What About Mental Illness?

Have you ever thought: what’s the most important part of my make up; you know:   my personhood, my very being?  Well from a biblical perspective, it’s your soul.  I mean scripture is clear:  lose that and you lose everything (Matthew 16:26).  But next to your soul, I’d argue the next important element is your brain.  I mean scripture is also clear on that aspect of personhood:  as a man thinks, so shall he or she be (Proverbs 23:7 KJV, adapted).   

And for good reason:  the brain is a powerful, robust organ, capable of great influence.  Consisting of over 200 billion nerve cells connected by countless synapses, the brain transmits countless electric impulses through 1,000 different switches, resulting in hundreds of trillions of neural pathways equally the distant between earth and Jupiter. (Ashley Feinberg, “An 83,000-Processor Supercomputer Can Only Match 1% Of Your Brain,” Gizmodo, August 6, 2013) 

Whoa!  And you thought you were a dummy, a loser.  No, you’re a brain, a real brain!   In fact your brain is the most efficient computing mechanism ever devised.  Whereas the most powerful computer uses enough electricity to power 10,000 homes, requiring a space equivalent to a large refrigerator -- the brain consumes less juice than a dim light-bulb, fitting nicely inside your head! (Mark Fischetti, “Computers Versus Brains,” Scientific American, October 12, 2011)

But in candor, some times the brain, like a computer, ‘acts up.’  In fact, there are times the brain malfunctions and misfires, even breaking down.  Commonly referred to as mental illness, brain malfunction is more prevalent than you might realize.  Why “…according to the National Alliance On Mental Illness…60 million Americans experience a mental health condition -- that’s one in four adults -- and one in ten children.” (Rick Warren, Rick Warren:  “Churches Must Do More To Address Mental Illness,” Time, March 27, 2014)    Yet in spite of the prevalence of mental illness, many think negatively of someone with mental illness, labeling them as a psycho, or “a candidate for Sykesville,” referring to the state psychiatric hospital ‘down the road.’  

           

But isn’t it ironic:  if someone’s stomach gets cancer we show compassion, but if someone’s brain gets depressed, we get suspicious, whispering: something’s weird, something’s wrong!  

But something is not weird or wrong.  Rather someone is sick!  Not ‘sicko,’ just sick!  And what do you do for when someone’s sick?  God shows the way.  Why when Elijah got sick in 1 Kings 19, deeply depressed, God through an angel “…touched him…” (I Kings 19:5) and provided food for him “…a cake of bread…and a jar of water…” (1 Kings 19:6). 

We need to do the same.  Whatever the sickness: whether diverticulitis or depression – appendicitis or anxiety – shingles or schizophrenia – we must touch each other and feed each other, demonstrating compassion and practical concern.