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Mental health matters: The role of congregations

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Guest commentary by Kathy Dale McNair Good Mental Health is important. But what does faith have to do with it? A lot. All of us go through life experiences that challenge our mental health. But mental illnesses are more serious than the common ups and downs that most of us experience. Anxiety is the number one mental illness in America. Depression is second. With mental illness, the desire to be part of a faith community, to worship, to participate in outreach activities and even the desire to pray can fall away. Most people with a mental illness isolate and withdraw from normal activities. They feel hopeless and helpless, weighed down and shut down by the stigma attached to mental illness. Mental illnesses are disorders of the brain, affecting behavior and mood. Although behavior and mood disorders are the identifying markers, mental illness is felt in the whole body. Mental illness is an illness just like cancer. Just as there are many kinds of cancer, there … [Read more...]

Tagged With: mental health

Fearless Dialogues: A New Movement for Justice

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Gregory C. Ellison II Westminster John Knox Press, 160 pages Reviewed by Angela Williams “Baby, I don’t know how to change the world, but I can change the three feet around me.” These words from Gregory Ellison’s Aunt Dotty inspire the root of a new movement for justice: “Fearless Dialogues.” Weaving poetry, prose and theory, Ellison introduces a powerful new approach to having difficult conversations with people from all walks of life. Such a “fearless dialogue” does not mean a conversation without fear. Instead fear + less is defined as a compound word that names the fears that come with having difficult dialogues in hopes of lessening the impact of those fears. Approaching unlikely partners from this place of humility creates space for radical relational change. More intriguing than a basic facilitator’s guide, this book invites the reader to join the dialogue and creates a full-body experience with each turn of the page. This blend of art and science seeks to overcome the … [Read more...]

Chappell Ellison

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“To ease my brother’s pain, even for a mere five minutes, would be my greatest achievement.” – Designer Chappell Ellison on creating objects for people like her brother who suffer with obsessive compulsive disorder (in Design Observer)  … [Read more...]

Rachel weeping (20 years ago)

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20 years ago — April 27, 1998 “She was remembered by her students as a teacher ‘who always looked out for us.’ At around 12:42 p.m. on March 24, Shannon Wright of Jonesboro, Arkansas, threw herself in front of 12-year-old Emma Pittman to shield the young girl’s body from a sniper’s bullet.” Two male students, a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old lay in ambush for students and teachers at Westside Middle School after luring them into the schoolyard with a phony fire alarm. In the aftermath of the carnage, a news commentator asked Americans to wake up to the “fact that we live in a culture that glorifies violence.” A great deal of that violence is directed to females. “Of the five dead and 10 wounded, all but one were female. … Rachel weeps for her children (see Matthew 2:18). In schoolyards in Jonesboro, Arkansas; Paducah, Kentucky; Pearl, Mississippi – 11 bloodstained playgrounds since 1993 – Rachel weeps for the young boys who have turned their rage into revenge.” She weeps for her … [Read more...]

Over- or under-function? — a constant challenge

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In a previous Outlook article, I noted several key points about Murray Bowen’s family systems theory: It’s based on cellular biology, not psychology. Bowen said his “cornerstone concept” was “differentiation of self.” He explained that he arrived at his theory by comparing how humans mature by comparing it to how cells “differentiate.” For Bowen, the terms “highly differentiated” and “highly mature” are synonymous Bowen describes 12 “core capacities” of persons who are “highly differentiated/highly mature.” One of those capacities is to live a reasonably balanced life — a life with no prolonged “over or under-functioning.” It’s this crucial capacity that I want to address here. Take a moment to ponder your life — its daily practices, rituals, routines and rhythms. After being away from home for a while, have you ever had the epiphany: “When I get back home I’m going to change some aspect of how I live or work” — and then, despite your good intentions nothing … [Read more...]

Tagged With: family systems theory

The other side of the Table

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Guest Outpost blog by Jordan B. Davis I remember it so clearly: standing at the table I once slept under during a lock-in, as I looked out at the faces of Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders. The retired pastor who baptized me at the age of 10 years old smiled back at me. I could feel the warm embrace of those who once held me close upon receiving the news that a dear friend and youth member had died in a car accident, the same tragedy that eventually pulled me away from not just this congregation but, for a few years, also from God. I thought of the last time I had been in this sanctuary, receiving Communion at my older sister’s wedding only a few years before. Knowing that I was in seminary and a time of discernment, the Disciples of Christ congregation in which I was raised from birth until 8thgrade called me back, in need of someone to help lead worship and assist with communion over the Christmas break. I was hesitant, having left that congregation (and … [Read more...]

Tagged With: sacraments

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