Funds for Mental Health

I make no apologies. I’ll tell you right up front. In this blog entry I’m going to ask you to make a commitment to support mental health funding. It is too critical an issue to leave alone.

Quoting from the 2014 NAMIWalks brochure:

“From coast to coast and around the globe, mental illness affects everyone. Every year, regardless of race, age, religion or economic status, mental illness impacts the lives of at least one in four adults, and one in ten children across the United States – that is nearly 60 million Americans.”

“NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans Affected with Mental illness. NAMI advocates for access to services, treatment supports and research.”

 As a concerned community member, I have been involved “in the trenches” as a volunteer friend of a man severely disabled with mental illness for some 18 years now. My college degree is a B.A. in Psychology (1972, Bethel College, North Newton, KS). I was Seminary-trained in chaplaincy/counseling and for a time I worked in that role. I am also an Adult “with” A.D.D. Attention Deficit Disorder.

I prefer to think of myself as “an Adult A.D.D.;” something I AM and not what I have. I’ve come to view it as almost a personality type in and of itself, and I’ve made friends with myself as such a person. It’s far easier to manage my moods, etc. when I think in that way; when I accept myself as worthy of my own care. 

A.D.H.D. (“H” for hyperactive), is listed high on NAMI’s list of mental illnesses. A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. are genetic issues and aren’t “curable.”

I have had only a brief time in my life when I was involved in a professional intervention for my “condition,” and I do no meds for the so-called disorder. Thus, I generally think of myself in my concerned community member role rather than as a Mental Health Consumer. A year ago, I joined NAMI Reno, the local NAMI affiliate and became NAMIWalks Captain for Reno County, KS. I continue in that role this year, and I am under full steam in seeking sponsorship for our team, HutchInStride.

If you are inclined to join me in my concern for mental health consumers, please visit http://namiwalks.nami.org/HutchInStride2014 – my own NAMIWalks website – and sign on to support my efforts. Your response has never been more important, with a Kansas Governor in an election year who believes that taking money from one part of the overall mental health budget and applying it to another, less needed area, represents increased funding with which he can make political hay. The net effect is that Mental Health Consumers are actually losing services. NAMI stands in the gap, working to rectify that problem.

A Collage of Memories

HOW we remember events and relationships is what we live by. If each of us took the time, we could name thousands of such "entries."

In 1994, I read a book that emphasized that point; THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT BE DEFEATED by B. Mitchell, a man who had suffered two debilitating events that could have killed him. He was severely disfigured in a traffic accident fire. His burns cost him several fingers and his good looks. Due to his injuries he temporarily lost his career as a multi-engine flight instructor. After regaining his licensing, he experienced an ice-related winter air crash that left him as a paraplegic, "confined" to a wheel chair. Although he qualified for a motorized chair, he declined owning one because it would likely serve to sink him deeper into concentration on his losses and disabilities. He chose instead to use a light-weight standard wheel chair. His motto was, "It's not what happens to you, it's what you do about it." Insurance settlements made him quite wealthy, and he went on the speaking circuit as a motivational speaker; often donating his entire fee back to a worthy organization where he had spoken.

It blew me away that he accomplished everything he did and all the good that came about in the aftermath of his injuries with no faith in God at all. He was a profound atheist.

Barely two weeks after reading his book, I found myself waking up on the pavement after I crashed into the back of a parked truck just two and a half blocks from home. I had intended to go for a 25-mile exercise ride and was distracted by a speedometer that was not working properly. I took a physical inventory of myself before I tried to get up, because I didn't want to cause further damage if I had been badly injured. I literally couldn't feel any sensations at all, and I only could locate my left hand; a body  part I could see but could barely move. Breathing was hard because the strap on my helmet restricted my airway.  Fortunately, my injuries left me with no long-term disability, even though now going on 18 years later I still have never fully felt the floor through my feet as I did before. (It took several years before I gained back enough feeling below my belt to say that I had "recovered" from my injuries.

As I lay there on the pavement, before emergency help arrived (thanks to neighbors calling 911), I remember that I started to react in some level of fear. Then I thought, "If Mitchell could do it without God, I can to it WITH God. 

It's truly not what happens to you. It's what you do about it. So, here below, I offer a relatively few of my foundational memories; not as a complaint, because I have done "something" about HOW I remember them; but as a starter to suggest that you might take such an inventory and think about "what you do about it."

Early Childhood and Grade School

·     Judy, my early elementary school girlfriend “chasing” me into Mom’s corn field. Somehow, she “always caught me” in the middle of the patch. ;)  ;)

·     Singing around the piano because there wasn't much music on the radio that Dad would let us hear & TV hadn't yet arrived in our small, Kansas town.

·     My brother and I singing duets in church when I was only 5-8 years old

·     Getting into trouble in kindergarten after building myself a tower of building blocks – specifically so I could bomb it and destroy it. When I bombed as I had planned, my teacher thought it was someone else’s tower and scolded me severely. She never accepted my explanation.

