Pissing In the Wind

"The shadow gone autonomous is a terrible monster in our house..."
The Shadow by Robert Johnson


As children most us learn that you can't spit into the wind or throw sand into the wind; you get back the same result: it flies into your own face! But somewhere along the way to adulthood we seem very often to forget this truth. Many of us seek to level our relations with others by these very means. There are relatively few facts in the world; most are about nature herself. For example, day follows night and night evolves again into day; there is the sun and the moon and all the seasons exerting their force and pull upon earth and its inhabitants.

There are airplanes, and then there are pilots; drivers who drive cars; wind and ice which foils them, sometimes with injurious or deadly results. We like to think of our self as master of all, in control. The sad fact of physics is that often we aren't. For many this provokes a deep anxiety or unconscious dread. We are protective, even defensive of ourselves and our positions. This often leads to a sort of self blindness, not unlike that experienced by the Emperor in the Hans Christian Anderson story, The Emperor's New Clothes. Regular readers here will recognize the theme...
Simple acknowledgment of our desire to make things safe for our self in relations with others goes a long way to enlightening the mind.

In the spiritual life, we seek to find a unity with these unacknowledged parts of ourselves, parts which often riotously erupt at sometimes the most inopportune, the most inconvenient moments. For some the solution, at least temporarily, is to squelch or sequester these emotions, this energy out of sight and effectively, out of mind.
"In the cultural process, we sort out our God given characteristics... we begin to divide our lives." This process Robert Johnson calls, 'shadow making' in his book, Owning Your Own Shadow.
Without some measure of self-regulation, routine social interactions would become potentially very messy on a very regular basis. However these now "forgotten" traits don't often slink away; instead they lay in wait for another time. Lying in the darkness of the anterior mind, the shadow strength builds. In some it provokes deep depression or anxiety, in others a general mental disorder.

There is the sorting process which we think of as culture, by which the facets of the accepted and unaccepted self are rendered either active or passive; the active parts we think of as personality and the inactive become unknown, or from time to time emerge as 'bad manners' which culture seeks to rope in and regulate.
Yet this sorting process is "quite arbitrary," Johnson observes. For the spiritual growth of a person in mid-life, the two must reconnect for a balance, for unity to arise.
The Hindus for example, acknowledge the presence of the gods of creation and destruction simultaneously. In Hinduism, the balance of these natural forces is called Ananda.
In the west, the word we use to describe this same process is religion, from the Latin, it means to re-relate, to put back together again, to restore. It is in this move towards restoration that our spiritual selves find rest, peace and balance of the whole.

Shepherd Me, Oh, Lord: The Mentally Ill Youth

Update: The story is similar, the place is an elementary school in Connecticut. The gun violence is obvious, but maybe not so the illness prompting it.

The recent, tragic events in a Colorado movie theater elementary school brings the topic of the mentally ill yet again to fore. This most recent mass shooting brings the public face to face with the mentally ill once more. In American society it has been the norm to keep the chronically mentally ill out of institutions and in local communities since the late 1970's. Those afflicted with serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia, manic depression (now often referred to as Bi-Polar Depression), psychosis, certain personality disorders, paranoia, etc., are now commonly treated with scads of psychiatric medications. Thankfully for the many who suffer these illnesses, their "meds" and support from mental health professionals and loved ones, keeps them on an even keel. They can "function," as the medical community calls it. 

Update: The violence must not mask the need for medical attention for those suffering these types of illnesses.

Many of those affected work, study, hold advanced degrees, support families, and are friend to others. They are office mates, the person seated in the church pew next to us, the one inspecting produce at local farmers markets, walking dogs, attending their child's sporting events, our neighbor next door, the guy in the car stopped next to us, and most of the time we don't know they are ill. Quirky or moody--yes, but we do not think they are mentally ill. And that's the way it should be.

