I write this post with some trepidation, as the mentally ill have for many, many years been accused of demonic possession and treated harshly. I have seen in the news where brutal “exorcisms” have been performed on the sick, sometimes leading to death – a few of these are listed on the website “What’s the […]
Within Our Darkest Night
November 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment
It has been a while since I posted a song I think appropriate for times when we are feeling bad. I recently found a Church of England website called Mental Health Matters which has some resources for services and so on for people with mental illnesses. They listed a Taize chant called “Within Our Darkest Night” […]
A Prayer When Depressed
November 25, 2012 by 1 Comment
This is in the nature of an experiment. I have never written a prayer before, and I don’t claim to be very good at it. I have read some lovely prayers, and I sometimes get people searching for prayers for the mentally ill, so I thought I would try to write some. It may not […]
Words Matter
November 24, 2012 by 6 Comments
As Cher sang, “words are like weapons, they wound sometimes.” [1] We can hurt or help with our words, as well as our actions. All of us have been in situations where, in the heat of the moment, we have said things we do not mean, things calculated to wound, to harm the person we […]
Why, Lord? The Book of Job
November 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment
I have been reading the book of Job, in the Old Testament, today. I must confess that I have found this a difficult book in the past, with its many speeches, and I found it difficult to know whether Job’s comforters were right about him. Now that I have finally got round to reading it […]
Insects called the Human Race
November 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment
And crawling on the planet’s face Some insects called the human race Lost in time, and lost in space And meaning –“Super Heroes” in The Rocky Horror Picture Show [1] I remember, as a child, looking up at the stars and thinking how very small and insignificant we on earth are compared to the vastness of […]
Drinking Alcohol
November 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment
The Christian world – or at least those parts of it I have come into contact with – has a funny view of alcohol. It ranges from those who do not drink at all and consider it a sin to drink alcohol, to those who say to have very little alcohol, to those who say […]
I Can’t Help You
November 13, 2012 by 9 Comments
I want to help you in your time of trouble. I really do. My heart burns for people suffering, for all suffering, for myself in times of illness. I long to answer the question “Why?” I wish I knew the words that would make everything all right, that would explain why we suffer for no […]
Review: Religion and Suicide
November 12, 2012 by 1 Comment
This is a review of the research paper “Religion and Suicide: An exploratory study of the role of the Church in deaths by suicide in Highland, Scotland” by Harriet Mowat, Cameron Stark, John Swinton and Donald Mowat (2006). I haven’t been able to locate a copy online, although the University of Aberdeen has a summary […]
Labels and Identity
November 10, 2012 by 4 Comments
Sometimes it is tempting to label myself, to claim the title “bipolar”, “anxious”, “depressive” and “self harmer” as being me. I went without declared diagnosis for some time, and I remember being keen to know what was wrong with me, to understand – to have some anchor point that I could read about. I was […]
Believer's Brain 