·     Miss Lewis, my first grade teacher; vaguely remembered except for the name, and seeing her at the Dillon’s grocery store in Larned. Mom thought it was something to see my reaction.

·     Mrs. Fromong, my second grade teacher; I don’t remember much other than her name. I don’t remember the year as any kind of hallmark in my life. I sort of remember that the class faced south. I believe I sat in the second row away from the east facing windows, just forward from the middle of the row.

·     Taking my brother Glenn’s bicycle from the rack at the high school, next to the elementary school, to ride it, and losing control. It resulted in heading down the hill on 11th Street. A friend of Glenn hopped on his bike and caught up with me about a block down the hill to get me stopped. It scared the dickens out of me, and I never tried something like that again.

·     The mean dog near the school that bit me several times on the leg … after I kicked at it. I never told anyone back then that I had "started it." The dog was destroyed. I never lamented his passing.

·     Dad concocting stories -- serial versions, of course -- for bedtime, that would take days to finish; He was a hillbilly, and one of their favorite pass-times was "telling lies" (stories and jokes).

High School and Teenage

·     Pastors in church who trusted me in helping to minister to a teenager my age who had stolen a car -- whom the pastor had gotten released to his custody

·     Friends; a very few who were close and always there; others stormy/volatile sometimes there, sometimes not

·     The knowledge in my heart that even though life wasn't always fun for me, Jesus was always my friend and always cared; Emanuel, God with us”

·     Frequent trips to Youth for Christ meetings in Oklahoma City

·     Trips to Youth for Christ Conventions in Wynona Lake, Indiana

·     Learning to check, when people say, “We’re behind you,” to see just how far behind you they are

·     Learning to stand on my own in Christ, because sometimes that was all I had

·     Mother kneeling by her bed every night, weeping as she held each of us (her seven children) up to God in prayer

·     The first time I saw my wife, Deanna; how I knew at the age of 17, "There's the girl I'm going to marry."

·     The joy of getting my H.S. Diploma

College and Adulthood; Early and Later

·     The many good years Deanna and I have had together -- nearly 50 of them now

·     Our two sons born 12/21/1966 and 7/05/1970

·     Struggling through college and seminary with very low reading speed; thus low comprehension

·     Finally solving the reading problem, by help from God, so that I finally was getting mostly A’s and B’s in my final year of grad school

·     When our sons had finally left home, finding that the "empty nest syndrome" was greatly over rated -- Why should we complain about success in a 25-year endeavor?

·     The joy of finishing college for Bachelor of Arts Degree

·     The sense of absolute satisfaction in accomplishing all the work of my Master of Divinity Degree ON TIME, with no extensions; one of 5 in a class of 35 to accomplish that

·     Helping to found a charity to help the poor and elderly in my home town with home repairs -- an organization still serving in much stronger ways than I could have dreamt 24 years ago

·     Seeing my sons in their adult life as they succeed (or not) in their endeavors; occasionally now taking calls from the eldest for help in thinking his business through

·     Volunteering to work on home projects for the elderly and disabled

·     Volunteering to work with the Mental Health Assn and finding that I now have a "larger family"

·     Knowing Christ and knowing that he knows me

·     Teaching others new skills

·     A dumb accident in 1994 that laid me up for several weeks, then tied me up for several years more once I was “on my feet”

·     Finally getting lined up with an Orthopedic Surgeon (3 years after the accident) who was more concerned about helping me heal naturally than about getting paid by my insurance company

·     Getting rid of some 95% of the pain, and learning new things about healing other things  with in the process; The doc said I had only come back some 85%, but she wasn’t inside this painful skin.

·     Never feeling really safe from personal, emotional attack and emotional blackmail

·     Praising God!

I hope it is clear that I will talk about what has happened, but that I expect it to be some small encouragement to you to do your own inventory. You KNOW there is much, much more that I could write; thousands of words on each entry above and would still never cover the whole. I invite and encourage response comments.

The Tender Leaf

I wrote this poem in the process of another writing into which it was to be inserted. This is the only part of that writing that I have seen fit to publish. I learned a year or two ago that verse #3 tracks closely with Native American views of the synchronistic trajectory of time and psyche.

The Tender Leaf
© 1981, Jack L. Mace

Slowly cascades the tender leaf
    Down from tree to running brook.
So lately is this gentle life
    Wrenched from its mooring high
Down it falls . . . Down . . . 'twill soon be gone,
    And who shall, in time to come,
Know but we here that ever hung
    Such frond as now seen drifting forth?

 This passing, mean, dare we dismiss?
    Dare behold it commonly?
Truly our frames shall also pass.
    Perchance not so mild our end:
Perchance as yet unpopped buds,
    Or when our term has come full due,
And who shall know in time to come
    That ever passed such as we?

Despair we then - fear our ending?
    No.  Far more than being known
Lies assurance in our knowing:
    Our living in our hoping.
Life for others rests in our hands -
    Our lives in hands of others.
Hope for times yet to come in bond
    With time now, and now long past.

