be more insistent. It is a credit to the family that Lara first shared her anxiety about what she was hearing with her parents, though the voices suggested otherwise. Together, they sought professional help.
Lara’s life was turned upside down, with times of despair – both for Lara and her parents – but also times of joy. Like ‘the soloist’, her efforts at pursuing a university degree were cut short in a time of confusion and despair over the persistent voices. There was joy when prescription drugs helped control the voices, and despair when their side effects made her lethargic and contributed to weight gain to the point where Lara didn’t look much like herself. There was joy that Lara was able to live by herself and for a number of years had a job; but despair when the demands of the job were too much for her and she had to learn to live on a disability allowance.
Despite periods of despair, Lara always came back to hope. She became involved with teaching others about life with schizophrenia – at church, in the medical school, with police, educators and others. She had a gift for it. When she could, she participated in church services, and always had a place for her family – especially a nephew and niece who she doted on. In the last year or two she developed a close friendship with a young man, and there seemed promise of an ongoing relationship.
And then she died – very suddenly – probably contributed to by side effects from her medication, though we don’t know that for sure. Nutana Park Mennonite Church was filled to overflowing for her funeral service, attended by not only family and church friends, but
Lara’s story, like the soloists’, is not unique. About half of one per cent of the Canadian population experience schizophrenia. For some the symptoms are less debilitating than for Lara, for others they are much more severe – Lara was somewhere in the middle. People can and do recover from schizophrenia, but for some the process is a long one. We don’t know whether Lara eventually would have lost the voices that continued to bother her until she died.
The Recluse Schizophrenia is not the only mental condition that can dramatically alter one’s life. There are many other mental disorders with various manifestations and causes, but few are as persistently debilitating. The ‘Recluse’ in this sermon’s title refers to people experiencing depression – not just common, garden variety depressions lasting a relatively short while, where one feels ‘down’ and ‘grouchy’ and just wishes others would leave one alone; rather, ‘recluse’ refers to depressions so severe that they interfere with daily life and may even be dangerous. Sometimes such depressions alternate with days of hyperactivity, then diagnosed as ‘bi-polar disorder’. In a state of severe depression it can feel as if one doesn’t want to get out of bed, that it is difficult to make decisions or analyze and solve problems – and going to work may seem impossible. In a manic phase a person may feel great and full of endless energy – you may feel like you’re getting a lot done; but, other people might well see what you are doing as dangerous or out of control. These kinds of depression and bi-polar disorders are considerably more common than schizophrenia – about 2 – 2½ % of the population is affected.
Hugh Campbell has shared something of his life story this morning, and I thank him for it. My guess is that most of us probably know others with this kind of lifelong condition. I have several colleagues and close friends who experience severe depression on a regular basis, one a psychiatrist. You might think that someone with expertise in the field would be immunized from the condition; but that isn’t the case with depression any more than for a cardiac surgeon to be immune from a heart attack. John finds the short days of winter particularly trying – his depressions contributed to by lack of sufficient sunlight. To compensate for this he arranges periodic one-week trips to sunnier climates to stabilize his mood so he can come back and do his work more fruitfully. He’s thankful to have resources making such trips possible, and conscious that many others with similar conditions are not in a position to do so.
When severe depressions occur the whole family becomes involved with the despair. It is not easy to be with someone who isn’t her or his normal self – feeling hopeless no matter how much one tries to argue that things aren’t so bad. Despair is difficult for everyone, especially if one doesn’t know the cause of it. Thankfully, in most cases, there are ways in which severe depressions can be alleviated with treatment and support. That said, a reasonable portion of people with severe depression live with the knowledge that a period of depression is likely to re-occur. In such situations what one can do is be prepared for it by having people around one that can help recognize the signs and mobilize support.
Faith and Knowledge There was a time when the church didn’t quite know what to do about, or respond to, situations like these. In this, the church merely reflected the rest of society. For most of human history phenomena that couldn’t be explained by observation were attributed to the actions of spirits or demons, or to be the result of one’s own actions that defied the deity. It’s not surprising, then, that someone hearing voices might be viewed as possessed by demons, or that serious depression might be interpreted as the result of a sin one had committed.
These kinds of ideas certainly were present in the Church nearly half a century ago when I first became involved. In some places pastors took issue with psychologists and psychiatrists who sought to explain such phenomena in Freudian terms – not that I blame them because in some ways psychoanalysis inherently involves a belief system that could be interpreted as a substitute religion. In our Mennonite Church context some intense debates occurred – largely in the US in places such as Fresno, Newton, Elkhart and so on where Mennonites had created mental health centers following World War II. Though our Mennonite mental health centres didn’t much use psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic theory dominated the agenda of mental health professionals in the USA at the time.
The context was different in the Province of Saskatchewan where emphasis was on the social aspect of mental health issues and where neuro-chemical treatment along with psycho-education and social support methods were being pioneered. There the church was much more accepting of the ‘professional’ view. Never-the-less, issues of how faith intersected with knowledge were present enough that, for instance, in 1968 I was asked to give a presentation on the topic at a Seminar on Social Concerns organized by the Ministers and Deacons of the Saskatchewan Conference of Mennonites.
