The Art of Not Getting Into It

I was in the waiting room of a medical office, waiting to be called back for another round of imaging, and I was filling out forms on a tablet.  You know, the forms you've already filled out a dozen times, and filled out online before you came, but still have to fill out again?  Those forms.  

We all love those forms.

I was absorbed in the process of checking boxes when I heard her voice.  It was a loud voice, a we're-fighting-right-now voice.

"This is all your fault!  I couldn't do it because of you!  I've waited years and years for today, and you ****ed it all up for me!"

I looked up.  She was in her thirties, best I could tell, disheveled and awkwardly dressed, and the older man she was yelling at was likely her father.   From context, I figured she'd failed to tolerate an MRI, which I was looking forward to encountering myself just a few minutes later.  For some folks, the enclosure causes a claustrophobic panic response, and sedation is necessary.  I was about to find out whether I fit into that category.

"All I wanted was ten dollars, and would you give it to me?  No!  Just ten ****ing dollars, that was all, and you're too ****ing cheap and selfish to ****ing do even that."

This seemed a little baffling, so I continued to listen, as the father sat quietly while she paced and ranted at him.  "Just a little ****ing weed, ten dollars for a little weed to calm me down, and you wouldn't do it.  I can't ****ing believe you!  I've waited five years for that test, and you couldn't give me ten ****ing dollars!"  

It seemed fairly clear in that moment that ten dollars worth of cannabis would not be likely to solve that young woman's primary life challenges.  I wondered if that MRI would have been of her brain.  It seemed possible.

He began packing up a bag, still silent, and her raging intensified.  "I wouldn't be so ****ing ****ed up in the first place if it weren't for you!  You and Mom are the worst parents!   You're a ****ing sadist!  A sadist pervert!  You're PERVERTED, that's what you are!  A PERVERT!  A perverted masochistic SADIST!"  

The father looked up at her and smiled at this phrasing, just a little bit, as if he was suppressing a laugh.  Then he got up, and began walking to the elevators at a calm pace.  He seemed neither embarrassed nor angry.

She followed, cursing and berating.  But following nonetheless.

There is so much that a parent can endure for the love of their child.

Prayer and Helplessness

He arrived on my doorstep yesterday, back from his journeying, haggard and with eyes overbright with his illness.

I kept the dog back, and stepped outside to speak with him.  He's a neighbor, and a neighbor in need, but his challenges are beyond me.  Where I can, I help him, driving him to the store or doing odd tasks around the house.  If I don't have the time or I am too depleted to focus on his need, I tell him.  Boundaries are there for a reason.

But mostly I just listen whenever I have time to listen, because he needs someone to listen.  We all do.

In his hand was a paper, a hastily drafted legal document that reflected his pursuit of a lawyer he is convinced is responsible for all of his woes.  I reviewed it.  It was neat, and tidy, and completely insane, a systematic recounting of the demons that have come to inhabit his mind.  

Are you sure you can file this, I asked?  He was sure he could.  But I gently demurred when asked for a ride to the courthouse, and then suggested, again gently, that perhaps the law was not a fruitful place for him to find succor.  I'm not sure he heard me.  In fact, I know he did not.

But he did hear my sympathy at his dental woes, and seemed genuinely surprised at the sympathy.  As we talked, I offered a reminder that perhaps there were folks who could help him in ways that might get more deeply at what actually ails him.

I sent him on his way, and promised to look for help that he might be willing to accept.  A tricky wicket, mental illness is.  So beyond us.   It is easy to feel helpless in the face of it.

And so I pray for him, for calmness for his agitated mind.  Why?  In praying, I remind myself to act as the agent of my Lord's grace.  What use is prayer, if it does not change and guide us in those places where we know we are out of our depth?