Faith Communities Outreach to Persons with Mental Illness and Their Families

Compassion calls us to reach out to persons with Mental Illness and their families and justice demands we work for systemic change.

Four Issues For Faith Communities To Focus On

SHARING THE JOURNEY WITH

 PEOPLE WHO HAVE A MENTAL ILLNESS

Sponsored by

Faith and Fellowship

and

The Archdiocesan Commission on Mental Illness

When:

Thursday May 8^th 9:00 AM to 11:30 and Repeated Saturday May 10^th at 9:00 to 11:30

Where:

St Catherine-St Lucy’s Parish, 25 W. Washington Blvd , Oak Park – ½ block west of Austin Blvd

Focus:

Basic spiritual issues which arise in mental illness. Faith concerns common in depression, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, post traumatic stress syndrome and chemical dependency are explored. How we as communities of faith can share the journey with a person who is suffering or alone.  Companionship as a way of being present and building a supportive relationship that leads to healing, well being and inclusive, caring communities.

Participants:

Clergy, parish leaders, and interested parishioners will be helped to grow in their capacity to serve those in their faith community who have a mental illness and to welcome the stranger – especially those who are homeless, isolated, and /or alone and ill in body and mind.

Purpose:

The training develops our capacity to share the journey with others, to be a caring presence. We explore the importance of recognizing our limits and boundaries and how to support individuals in building a circle of support with community resources. The training deepens our understanding of the role of parishes and people of faith in meeting the needs of our neighbors and creating a healthy and just society.

Presenter:

Craig Rennebohm is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and Chaplain with the Mental Health Chaplaincy in Seattle . His pioneering work with the homeless mentally ill community is known around the U.S. and overseas. Craig was the first recipient of the Tipper Gore Award of the National Council of Healthcare for the Homeless, and his methodology of working with the most marginalized members of our society has put him in demand as a speaker, teacher, and consultant by faith communities and advocacy groups. In 1987 Craig founded the Mental Health Chaplaincy, an ecumenical ministry working with mentally ill people on the streets and in the hospital. The Chaplaincy has grown to serve families, create mental health ministries in local congregations, and advocate for an effective and readily accessible community mental health system. Besides over two decades of working as a mental health chaplain, Craig draws on his own struggle with depression. Through this sojourn, Craig has developed a ministry and a theology that teach the most basic principles of a Judeo- Christian faith emphasizing God’s unconditional love and the ever-present power of a healing spirit in all our lives.

Registration:

Contact Deacon Tom Lambert at 773-525-0453x21 or email olmcinfo2@aol.com  to let us know how many will be coming.

Most Catholic parents of my mother and father's generation named their children after saints.  My parents chose the moniker Thomas for me but never told me which Saint Thomas they had in mind.  Early on in grammar school, the nuns encouraged all of us to choose a saint with the same name as our own as a "patron saint."  By studying our namesake saint, we would then have a role model to assist us on our spiritual journey.  Interested in finding a Saint to identify with, I poured over a "Lives of the Saints" book my mother had given me.  It described four saints named Thomas.  I had choices!!

The first Saint I looked at was Thomas Aquinas.  He was very smart, a "Doctor of the Church."  He wrote the Summa Theological, the greatest theological  treatise of his time and for centuries after.  My mother encouraged me to take this saint as my namesake role model.  However, the brilliance of Aquinas seemed beyond what I could achieve and certainly too much to live up to.  How could I aspire to be someone that bright and well educated?  I crossed Aquinas off the list.  Next I found St Thomas More.  I really liked and admired him.  He became chancellor of England and widely known as a man of great integrity.  However, he was beheaded for his Faith.  This was definitely a problem for me.  While I was taught martyrs had a straight path to heaven, I didn't really want to aspire to be one!  Thomas More was out as y patron saint.  Third on the list was St Thomas Beckett.  He became chancellor of England and a Bishop.  He also was known as a person of integrity and honesty.  Unfortunately, like Thomas More, he was killed because of his faith.  Another martyr - I ruled him out too!  Then I discovered Thomas the Apostle.  He sounded like someone I could relate to and feel a kinship with.

Just as when I first read about him, the story of the Apostle Thomas characterizes for me a very human experience of God and faith journey.  If you recall, Thomas, probably a fisherman meets Jesus and is enthused about what he hears and experiences.  He listens to the word of God, takes it into his heart and lives it along with his fellow believers.  Thomas and his friends try to understand the full meaning of what they hear but never completely do.  Despite not fully comprehending the message, Thomas and the Disciples feel certain they are on the right path.  They experience a peace and joy beyond what they ever had before.  Then unexpectedly Jesus is taken from them and put to a horrible death.  Thomas' world is shaken to the core.  Devastated, he is now left to pick up the pieces of a shattered dream.

Incredibly, the disciples inform Thomas that Jesus appeared to them!  Who can blame Thomas after experiencing the high of following Jesus and the low of seeing Jesus put to death for exclaiming to the other apostles hiding in the upper room "I won't believe unless I see His nail marks and put my hands in his wounds!"  This declaration was a very natural response to a crisis experience of life, a despairing remark from a wounded believer.  Even though others reported seeing Jesus resurrected, the distraught Thomas wanted to see for himself.  Deeply wounded, feeling abandoned, and not wanting to go through the pain of seeing hopes and expectations dashed, he required proof.  Despite Thomas despair over losing Jesus to the cross, God never abandoned Thomas.  God was always there even when Thomas doubted.  His friends never abandoned him either for they led him to the upper room where Thomas did experience the risen lord.  He once again could feel God's presence and he believed!