 

Better the world for our coming -
    Yea, even for our going.
Let us then rejoice in passing
    Living hope triumphantly.
Slowly cascades the tender leaf
    Down from tree to running brook.
So lately is this gentle life
    Wrenched from its mooring high.

 

Down it falls . . . Down . . . 'twill soon be gone,
    Who, in time to come, shall know?

The One Who Made the Arrows

The One Who Made the Arrows
Featuring
THE OLD ONE and THE YOUNG ONE

by Jack L. Mace

In this following story, and others of similar nature, THE OLD ONE is no one in particular, and yet everyone; including me. Likewise, THE YOUNG ONE is no one in particular; and everyone, including me.

Joyfully, carefully THE OLD ONE went about his craft, preparing two full quivers of arrows. The old hunter carefully selected the very best and straightest from his stock of aging, drying branch-stock. From years of experience, taught by both success and failure he had learned how to select shoots for the strongest and truest flying arrows. Then he selected the best from his store of feathers for vanes and carefully crafted the arrow points. Sometimes, his arrows were for competition; sometimes for the hunt. Today He would hunt with a young friend. 

This YOUNG ONE was truly an "old" friend, because long before his birth, THE OLD ONE had known another of just such nature. Occasionally, he would pause to ponder his “old friend” and another OLD ONE. From those years past he would evoke a painful memory and wince, or a joyful memory and smile gently. Oft, he would laugh raucously.

That YOUNG ONE now long past was just so intense and impatient as this YOUNG ONE. Mostly he knew not when to hold his silence. Often angry and at odds with all around him, he was seldom truly happy. In those times of old, he was gently loved by another OLD ONE, now long past, who fed him from his own table, and cared for him without judgment even in the angriest of his moments.

THE OLD ONE worked well past night-fall at his labor of love. With labor's end he paused in satisfaction to admire his well-crafted and beautiful arrows. Then he stored his tools away, extinguished his lamp and retired for a restful night.

Gently asleep he dreamed not of joy of his hunt to come, but of distant memories from times long past; of the ancient OLD ONE and YOUNG ONE. He saw in his dreams a scene of that OLD ONE and YOUNG ONE when no others would come near save in contempt and condemnation. He saw those who were indifferent to that OLD ONE, now long past. He saw those who kept a distant vigil and would have helped if only they knew how. He viewed this ancient one’s ending, and he wept.

Dreaming past, THE OLD ONE arose refreshed by both sleep and his vision of memories. Expecting THE YOUNG ONE soon he prepared a breakfast repast. Then, their eating done, each took up his quiver and hiked into the hills in search of favored game. 

Clear sky and bright Sun promised special times; for camaraderie in the hunt; for opportunity to learn and for pleasure in their environs.

For the pleasure of their environs; THE OLD ONE did not only hunt that day. He was one with the world around. He communed with each flower almost as though they were first-name friends. He never wasted a kill, taking only that needed for food. Even field dressing his game became almost a ritual of unity with nature, for he know those entrails would feed some scavenger of the hills.

For all his love for THE OLD ONE and his desire to emulate him, THE YOUNG ONE could scarcely contain his impatience, as they went he would shoot an arrow at some target, often missing the mark. Sometimes he could retrieve his spent arrow, and sometimes not.

Each lost arrow brought THE YOUNG ONE closer to a meatless evening meal. One rule of this hunt was that they each would bag only small game, and thus he would provide his own meat. This rule was to teach care in selecting game and accuracy in shooting.

Our hunters made an unlikely pair; the one calm through years of learned discipline; the other, often impatient as a baby demanding to be fed. This unlikely pair trod on, bypassing many a doe hare with young. When at last THE YOUNG ONE sighted just the right game, a young buck hare, he nervously drew an arrow, struck it to his bow, drew bowstring to full arrow’s length, and let fly. He missed, and his quarry escaped, scampering away over the hill crest. Going to retrieve his arrow, he found it had hit a rock. It was shattered and useless.

In that ground soft from recent rains, the buck left an easily followed trail. Carefully, our young protagonist stalked his prey, and found it again perhaps a hundred yards away. Cautiously, he crept forward, coming close enough that he was assured an accurate shot and a meal.

He reached to his quiver, but with most of his arrows spent frivolously, he found only an empty quiver. He faced a lost opportunity for his favorite meal. Still, keeping a keen eye to his target he reached in desperation for a near-by rock, thinking to use it as his weapon. As he reached out, he felt a "stick" thrust into his open palm. Looking he saw that THE OLD ONE, smiling gently, had provided one of his own arrows.

Quickly, THE YOUNG ONE struck arrow to bow and drew the bow string full. He let his arrow fly and; a hit, a clean kill. He would eat well tonight. A few minutes later, THE OLD ONE made his one and only shot of the day, deftly placing his arrow just right. He too would eat well.
++ 

Over many a passing year THE YOUNG ONE would tell and retell his experience; relating his lessons of patience learned that day. Each time he told his story, he was careful to add that he ate well that night, because he "knew the one who made the arrows.”

jlm