Many medical conditions are best left private. And since many of the mentally ill in our communities can function, that is to say that they can carry out most of their normal activities with little or no modifications on a normal day, it is right that they live at home, in their community, in our community. However things may go awry, and the public is reinvigorated, terrified even of the factors that cause mental illness and the fact that they just don't understand the low-functioning or non-functioning individual. Often for those who suffer various illnesses, their illness does not arise until the early adult years; some suffers have extremely high IQs. It may be more years until they arrive at treatment or appropriate support for their condition. And for some, the medications don't work, or they present terrible side effects such as diabetes or neurological damage, making their use perilous.

One famous Schizophrenic, John Nash, is a Mathematician and a Nobel Prize winner. In the book, A Beautiful Mind (later made into a movie by that title) the author, Sylvia Nasar, recounts his sad decline and descent into illness, the efforts to treat him and the striving of a community to accommodate him; when all failed, he dropped out, into the shadows for many years. Ahead of his time intellectually, it took just as many years for the world to recognize the genius of his "Game Theory" for which he received the Nobel Prize for Economic Theory.
Perhaps Nash's situation was ideal; it was not without grief and despair, failed and broken relationships, those who could not tolerate year in and year out of his quirky and unpredictable behavior.

And so it may be for the most recent perpetrator of the Aurora, Colorado Connecticut shootings. A killer he is alleged to be and possibly mentally ill, having slid into his current state over the past years.
 As a society is there not much else we might do to protect ourselves from these otherwise unprovoked attacks? We like to think cameras, doors, locks, security personnel will keep us safe; but they didn't here.
The man with the gun was heedless to it all. His weapons were acquired from home. His parent allowed their use on other occasions. She suffered the consequences for that. This family is also victimized.
 However, we may always hope that the Lord of All holds those afflicted and all those harmed by the weaknesses and failures of others in his sight.
"Shepherd me O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears" Psalm 23

Shepherd Me, O God; Those Who Suffer Mental Illnesses

The recent events in a Colorado movie theater brings the topic of the mentally ill yet again to fore. This most recent mass shooting brings the public face to face with the mentally ill once more. In American society it has been the norm to keep the chronically mentally ill out of institutions and in local communities since the late 1970's. Those afflicted with serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia, manic depression (now often referred to as Bi-Polar Depression), psychosis, certain personality disorders, paranoia, etc., are now commonly treated with scads of psychiatric medications. Thankfully for the many who suffer these illnesses, their "meds" and support from mental health professionals and loved ones, keeps them on an even keel. They can "function," as the medical community calls it.

Many of those affected work, study, hold advanced degrees, support families, and are friend to others. They are office mates, the person seated in the church pew next to us, the one inspecting produce at local farmers markets, walking dogs, attending their child's sporting events, our neighbor next door, the guy in the car stopped next to us, and most of the time we don't know they are ill. Quirky or moody--yes, but we do not think they are mentally ill. And that's the way it should be.

Many medical conditions are best left private. And since many of the mentally ill in our communities can function, that is to say that they can carry out most of their normal activities with little or no modifications on a normal day, it is right that they live at home, in their community, in our community. However things may go awry, and the public is reinvigorated, terrified even of the factors that cause mental illness and the fact that they just don't understand the low-functioning or non-functioning individual. Often for those who suffer various illnesses, their illness does not arise until the early adult years; some suffers have extremely high IQs. It may be more years until they arrive at treatment or appropriate support for their condition. And for some, the medications don't work, or they present terrible side effects such as diabetes or neurological damage, making their use perilous.

One famous Schizophrenic, John Nash, is a Mathematician and a Nobel Prize winner. In the book, A Beautiful Mind (later made into a movie by that title) the author, Sylvia Nasar, recounts his sad decline and descent into illness, the efforts to treat him and the striving of a community to accommodate him; when all failed, he dropped out, into the shadows for many years. Ahead of his time intellectually, it took just as many years for the world to recognize the genius of his "Game Theory" for which he received the Nobel Prize for Economic Theory.
Perhaps Nash's situation was ideal; it was not without grief and despair, failed and broken relationships, those who could not tolerate year in and year out of his quirky and unpredictable behavior.

