A Dream Revived!

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At 10 am today Episcopal Rector Daniel Rabayo, EMU counseling professor Cheree Hammond and other concerned citizens Rita Dunaway, Doris Pye, Sam Nickles and I met with Community Services Board Director Lacy Whitmore to discuss ways of improving mental health services at the local jail. This was a follow-up to a similar meeting some of us had with him a year ago.

Currently the CSB has a contract to provide a mere 2 1/2 hours of psychiatric services each week for a very crowded inmate population numbering from 350 to 400, plus leading some substance abuse classes and being on call for emergency services. Due to a lack of staff and other resources, suicidally depressed persons may spend hours confined to either a restraint chair or the padded isolation cell, the latter with the inmate having only a paper gown to wear and with their only amenity being a hole in the floor for a commode.

Here's a link to information about the uses of such restraints during the first six months of this year.

We made some good progress today. With Mr. Whitmore's support, we agreed to form a local planning group of concerned citizens to come up with a proposal to utilize professional mental health volunteers to provide surveillance and care for suicidal and other emotionally distressed inmates. Lacy will discuss this further with Sheriff Bryan Hutcheson and I will be gathering and circulating information from the Arlington Regional Jail, a facility that already has such a program in place. We hope to have our first planning meeting in four to six weeks.

For the long term, we strongly support a proposal Mr. Whitmore presented today for a full time "Jail Services Crisis Clinician". We recognize this may face major funding hurdles, but in the meantime believe we can do much more to improve mental health services at the jail with well supervised volunteer help and coordination. While safety and liability issues are always a concern, state regulations do allow for outside personnel to visit inmates at the discretion of the sheriff or other jail administrator, as follows:

Code section 53:1-127 "... the sheriff, jail administrator or other person in charge of the facility shall prescribe the time and conditions under which attorneys and other persons may enter the local correctional facility for which he is responsible."

We thank Mr. Whitmore for meeting with us today and for helping us gain some good traction for moving forward. If you would like to be a part of this community effort to help the jail become a better place for growth and rehabilitation, please get in touch. We'll keep you posted.

For more posts on criminal justice reform, check this link.

JustLove: Christian Faith In Its Essence

source

I don’t claim to be a theologian, but if I could invent a term that would express the heart of what life and faith should be all about it would a coined, compound word, ‘JustLove'.

The word “just” here is intended to carry a dual meaning, first reflecting the fact that we are told in scripture that God isn’t only about demonstrating love, or teaching us to practice love, but that God is love, and that this love of God's is not only merciful but just. The entire Law and the Prophets, we are told, can be summed up in the well known first and greatest command to “Love the Lord your God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength.” And then to “Love your every neighbor as yourself.”

It's as simple--and as difficult--as that.

It is the apostle John who asserts that God is love, that the concepts of agape love and God are inseparable and interchangeable. But it’s clear that this kind of love is far more than a sentimental warm feeling, but is about a tough and tender grace, with justice and mercy for all. To be sure, this God may demonstrate a tough love, but it is always just, and always like the loved lived and taught by Jesus.

Not being a well trained or profound scholar, I’m sure I could err on the side of making things too elementary, but I also believe we can make things way too complicated. The JustLove of Jesus, the apostles and the Hebrew prophets is indeed simple, but it is far from easy.

Needless to say, it’s something I want to promote with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength.

Three Levels of Neediness

from photoplay.net

One of my most frequently visited posts has been the April, 2011, blog on “Two Levels of Poverty”, comparing the lifestyle of most of the world’s needy with the financially distressed poor often found in the U.S.

Last Saturday several of us met with Elroy Miller, social work prof at EMU, to discuss ways of helping people with chronic financial problems in a way that doesn’t create unhealthy dependency. As I’ve reflected on that meeting I’ve come up with the following three categories of neediness.

The Dysfunctionally Needy. These most dependent and difficult cases involve people who lack the means and/or the motivation to do what is needed to survive without constant care. Many may be mentally or physically ill or disabled, or for a variety of reasons lack the capacity to take care of themselves. But lest we think only in “us” versus “them” categories, we could include young children and the incapacitated aged in this group as well. Certainly in the past, and likely sometime in the future, we have all been, or will be, unable to function on our own. In any case, every human being of whatever age or capacity is a precious child of God who is worthy of our concern and able to add value to our lives in spite of their state or condition. If people in this category have no close families or friends to care for them they must rely on help in the form of food from soup kitchens and food banks, on homeless shelters for housing and other social services assistance to survive.

