Very often I’ll read something that’s so bloomin’ obvious I almost resent the time wasted reading it. Here’s an example (Hat-tip)
Students tend to become more religiously skeptical during college if they engage in a good deal of partying, watch a lot of television, participate in a study abroad program, or if their parents go through a separation or divorce. Religious skepticism also tends to increase if the student attends a college where the student body is highly liberal politically.
Source
Wow! Who’d of known?
Yesterday I spent – not a small amount of time – reading a scientific piece that concluded that suicide rates actually go up in a time of deep recession?
Revealing stuff eh.
On the subject of suicide, Lisa Graas pointed me to an interesting piece by The Confraternity of Penitents on mental illness. I’d recommend reading it all, but then I am prone to read absolutely everything I can grab hold of related to mental illness in the context of Church.
On an aside, some know that I’m converting to Catholicism and I will say that from my reading, the Catholic Church is addressing mental health issues far more than any other church. For instance, here’s a Catholic article from today, albeit US focused. I must say I’d like to see more Churches addressing this issue UK style.
Anyway, back to the The Confraternity of Penitents. The first section looks at the current situation:
According to the World Health Organization there are 450 million people in the world affected by neurological or behavioral mental disorders, of which 873,000 commit suicide each year. Mental illness is a true health and social emergency.
That’s a whole load of suicide going on.
The piece then looks at mental disorder in Christian thought and at this point I’d like to reproduce my own thought:
We have the weeping prophet, the addicted strong man, the bipolar king, the suicidal Qoheleth, the depressed Psalmist, the intensely grieved, the self-harmer, and of course the man of sorrow.
The article goes on:
…the mentally ill person is not a deformed image of God but, rather, a faithful image of God, our Lord.
I agree that we have all been made in the image of God, however, this image is currently marred to some degree or another.
Interestingly for me, when I’ve explored the ‘image of God’ within the context of mental illness, I’ve focused on the mentally distorted perception of the image of God – or the interplay between damaged personalities and minds with their faith – rather than the image they themselves bear.
Put simply, I’ve focused on the cognitive process of making God in our own image, as opposed to us being image bearers. I think it’s important to make this distinction as I would agree that regardless of the severity of mental illness, the sufferer bears as much the image of God within them, as you or I. Equally however, the mentally unwell mind may well have a profoundly distorted idea of that image, through projecting one’s own psyche on to God.
Instead of confusing you yet further with my ramblings, I’m going to reproduce here the next section, which takes a look at the person who is in not in control of – or responsible for – their actions. This has application of course to the moral theology of suicide:
….Therefore, once the mental illness has caused such a disorder as to take away from the mentally ill patient any responsibility for his actions — qualifying them as separation from the divine will, as a sin — the mental patient cannot separate from God.
In other words, the image of God in him cannot be distorted. In this case his knowledge or his volitive option is no longer sufficient to motivate any human action that separates him from God. His bodily and psychic conditions do not allow him to commit a grave sin, given that in his state of disequilibrium he does not have that full knowledge and ability of assent required to sin.
If we approach the argument from this point of view, whereby the mentally ill patient does not have the knowledge or the faculty of full consent required to commit a mortal sin, his is not a deformed image of God, since that image can only be deformed by sin. Certainly, it is the suffering image of God, but not a deformed image. He is a reflection of the mystery of the victorious Cross of the Lord. Inspired by the image of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh (Isaiah 53:1-7) we are drawn to a conscious act of faith in the suffering Christ.
It is not by chance that in the old popular Mexican language, a mad person was called “bandito,” that is, “blessed”; […] without the full use of reasoning, he was unable to commit sin and was, therefore, destined to eternal life.
It is true that the objective disorder of sin and its consequences are manifest in the mentally ill patient; however, at the same time, there is in him the historical equilibrium of the only possible order, the order and equilibrium of the Redemption.
This is not comprehensible to a secularized mentality; it is only understood within the context of Christian optimism, which stems from a reasoned faith that tells us how in such circumstances our obligations towards a mentally ill person, on one hand, satisfy our duty to see the suffering Christ in the poor and less protected; and on the other hand the idea of seeing in the patient the love of God who has indicated him as his chosen one, in the sense that he shall not be separated from Him.
He is therefore a proof of the crucified love of God. Hence, the best thing we can do is to give them a treatment of love. Since the mentally ill patient is also the image of the resurrected Christ, we have the obligation of being the “Good Samaritan,” that is, providing all that is necessary for his care.
We need to think about a series of treatments that should be devised to pull these patients out of the prostration that is all the more painful the deeper the psychic suffering is. In fact these patients often lose the sense of human relations and feel persecuted by a hostile surrounding environment; or the subjectivity of the environment disappears and for them people become many objects, or are indifferent or even real threats to their security.
…read all
And my own personal conclusion:
We suffer that we may comfort those that suffer…