And so it may be for the most recent perpetrator of the Aurora, Colorado shootings. A killer he is alleged to be and possibly mentally ill, having slid into his current state over the last few years. However, we may always hope that the Lord of All holds those afflicted and all those harmed by the weaknesses and failures of others in his sight.
"Shepherd me O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears" Psalm 23

Health Crises May Be Spiritual Awakenings

"I will act as if what I do makes a difference." poet and writer, William Blake
 
Debilitating illness has plagued mankind as long as anyone may imagine. Yet the human spirit ever resourceful, ever hopeful, bounds back into the realms of life. Unable to quash the spirit and its boundless potential, Susan Nessim was inspired to write about her spiritual, physical and medical journey with cancer. She writes in her book, Cancervive, now revised as: Can Survive, that for her, the roads she traveled were difficult and long, but ultimately fruitful for her spirit. Writing to share her experience, Nessim encourages others along the path she's followed from illness to recovery; for some it is not recovery so much as living, surviving with illness. She writes to encourage one and all.


"One of the most frustrating things," she writes is, "... allowing disease to dominate their thoughts to such an extent that it undermines their life." With diagnosis you may easily be transformed from a person to a 'patient.' One thing is certain, however, significant illness is change. As a patient your day may easily become structured around your symptoms and treatment. Perhaps you obsess about little changes, you go to websites where others with similar diagnosis carry on at length about their treatment, their moods, their medications, etc, etc. Possibly even, you may be attracted to groups who claim advocacy and support. They may be in fact, groups who exist for their own, other purposes, their political agendas; like a sort of union, they may need you for less obvious reasons, for money, for prestige, for access, or for a myriad of other considerations. So do just what truly matters to you. Uniquely you. Let your decisions be from a spiritual basis. The rest will follow.


Learning to cope is essential for those living with serious illness. Cure may just be a chase for perfection, something that may not be. Perhaps acceptance of the dilemma in which one now exists is preferable; acceptance of oneself is an important spiritual act; it may be slow in coming, but ultimately it is the most satisfying to discover one's unique talents and blessings, despite everything else. Looking with new eyes, remaining in the stillness of the beating heart is often enough. Learn to smile, because this is the day that has been made; let us all rejoice and be glad in it.

The Exorcist

"A woman in her early forties... had shaken so violently, that Fr. Vince had seen her levitate five inches off the chair..." The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio

We've all seen the movies, the terror and the screaming. Possessed by Demons, souls in degrees of domination are suffocated by the Evil One, some call the angel, Satan. So much superstition. Nonsense-- there may be evil in the world but truly, this Hollywood stuff is too, too much, you say. Perhaps in the world, there is the seen and the unseen. In his book, The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio, we learn about the "shadow" world, one inhabited by the dark, the evil and the wicked energies of the world. "Thinking of the day when a person's spiritual well being would rest in their hands... adamant about not engaging the Demon... when the Demon talks, you should not listen to him... you should not ask him questions... never place yourself beyond the power of God, in the darkness."

At the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign campus will appear on October 26, 2009 at 7 pm in Foellinger Auditorium, the Reverend Father Vincent Lampert of the Diocese of Indianapolis, Indiana. Fr. Vincent is one of only 12 officially trained and approved Exorcists practicing in the United States today. He will speak about the Ritual of Exorcism and relate some of his experiences.

"Even Exorcists admit there a lot of mystery to it," writes Baglio. "The crucial role of cooperation between the Exorcist and his [local] Bishop, ensuring that only officially appointed Exorcists perform the Ritual." The Teaching of the Roman Catholic Christian Church regarding exorcism states its authority and tradition to be the biblical passages in which Jesus the Christ cast out Demons, the book of Saint Mark 5:9, and healed those so afflicted. Today before engaging in the ritual of exorcism, the Exorcist must make a determination if the person is suffering from spiritual illness and possession, or is suffering from another type of mental illness such as depression or psychosis.

Those suffering from these types of illnesses are referred to psychologists or psychiatrists. Often however, the Exorcist uses a team approach to healing the afflicted and several practitioners of other disciplines are involved with the person seeking exorcism. The Demon's main 'trick' is to make us think we are unworthy of God's redeeming love; yet it is God the father who has made us in love to be like him, and his own. All are worthy of redemption, so the exorcisms go on.