The Mysfunctionally Needy. This group may experience constant financial distresses, but does manage to function by cobbling together whatever help they need from whatever sources available. Hopefully, this group is in transition from being largely dysfunctional to becoming optimally functional members of their communities. In this phase, they often remain dependent on a variety of social services like food stamps, subsidized housing, free clinics and other charitable or governmental assistance programs in order to survive. Unfortunately, if they do work, they often have menial jobs with low wages and few or no benefits, and may in fact have to hold down several part time jobs to make ends meet. Due to lack of skills, education, opportunity or motivation many may remain stuck in this category for most of their lives.

The Wellfunctionally Needy. Even the best of us will always be dependent on others in significant ways. There is no such thing as any of us being completely “self-sufficient”. But ideally members of this group are a part of communities in which they are giving and receiving in somewhat equal (though not identical) ways. They recognize that everyone has gifts and assets as well as needs and disabilities, and that each child of God is both worthy of care and capable of contributing to others interdependently and significantly. People in this group may continue to benefit from government programs and services in the form of schools, roads, mail delivery, social security and countless other government funded programs, but they are responsible in their payment of taxes and fees that substantially fund such benefits.

In summary, we are each somewhere on a continuum from lower to higher levels of functioning, and should all contribute as much as we can as active members of interdependent communities.

Combining Walking With Talking--A Modest September Experiment

A few facts:

I should exercise more, lose a few pounds and stay in better shape.

I like to walk, but my good wife prefers other forms of exercise, and I find it hard to stay motivated to walk alone.

I seem to have far too little time to spend with other friends and colleagues.

Trial September solution? Combine some walking with talking.

So if anyone out there is interested, let me know if you're up for a 7:30 or 8 am walk somewhere in the Park View area sometime in the coming month, or at some other place of your choice. I could even meet you for some rounds around the track at the EMU Commons, although I prefer the outdoors if the weather is nice.

It's an expression of my practical side, I guess, this experiment with multi-tasking. And I can think of any number of people I'd love to spend 30-45 minutes with in a brisk walk and for some good conversation.

Let me know if you're interested in accompanying me sometime in the coming month by emailing harvyoder@gmail.com.

First come, first converse.

A Free Class on Marriage Maintenance

Question:  How long can a Mercedes-Benz run without an oil change?

Answer:  About 43,000 miles.

I'm told this actually happened.  A certain newlywed couple was given a new Mercedes as a wedding gift, then proceeded to drive it, year after year, without ever bothering to check or change the oil.

Finally one day while traveling north on I-95 the engine in this beautiful Benz just froze up and refused to go any further.  Wouldn’t budge.  The oil in the crankcase had become the consistency of a grimy, gooey mess.

Some couples start out with what looks like a Mercedes-Benz marriage.  A picture perfect wedding.  An ideally matched pair.  What could go wrong?

Sometimes what’s wrong is the maintenance.  Or lack of it.

Cars come with pages of instructions on what to do make your vehicle last.  And most of us figure that the older a vehicle gets, the more maintenance it will need.

But marriages don’t come with manuals.  And somewhere we’ve gotten the foolish idea that the older a relationship gets, the less maintenance it takes to keep it alive and thriving.

We need to reverse that thinking.  Every new bride or groom should come with one clear instruction: “Whatever wonderful and considerate things you did to win my love, you should do twice as regularly and just as creatively to keep it alive.”

Here is a sample of maintenance tips for couples:

DAILY:  1)  a warm, conversational chat of no less than ten minutes,  2)  at least one warm, prolonged hug,  3)  two or more compliments and/or I love yous,  4) a prayer or meditation time together.

WEEKLY:  1)  some kind of date for just the two of you,   2)  a couples’ meeting to review your past week and plan your next one,  3)  A love you note or card.

MONTHLY:  1)  a really special date or celebration. 

ANNUALLY:  1)  a weekend honeymoon getaway,  2)  a marriage enrichment seminar,  3)  A checkup of your marital health with a pastor, counselor or another mentor couple. 

All this may seem like a lot of work, but when you think of it, isn’t a great marriage worth even more than a good Mercedes?

Here's some information from the Family Life Resource Center about an upcoming class for couples:

MARRIAGE MAINTENANCE, a four-session seminar for couples that focuses on “Four Healthy Habits of Happily Married Couples,” will be led by Harvey Yoder and meet Mondays from 7-8:30 beginning September 9. A freewill offering is taken to benefit the Center in lieu of a fee for the class. The text, Lasting Marriage, the Owners’ Manual, is $10. Register at 434-8450 or services@flrc.org.

Should The Bible Be Tethered To Our Churches?

Of course not, we say. Everyone should have the right--and the responsibility--to read and interpret the scriptures for themselves, individually. And having any Bible literally tethered to something seems like a terrible idea.

