From the Wayside Chapel by Graham Long

Dear Inner Circle, Does it worry you that mental illness appears to be so prevalent in our day?  Are you surprised to find that many of your friends and work colleagues   have been diagnosed and are medicated for some mental condition? Does   it cause you concern that most deviant behaviour is explained by some mental condition?  There is no doubt that there are angels in our midst who see our culture straining and  spend their time lobbying for Governments to increase spending on psychological  support and psychiatric services; they become caseworkers and helpers in some form   and they give their all to support the maximum number of people through hard times.  I love such people but I wonder when we will ever ask larger, higher level questions  about the cultural drifts at work amongst us. I'm all for asking "R U OK?" and I think  it's time to ask the same question collectively, of our whole culture.   This generation is paying a high price for the privatisation of the self. The priority  of the self on the one hand is the loss of community on the other. The power of  one has become our bedrock. We stress the achievement of success for our  young by placing them in competition with everyone else. It's a lonely  road to a lonely destination. A primary school teacher told me recently that well  over half of her class was medicated for psychological issues. I'm wondering  if we'll wait till 100% of our babies are medicated before we ask if there  is not something fundamentally misdirected about the way we live. The one  thing that most people who visit Wayside have in common is a deep knowing  that they are on their own. You don't have to be homeless to live with a sense  that no matter what it is that you're going through, that you're travelling alone.  Most of our cultural responses to human need actually maintain the underlying  disconnection of the self. I'm sure we don't think about this much, but our  answer usually involves helping people to cope better, to function more  adequately, to feel better, in the lonely journey to the abyss. Perhaps my time  has not come but it's on the way, when we will see that to be more comfortable,  more functional, or feeling better is an endless and insanely expensive journey.  One day we will see that we need to call people out of their lonely spot and into  the difficult but life giving task of belonging; to community.    Given our obsession with the power of one, it's hardly surprising that so many  individuals find comfort only in injecting or ingesting substances into the body.  We are victims of a philosophy that life and happiness is an "inner" matter.  It's not so much what you do but how you feel that matters. This is an anti human  stance and it is little wonder that it generates all manner of mental illnesses.  This generation is paying a high price but God help the next generation.  A thirteen year old girl said to me recently, "Just because you sleep with a  lot of boys, it doesn't mean that you're a sl*t." This dear baby was trying to  tell me that it didn't matter what she did with her body as long as her inner   attitude was right. If she could have expressed her thoughts, she would  have said, "Values are only inner things, projected outwards. There are no values really,  just your idea and my idea."   The fabulous string quartet, Enigma, came to Wayside again this week.  What a breathtaking gift was made to our people. These four fine musicians  played their hearts out in our cafe for about an hour. Some of us (me included)  were paralysed by the generosity with which this gift was given.  Some sat close and stopped talking! There was one fellow for whom talking  carries no meaning in the normal human sense. I think his talk is a kind of  sonar system whose echo in the room somehow comforts him that others are present.  I saw him sit in silence. To witness such a miracle caused me to fall in love with these dear bearers of heavenly music. Some people carried on talking as  usual. One fellow insisted on telling me how he went to a concert in the 1960s  with his family and how he heard Tchaikovsky played and what a clever fellow    he must have been to write such complex music and how his father didn't enjoy  it etc etc etc. He was only six feet away from this priceless gift offered to him  in this present moment and he couldn't see it and he didn't hear it. I guess in  his own annoying way, he's a bit of an angel too.   Spring has brought an abundance of life and colour to our rooftop garden and  it's a sight that has to be seen. As part of Crave Sydney, our wonderful   ambassador Indira Naidoo is hosting an urban food safari around Potts Point  on Sunday, October 21. You'll get to visit Indira's edible balcony and  The Wayside Chapel’s rooftop garden. Profits from the tour will go back to Wayside.  Click here for more details.    Thanks for taking time to read about life here in Kings Cross and thanks  for being part of our inner circle.   Graham   Rev Graham Long Pastor and CEO The Wayside Chapel Kings Cross http://www.thewaysidechapel.com/

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