The story of Thomas the Apostle is very human and a practical expression of what we may experience in our faith journey.  Especially those of us who have a family member or loved one who has a major mental illness or those of us who themselves have a mental illness.  We too may have been going through life with little or no doubts and then just like Thomas our world gets turned upside down and we have to deal with the harsh realty of mental illness.  Do we have doubts?  Of course we do.  Do we question God?  Yes, it wouldn't be natural not to.  Do we lose our faith?  NO, faith is a gift from God, it is always there, but sometimes our doubts blind us to our faith and to the love God has for us.  We have to work through those questions to uncover or rediscover our gift of faith.  It's the hard part of our faith journey.

Doubts, while unsettling, are a very natural part of our human thought process.  It is in the questioning, the seeking of answers, that we are lead to a deeper relationship with God.  Thomas doubted but he never gave up!  Through a combination of the grace of wanting to believe and having friends that encouraged him and stuck with him, Thomas found his way back to the upper room.  Doubts can spur us like Thomas to look within and search for truth.  It is through this journey, this path that we are often led to a deeper relationship with God.  So ironically then out of one of the worst experiences of life, dealing with a major mental illness for example, we can be lead closer to God.  Being in or dealing with crisis raises profound questions that as a faith filled people we seek the answers for.

Just as Thomas had the need to see the nail marks and touch the wounds of Jesus in order to believe.  We need to touch the woundedness in ourselves to see that God is present to us and loves us.  We have to touch the of feeling isolated and stigmatized in order to experience love and acceptance.  We have to touch the wound and hurt of the past to experience the grace of the future.  We have to understand the fact that God doesn't cause mental illness or punish us with mental illness, rather God is always there for us to help us through the pain and frustrations and heartache of dealing with this brain disease.  We have to touch the wounds of anger and frustration to become disciples of hope and redemption.

And where do we seek these answers??  Through our prayer life we open ourselves to God's grace.  Meditation and reflection help us to be open to the Spirit.  Equally as important, we seek these answers in the community that surrounds us.  In the early days of Christianity, scripture explains how the community of believers lived as one in heart and mind and shared everything in common, the good and the bad.  Just as Thomas came face to face with Jesus with an assist from his friends, we come face to face with Jesus through the love of those around us.  Jesus is present to us in our families, our friends, the people who minister to us through the church, through those who provide us with healthcare, through NAMI and our support groups.  We are in this journey together.  We share something in common and because we share it together it lifts our burden.  That is why NAMI is important in my life.  That is why the faith community to which I belong is important to me.  Both call me to prayer.  They are communities that care in a world that often time doesn't seem to care.  I am inspired by the faith of the people in these groups, by their strength, by their tireless efforts to seek justice for people with mental illness and their families.  Through them my faith is continuously renewed and I am able to get in touch with my own woundedness.

We are the face of Christ to one another; we are the helping hand of the Redeemer who not only gives us a better tomorrow but also gives us a better today.  Together we build His kingdom each day and every day.

Thomas Lambert

Each Day

1. I will recall that I am a child of God.  I am one who is created out of Love.  I am chosen, good, holy and have purpose...a task to perform here on Earth before I return to the Father.  I deserve to be treated as a person who has value and dignity.

2. I will embrace my illness or my family members illness as a friend this day looking for what it is teaching me about the mystery of God and Life.

3. I will not allow the stigma of mental illness to defeat me this day.  I will choose to have power over stigma by detaching myself from the stigma.

4. I will talk to someone today who will encourage me to see my goodness and holiness as a child of God.  Maybe we will share a prayer together for one another.

5. I will look for humor and reasons to laugh and be happy.  Quiet joy will be my goal.

6. I will read a passage from Scripture or something from a book of devotion, inspiration or spiritual reading that will encourage me to trust and hope in the power and love of God.

7. I will seek twenty minutes of solitude, silence, prayer this day.  If my mind won't quiet down, if my thoughts keep racing, I will offer that as my prayer to God.  If necessary and helpful, I will listen to soothing instrumental music or inspirational/religious music to quiet me and remind me that God is present.

8. I will walk outdoors marveling at a sunrise, a sunset, the song of a bird, the soothing colors of nature...the serenity of green grass, a blue sky, the softness of the pastel colored blossoms of Springtime and the peaceful waters of a river, lake or stream that ripple and flow.  I will remind myself that everything in nature is a reflection of the Creator and pleases the Creator just as it is and so do I just as I am.

9. I will delight in the knowledge that we are each created different because it is in our differences we make a more powerful and beautiful whole.  We each reflect a different aspect of the mystery of Life and God.  Individually and together we are a Masterpiece!

10. In God is my hope and my joy.  I will give honor, glory and praise to God knowing and trusting what God has in store for me.  We do not seek or like suffering but our suffering can make us strong in many ways and more compassionate and loving to others...our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Knowing for sure that although I long for God,  God's longing for me is even greater.  I will rest in that knowledge this day.

Rita Sebastian Lambert

Workshop on Spirituality                             

For more information on how faith communities can be involved in ministries of compassion, presence, information and justice contact NAMI Illinois for brochures, speakers and/or workshop information.

NAMI Illinois

218 West Lawrence

Springfield, Illinois 62704

Telephone: (217) 522-1403

1-800-346-4572

Email: namiil@sbcglobal.net