Sliding Doors

Its been a long, long time since I last posted on my own personal blog, I do a few for work but have failed miserably to write here for a while. Not that it's a task, I love to write and it feels really cathartic, its just that life caught up with me, overtook me, and left me reeling in its wake. I can't say that the "prodigal" that I wrote about previously has taken its course, in many ways it has returned to its work with the pigs, but recent events particularly a chance meeting may - and I use that word deliberately - may have put me back on the path, to some sort of righteousness I hope. 

Over the past 12 months I have lost my Mum, my stepdad, had yet another (5th) major operation on my shoulder implant, and seen my diabetes get worse not least because of medication I was prescribed by my GP. All of this created in me a sense of "I am done, I cannot give any more, I have no more to give, I surrender" with the smallest thing, the proverbial straw that broke the camels back, causing me to seek solace in a large number of sleeping pills. The result was hospitalisation, a long sleep, and waking to the strange feeling that I didn't belong, a kind of 'Sliding Doors' moment (you'll get the reference if you've seen the film, if you haven't then I thoroughly recommend it in spite of the fact that it stars Gwyneth Paltrow). My feeling was this; that there were two parallel realities that were created by one event: namely my attempt to shuffle off this mortal coil. In one reality I was lying on a slab in a morgue in this reality I was alive and kicking. I felt strongly that I was in the wrong reality! 

Anyway to fast-forward to the punchline, I eventually got to see a psychiatrist who insisted on calling me "Reverend" rather than Simon (this was on my medical record and he picked up on this straight away, I had failed, through hubris no doubt, to remove this from all my official details even though I was trained and ordained). He was easy to talk to and for the first 30 minutes we spoke at length about what happened, how I felt, and the path towards wellness. When I thought we had finished talking he asked without any hesitation "What about the Cross?" We then spoke for another 20 or so minutes about my relationship with God, my story/journey, being a Christian with mental health issues, and how to get back on track. He also affirmed something I had known in my heart all along, that everyone he had ever met who had experienced what I had in my life ended up completely broken, and pointed to the wall (the other side of which was a secure mental health ward) and said "like them". He said it was Christ that had enabled me to live a fulfilling and successful life whilst remaining completely broken. I left the meeting feeling a faint glimmer of hope and over the subsequent week due his intervention, both as a psychiatrist and a Christian - has helped me refocus and to feel better than I have done in a long while. There is still a long journey ahead (that sounds a bit cliché) and I have a lot to unpack and resolve, but I no longer feel that I am done and have no more to give....perhaps that's why I have started to blog again?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pompus?

Reading James the other day I was quite surprised to find the word “religious”. There in the midst of my favourite book of the Bible was a word that frequent readers of my blog will know often raises some comment from myself, if not my hackles, especially in a 21 st  century context. So, when I saw it there, having never noticed it before for some reason, I had to do some digging (vernacular for research) on why this word was used. A quick search revealed that “religious”, or “religion” is not a common word in the Bible, in fact it is only used 6 times, twice in James in quick session, three times in Acts, once in Colossians. Referring to one of the heavy tombs available to me in the form of Strong's Concordance - in fact although I do possess a copy I cheated and enquired of it online - I discovered that in Greek religious was θρησκὸς (thrēskos) and that it “refers probably to a careful observance of religious restrictions” and in a limited sense, it may mean devout. Further enqui...
Read more

Choose the Red Pill!

Image
  What we read in the closing chapters of Deuteronomy is both amazing and terrifying; God knew that in spite of all he had done and was about to do for Israel, that the people would still go ahead and rebel. He knew that they would, they knew that they would, and they knew that he knew they would, but they still did it. For me this speaks volumes about two things:  One is that we have complete and total free will before God, I utterly reject the doctrine of predestination because I believe that no matter how you package it, or what intellectual gymnastics you do with it, this cannot allow for free will. For the Old and New testaments and Gods message therein to be relevant then free will has to stand unadulterated.  Secondly, the wilfulness of the human condition; like Cypher in the matrix movie who, even though he knew that the matrix was an illusion, chose that illusion over the reality of freedom (you can watch it here ). We are presented with an excellent  analog...
Read more

Preaching to the Converted

As I have done myself of numerous occasions along with multitudes of preachers in a church context, I delivered sermons that were just telling people what they know already, telling them how it was. Yes this often involved clarifying points of scripture and encouraging people in their faith, but the messages whilst not falling on deaf ears was generally just going over somewhat familiar ground but in a new way. What we might call 'Preaching to the Converted'. However, in some cases a preacher will actually challenge the converted, assaulting the listeners ears and their faith, and getting them to ask themselves where they actually stand with God. Today I had the pleasure of one such sermon preached by a dear friend of mine at a local Baptist Church.  Speaking on Ezekiel 37 - the Valley of the Dry Bones - the preacher challenged us to reflect on our own situation, our own faith, our own Christianity by asking if we were in fact Dry Bones; did we come to church faithfully every S...
Read more