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Tag Archives: poor

Street Teachers

22 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by A Journey With You in hope, writing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

bible, christianity, generosity, giving, homeless, hope, inspiration, jesus, life, love, poor, spirituality, street, writing

Mark 12:41-44 New International Version (NIV)

41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

My husband went to the drug store to pick up my medications, some toilet paper, eye drops, and a few other things. As he was walking into the front door, a man sitting on the sidewalk with his back resting against the wall said, “Hey man, can you spare any change?” My husband searched his pockets.

“I don’t have any right now. Maybe on the way out. Wait. I am using a credit card. Sorry.” My husband said.

“Can you buy me a sandwich?” The man asked.

“I’ll see what I can do.” My husband said.

In the store, my husband picked up the few things we needed and then went to the refrigerator section to look for a sandwich. The only food there was frozen food, so he went to where the chips and nuts are shelved. He found a box of granola bars, and placed it in his basket then went to the pharmacy to pick up my pills and to pay for all the items.

On the way out of the store he approached the man sitting down who was talking to a man standing next to him. My husband handed the man sitting down the box of granola bars. “They didn’t have any sandwiches so I bought you these. I don’t know if they are good, but I hope so.”

The man sitting said, “Thank you, man. These are great. I appreciate it.”

The man standing said, “You bought him those? That’s cool. Those are good.”

The man sitting ripped open the box, took out a granola bar, and offered it to the man standing next to him. “”Here, have one.” He said.

Being poor Doesn’t Necessarily mean Worse Mental Health

10 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by A Journey With You in mental illness, relationships, schizophrenia, writing

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

community, creative nonfiction, family, guatemala, hope, inspiration, mental health, mental illness, mentally ill, network, one dollar a day, poor, poverty, psychiatry, psychology, recovery, schizophrenia, writing

Yesterday afternoon my husband and I watched the documentary: Living on one Dollar. I was so moved by the film, I cried almost the whole way through it. The film is about a group of four college students who go to a very poor village in Guatemala and try to live on one dollar a day.  They set up guidelines on how they will do this to best duplicate how the local people do it. For example, every day they pull a number between zero and nine out of a container and that is how much money they have for that day – this was supposed to replicate the villager’s day labor jobs that were not guaranteed and for which they never knew how much they would be paid.

What captured my heart about the film was there was often not enough for children to eat, and the villager’s explained that when children don’t eat enough they don’t grow. There was rarely enough money for emergencies in fact one family had to borrow the money from another family in order to save the mother of the family’s life – there simply wasn’t enough money to get her to a doctor or to pay for the medicine she needed.

One woman, Rosa, said she dreamed of becoming a nurse but had to drop out of school after sixth grade because her family couldn’t afford both food and education. This is a common scenario.

The people were so fun loving, and generous though. They shared in their community and they shared with the film makers. They were amazing in their ability to have so little but give so much.

The fact is, there are over one billion people living on our planet that live on somewhere close to a dollar a day. That kind of life constantly holds with it the reality of survival. (I understand that we have poor people in the United States, I understand that people struggle to make ends meet, and often can’t afford medical treatment or something else that they need, but the level of poverty shown in the film is not something often witnessed in the United States, because we have some safety nets for people like welfare, food stamps, Medicare, social security, disability, food banks, soup kitchens and charities – I understand these are not enough, but they help).

While watching the film, I started to think about mental health, and how it was treated in these villages. Do they have anxiety disorders in the poor villages of Guatemala? Do they have  ADHD? Do people suffer from depression at the same rate as we do here? This made me think about an article I read recently that people in developing countries recover at higher rates from Schizophrenia than people in the West.  

The study suggests this is from the large amount of stigma here and the better family support in other countries.

Have we, with our fierce love of independence, our desire to move away from our families, and no longer live in the same house and community as our extended family (our built in support network) made our lives better or worse?

For people with a severe mental illness, the studies seem to suggest their lives are more difficult and recovery less likely without this support.

Now, with our noses buried in our phones and our constant desire to communicate via social media we may be slipping further and further apart, making the healing support and connections that all ill people need, less and less likely.

I felt deeply for the people of Guatemala for their hard lives and their severe poverty, but they had something I envied that was just as distant to me as their hardship, and that is community, and family, and belonging.

I have never thought the richest people knew the best way to live. I have always wondered about the quality of their mental health and relationships.

I can buy a shirt that has some of Rosa’s weaving on it, and it will help her with her fund to go to nursing school. I can help her with that, that is easy for me, but do you think she can help me in return to live a simpler, less complicated, less technological life, one that puts people and their needs and their wants, and their stories, and their healing first? A life that rebuilds community, networks, and connections.

Rosa, I’m not sure if we need you, or you need us more. I’m guessing we need you. Teach us.

Jesus was Nowhere to be Found

15 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by A Journey With You in bipolar, hope, schizophrenia, stigma

≈ 46 Comments

Tags

bipolar, christ, christianity, Christmas, church, family, homeless, hope, inspiration, jesus, mental health, mental illness, mentally ill, Pastor, poor, psychiatry, psychology, schizophrenia

About ten years ago, I attended the Methodist church in the city where my husband and I were living. It was Christmas time and my parents were visiting from Arizona. The four of us decided to attend the midnight service at the church.

We arrived and the huge altar looked stunning covered in the bright red leaves of poinsettias. The stained glass windows didn’t have the sun shining through, but even the darkness of the night outside couldn’t mask their beauty. The choir, all in white robes, looked angelic, their voices filling the sanctuary.

It was Christmas and I looked forward with anticipation to hear the hope of the sermon and to sing all the carols that I loved as a child.

Christmas always brings back memories of my brothers and I when were kids. During church, my oldest brother, Joel, would tell us, his younger siblings, that the song Noel was really, Joel. So, all four of us kids would sing JOEL at the top of our lungs.  After church we were allowed to open one present and then we had to go to bed so Santa could visit. We were poor when I was little, but I never knew that, there were always presents stretching way into the living room. It was magical, it was wonderful, and it was Christmas.

It was with the heart of a child that I went to church that night. We sat in the balcony, because there was no room left below. Before the pastor started the sermon he talked to the congregation about the life of the church community, available Bible studies and upcoming rummage sales. Then he told a joke. It started out with the song bipolar people sing at Christmas (I can’t remember the punch line) and it ended with “Schizophrenics sing, Do you hear what I hear?”

I sat in that balcony in pain and shock. At the time, I still had the diagnosis of Bipolar, and I thought to myself, “If people like me are not allowed in church, where are we allowed?  If church isn’t safe, where can we find safety?”

One time a homeless man had come into the church and sat down in a pew. He started talking a little during the sermon, and he was obviously making the congregants nervous. Men from the church immediately went into action and removed him.  I thought to myself, “The weak, the sick, the needy, the poor are not welcome here. Jesus doesn’t live here anymore.”

While we were singing Silent Night outside of the church in the court yard, I eyed the pastor.  After the song was over, I approached him. “I am bipolar.” I said.  If people like me are not welcome in the church, where are we welcome?”  He was a very powerful man in the community, and very politically motivated. He said something and then turned away from me.

Not everyone who leads a church, or claims to be Christian, follows Christ. I can assure you that many of them know the teachings of Jesus but deny his words. It was a revelation to me. I’m not always welcome in church, but I know one thing for sure, If I’m not welcome and the homeless are not welcome, neither is the revolutionary that we follow.

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