Edges Magazine Issue 43 - The Fragile Human Person

EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 43

January 2006

The Fragile Human Person

Rev John Michael Hanvey is part of the T.H.O.M.A.S. Team

Minds Fractured by Life
R.S. Thomas in his poem ‘The Kingdom’ writes

‘It’s a long way off but inside it
there are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is King and the consumptive is
Healed: mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back: and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured by life…….’

The human condition is both fragile and incredibly resilient. Someone like the Jewish writer and Nobel Prize winner Ellie Wiesel could survive the horrors of a Nazi death camp and even write about it with a profound spirituality; Nelson Mandela spent over 20 years in prison and came out to lead his country and Terry Waite works today for reconciliation and peace after years of solitary confinement. The human spirit is strong.

But for some, the dance which is life, costs too much and the mind stops dancing and the dreams of youth are left in ruins. When this happens one can feel that we are of no importance. Our opinions do not seem to matter and others take charge of what happens to us. Seeing people, relations, friends and maybe ourselves, disintegrating physically and mentally is a terrible business and all the logic and spirituality in the world makes little sense of it to me. Sometimes the insolence of my will leads me to doubtful conclusions about the purpose of it all and whether God can possibly be involved in such absurdity. But as usual for me, almost amazingly, my faith kicks in and says something different, this cross, my cross, the world’s cross

‘….with its roots
in the mind’s dark
was divinely, planted’

R.S. Thomas ‘Amen’.

I met a woman some time ago, who after over 18 months of dealing with serious mental health issues, including being sectioned, survived the mental health system and refused to be stigmatised by it all and went on to get a degree in mental health counselling.

But what for those who are unable to survive, but must endure this lonely, lonely road for a whole lifetime? I feel for those of us who know people in this situation; we need to learn a new language, theirs, in order to begin to get a glimpse of what it’s like. We need patience and courage to spend time with them and try everything possible that might find a chink, a way in to a world that I imagine must be lonely unless blocked out by medication.

I sometimes feel in my daily life that I might be losing it a bit, and need to keep centring myself, through reflection, quiet, prayer and listening to what those who know me really well are saying. I guess we are always climbing out of various ruins and we are often quite a way off centre.

Life is a hard road and the decay of the mind can be on the menu for any of us. I visit quite often with my friend, his mother. Sitting in a nursing home having spent time in a psychiatric ward, she comes to life when she sees her son, even though it is usually accompanied by lots of crying and outstretched arms. I often wonder what her memories are like, and whether they are sad or happy. It’s difficult to tell. All I know is that when I come away from the visit, I leave with a very heavy heart and feel quite helpless, with so little to offer, certainly nothing that will alleviate the loneliness and I feel the Kingdom of God seems a long way off and the breath of God feels icy.

But then that’s my stuff that I need to handle and keep looking for signs of the divine, even in the fractured minds that have been brought about by simply living.