Having said that, the real reason copies of the Bible were once kept chained at churches was not because some religious leaders wanted to keep lay people from having access to scripture. Rather, it was because hand written copies of the text were so rare and were prohibitively expensive prior to the invention of the printing press.

Of course, many lay people prior to Gutenberg were illiterate anyway, but because of the scarcity of available copies pretty much all Christians had to depend on the public reading and exposition of the Bible in their churches.

Needless to say, I really value having my own access to multiple versions of scripture, but I've also come to believe there is some merit to having more of our serious study and interpretation of the text done together, with fellow members of our congregations.

Why?

In the first place, the 66 books in the Protestant canon were almost all addressed to whole communities of faith rather than to single individuals. They were clearly intended for communal use. As one indication of this, the Bible's pronouns are predominantly plural rather than singular, which is abundantly clear in the King James version, where "ye", "you" or "your" are always plural, whereas "thee", "thou" or "thine" are used when addressing individuals. In good Southern form, the Bible is mostly addressed to "you all".

Of course this doesn't mean that the message of scripture isn't meant to be personal. But it is never intended to be private. It shouldn't be surprising that since the rise of individualism and the subsequent insistence on each person's "private interpretation" being just as valid as everyone else's, that we've experienced a distressing proliferation of thousands of sects, splits and splinter groups--each claiming they have the one true understanding of scripture. That is truly one of the travesties of our time.

We may not realize that the first Christian churches had no access to any written "Bible" except for copies of the Hebrew Pentateuch (the Law), the Writings, and the Prophets kept in local synagogues. The life and teachings of Jesus were preserved as an oral tradition well before they became written as the Gospels. The pastoral letters of the apostle Paul and others were at first circulated from church to church for public reading and only later became a part of the official canon. Clearly the Bible was, as it always should be, a book of and for the people of God, and not meant only for private study or devotions.

The wisdom that comes from groups of people prayerfully seeking to understand a text is always greater than that of any one person's alone. We need to pay attention to both the witness of past faith traditions and the Spirit-driven consensus of fellow believers as we seek to know more of God's will and way for our time. We will still never agree on all matters of faith, but we can experience a common bond in our search of the truths we need to live by.

Note this from J. B. Phillips rendering of the Apostle Paul's words in Romans 12:3-7 [brackets added]: 

Don’t let the world around you [the congregation at Rome] squeeze you into its own mold, but let God re-mold your minds from within, so that you [all] may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all God's demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.

As your spiritual teacher I give this piece of advice to each one of you. Don’t cherish exaggerated ideas of yourself or your importance, but try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities by the light of the faith that God has given to you all. For just as you have many members in one physical body and those members differ in their functions, so we, though many in number, compose one body in Christ and are all members of one another. Through the grace of God we have different gifts. If our gift is preaching, let us preach to the limit of our vision. If it is serving others let us concentrate on our service; if it is teaching let us give all we have to our teaching; and if our gift be the stimulating of the faith of others let us set ourselves to it.

We need to bring all of the gifts and insights of the congregation together in our study of scripture.

Beloved Car Doctors Finally Retire

Michael Reilly photo courtesy of the Daily News-Record

Our favorite car mechanic, Sonny Taylor, has finally retired after 35 years of operating Sonny's Servicenter, just up the street from us. Along with his good wife Eileen, who answered the phone and worked the cash register, they have come to our aid countless times with our frequently ailing vehicles.We're going to miss them a lot.

One of eight in his family, Sonny was one of the hardest workers I've ever known. I remember when he kept the station open from before 6 am to 8 or 9 at night on a regular basis, six days a week, plus operating his tow truck at all hours as needed. Over time he began to close somewhat earlier in the day, and eventually cut back to half days on Saturday, and only recently went to a five day work week. But he still always came to work before six, rain or shine.

In spite of his exceptional work ethic, he always took time each morning to have conversations with some of the men who regularly stopped by on their way to work just to hang out. There were two groups of them, he told me, one he affectionately called the "Liars Club" and the other the "Mennonite Mafia". Sonny and Eileen always had time for people and never seemed to be in a hurry, and were legendary for the service they provided to the community.

As evidence of the affection the community had for them, on their last day of having their place open yesterday people stopped throughout the day to wish them well and to enjoy the refreshments provided by their son and their two daughters. There were dozens of cards displayed that were sent by well wishers from near and far, some of whom gave gift cards to area restaurants with a total value of over $600.

So far, no one has come forward to rent the garage that has served so many so well for so long. Even if they did, we fear they could never provide the good service the Taylors have.

Some people are just irreplaceable.