Indeed, the question of how scientific knowledge of mental disorder relates to our fundamental beliefs, and vice-versa, continues to be an important topic – not only here but elsewhere as well. For instance, when Russia opened up before and during the Glasnost period, there was great interest in this topic. Russia had prided itself in pursuing a strictly scientific approach to mental disorder, but failures in their system raised the question of other contributors including that of faith. So, too, within our world-wide Mennonite community. A mental health practitioners workshop at the upcoming World Conference in Asuncion will be examining, amongst other topics, the relationship of scientific knowledge to Anabaptist values and mental health.
These discussions are exceedingly important. Questions of faith commonly arise in the context of people experiencing severe mental disorders. With the benefit of science we have come to understand much about how neurotransmitters affect communication between the millions of brain cells and, in turn, their influence on phenomena such as schizophrenia, severe depression and others. We’ve also learned much about the role of stigma in demoralizing the person, and the importance of instilling a hope of recovery – the ‘recovery model’ of treatment has become widely accepted in the past 10 years .
What science is not really able to address, though, is the despair that accompanies a person’s experience with symptoms of schizophrenia or of severe depression. Such despair typically is followed by questions such as: Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? Am I still worthwhile? Who am I, really? While professionals can answer such questions at some level, they don’t really satisfy the questioner because the answers given don’t get at the existential angst underlying them. At a deeper level the questions really are about the ‘meaning of life’ and of ‘suffering’, and there are no easy answers. It is here that the people of faith have something to offer – not in the trite ways we sometimes hear expressed, but at a deeper level. ‘Chicken soup for the soul’ doesn’t really get at such deeper questions.
Role of the Church How, then, is the church to respond to people in despair? There are basically two things to be done. One is to ensure that despair is not minimized but acknowledged and understood. The other is to encourage hope and discovery of self as a child of God. Both reflect the best of Anabaptist theology – it reflects the great commandment as expressed in today’s Gospel text in John: “This is my commandment, that you love each other as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13). The image of Jesus committing himself to the cross on our behalf is a powerful image of identification.
Just as the cross was not easy, it is not easy to bear symptoms experienced by a person in despair such as unwanted voices or deep depression. Neither is it easy to authentically identify with the person in despair. When it comes to acknowledging despair it must be recognized that the Bible has some mixed messages, and it is important one picks up on those that are most helpful. On the one hand, it speaks much about human suffering as the result of the power of the evil choices made by humankind. Much of human suffering is in fact of this kind – think of the consequences of war, or of illness associated with environmental degradation. But, the Bible also notes that not all suffering is tied to evil. This needs to be taken seriously as well, and is much more pertinent to understanding and identifying with despair. In a paper titled A Biblical Theology of Suffering/Disability some years ago Jack Suderman (1), now MC Canada’s Executive Secretary, examined the various biblical responses to suffering, and then concludes from this theological review:
One doesn’t acknowledge despair simply by saying that we understand what the person is going through, though if we’ve had a similar experience that can be a powerful beginning point in one’s communication. It is more that through ‘doing’ we demonstrate our intent to understand – by walking alongside the person, seeking to help carry the burden – one can’t carry the burden, but one can seek to share the burden. It can be done individually. It can often be done better in small groups of support.
As Mennonites we have developed some models of ways to do this, some of which have been widely embraced by the world. It was just for this sort purpose that through MCC nearly 30 years ago we proposed development of supportive care groups in congregations (2). This concept was adapted by Harry Nigh and others into the ideas of ‘Circles of Support and Accountability’ as pioneered through MCC’s restorative justice programs. We’re not unfamiliar with these principles here at TUMC since they’ve been applied a number of times and ways in support of individuals in our congregation. That said, it is important to continue examining how they are applied, adjusting them for new situations in new times.
The second part, the encouraging of hope and discovery of self as a child of God is equally as important. To hope, when one is in despair, seems almost impossible – or, may seem as a fool’s vision – especially if one has had a relapse of symptoms. Yet, hope is important. The journey one is on when experiencing the voices or severe depression is part of a personal journey that can’t be denied, but recovery can happen. Out of the experience can come a discovery of new sense of self, of the importance of supportive relationships, and of new meaning in one’s life.
Today’s Gospel text speaks to the kinds of hope one might aspire to – the confidence of God’s love: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love” and “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you.” (v. 9-11); the joy of God’s creation as reflected in Psalm 98: “O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things.”
These possibilities that our Anabaptist understanding of the Biblical message has emphasized in many ways are not just pie in the sky. Indeed, some of these ideas have been accepted now within mainstream human services such as the ‘recovery model’ or the ‘support circles’ ideas mentioned – a convergence of science with what we have known theologically.
Requiem for Lara I began by telling you about Lara, her love of music and her ability to reclaim hope out of times of despair. My sense is that she would have claimed as her own the following lines from the hymn we sang earlier: “My life flows on in endless song above earth’s lamentations. I catch the sweet, though far off hymn that hails a new creation.” Hymnal: a Worship Book, Number 580. References:
|
|
|
|