Mental health, this week's rant...

Grandson Theo. 4-5 months.

Granddaughter Edith just over a year.

They need more care...
We have a man who walks about town. They call him "Speedy" because he walks quite fast, especially when he was younger. He has mental health problems. He is under some sort of supervised accommodation, but I do not think there is much supervision. He came to our drop-in centre on Friday night. He was not well clothed for the mid-winter cold outside. I was pleased to see him come in from the cold and we made sure he had food - a cup of soup, half a pie and some sandwiches. He grabbed this food like a hungry dog grabs its food, while fiercely looking about. (He hates being crowded in)  He shoved this food into his mouth like he feared it was going to be stolen, struggling to eat it as fast as he put it in. He sat down to sip his soup and have a hot drink. We put more sandwiches within easy reach because he looked so hungry. Next minute he vomited into his jumper lying beside him on the seat. He had eaten too quickly. I gave him a spare jumper and took him home to his place and as I drove I thought of the many people we know through our drop-in who, like him, struggle to cope on our city streets because they have mental health issues. As chairman of the Dunedin Night Shelter Trust, I often get an early morning phone call from the shelter's manager. He feels he has to report to me when there has been an unfortunate incident at the Shelter overnight. Most often it happens when he is trying to deal with some person struggling to cope with a mental health issue. We used to have "asylums" - or more correctly, hospitals where these folk had often life time residential care. They were often placed outside the city limits. In their wisdom the authorities have closed most of these down, declaring that these folk would be better off in the community, with proper community based care. The hospitals were not ideal, but the current situation is, in my view worse. There are too many like "Speedy", not coping with their freedom! Caring agencies and public mental health systems are under funded and we as a community are not caring for the vulnerable in our midst! 
"I've had enough!"
The Old Testament reading today was from the book of 1st Kings. It was the story of the prophet Elijah fleeing from the wrath of Jezebel. He went to the desert where despondent and fearful he cried, "It is enough! ... take away my life!" He moved on to a cave at Horeb and there complained "I have been zealous for the Lord... I alone am left..." and spoke of the way the people had deserted the Lord.  I kind of identify with his feelings often. Maybe I am "different" or a bit eccentric, but in Church and community groups I have been and are involved in, I often feel frustrated and feel like shouting; "I've had enough!" or "Doesn't any body else care?"  Elijah's desperate cries encourage me. He too had tough times. This week its been a bit like that. I had been a good boy and delegated stuff, but somehow it landed back on my lap. People have not done what they had promised to do and others interrupted my day with agendas of their own. I have felt like screaming, "I've had enough!"  In exploring this passage I found a commentator who shared this information;
Mother Teresa's book Come Be My Light (2007) shocked people with its description of profound spiritual darkness that haunted her for fifty years. She writes that she didn't practice what she preached, and laments the stark contrast between her exterior demeanor and her interior desolation: "The smile is a big cloak which covers a multitude of pains... my cheerfulness is a cloak by which I cover the emptiness and misery ... I deceive people with this weapon." She describes the absence of God's presence in many ways - as emptiness, loneliness, pain, spiritual dryness, or lack of consolation. "My heart is so empty... so full of darkness..." 
I know of several famous writers, christian leaders and other people of achievement who all faced heavy hearted moments far worse than I do.  There are names like Florence Nightingale, J B Phillips, C S Lewis, Robert Lois Stephenson and others I have read of. I am encouraged. Perhaps it goes with the territory. M Scott-Peck suggests in one of his books that depression often happens when people have the courage to face reality. These people are brave enough to look at life honestly, see its failings, are disturbed by it, and long for it to be different.  
The thing that gets me is that these "real" people who achieved so much, had the courage to keep going, doing what they believed to be right in the face of disappointment, depression and frustration. That is courage - seeing and feeling the reality, experiencing the loneliness, but still doing that which is good, still committed to making a difference.  I am not famous, nor do I achieve a lot, but I hope I have a measure of such courage.
"Rain, rain go away.."
This last week New Zealand has suffered a mid-winter blast of bad weather. There have been big dumpings of snow in places. Flooding, slips, power outages and road closures have happened in different places throughout NZ. We have had a week of sleety rain and hail in Dunedin. There is a slip near by which caused the evacuation of a few houses for a while. Everything is damp and cold. It was the shortest day on Friday - the shortest daylight hours. Traditionally July is our coldest month, but it is heartening to know we are theoretically now moving toward spring. Tomorrow is my day off. I think I'll be chopping firewood, weather permitting.

Mid-winter moon tonight.