By Rob Lee
This week, with the loss of comedic genius Robin Williams to apparent suicide, our nation has turned to a conversation of mental health. You can’t turn anywhere on the news or social media and not see conversations surrounding mental health.
This whole conversation often lacks the input and voice of the church, because frankly it hits too close to home for many clergy and laity alike. Perhaps it’s time for that to change; perhaps it’s time for the conversation surrounding mental health to come to the church, and to do that effectively that’s going to take some soul-searching.
Now is the time for the church to say that there is a beacon of hope amidst the desolate wasteland that mental illness leaves in its wake. Now is the time for the church to do what it does best, proclaim the resurrection. It’s time to roll away the stone of mental illness and realize that Christ is no longer in the tomb, and that mental illness will one day take its place in the distant past as resurrection ensues.
For the church to proclaim this sort of resurrection it will require a sort of “coming out.” Clergy will have to proclaim from the pulpit their own struggles with mental illness; church members will have to have honest conversations with each other surrounding their own experiences. For this is part of resurrection — a realization that the worst is behind us, and that no matter what the future holds we can face it with a peace and a hope that may have eluded us for so long.
Church should be a place where the weary find rest, where people with depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, anxiety and countless other illnesses can be uplifted in the light of resurrection. The paradox of this is that resurrection can be hard to find in the midst of these illnesses, but I can guarantee from personal experience that Christ is there. Christ is working amidst the despair of disease to bring about the flowers of resurrection. God is at work rolling away the stone that has bound the mentally ill for so long.
I’m not suggesting that if you’re struggling with mental illness the church is the sole answer to your problem. We’re smarter than that and know that treating illnesses such as these requires a variety of methods. But I’m reminded of that great Robin Williams movie, Patch Adams, in which a character says, “You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you’ll win, no matter what the outcome.”
Practice resurrection, treat people with love and respect, no matter the outcome. In that reality the tomb of mental illness will be found empty, for Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed.