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“…, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.”

My brothers told me I had not dealt with the past. I assured them that I had and that I was fine. They said my reactions and behavior told otherwise. They said I needed to process it and deal with it in order to release the torment in my mind. I weighed their comments and concerns daily. Unlike Alice, I thought long and hard about whether or not I wanted to go down the rabbit-hole facing me. I knew most definitely I did not want to! I was afraid of what I would find. I was afraid I might not find my way home!

Last year I attended a stress management seminar for first responders and learned a lot about myself and how I am wired. I remembered unhealthy behaviors from my past and recognized current ones. I knew there was a perfect storm brewing in my head. It scared me! I knew that I needed to jump quickly. I needed to get out in front of my challenges. I would rather be out front, fixing the train rails instead of following behind, trying to clean up the train wreck that my life could so easily become!

I knew I needed to find the right person to help. Someone who understood people wired like me. After several calls and various recommendations, I decided to call and talk with Tracy. She suggested that I come to her office to meet and talk about what I was struggling with and see if we were a good fit. She wanted ensure that she felt comfortable with me and my challenges as well as me being comfortable and confident that she could help.

Let me say this, it’s been a journey! Some fun, some uncomfortable, and some painful things have been dug up and examined. Advice has been given, some guilt has been dealt with, and improvements have been made. While the journey has not been smooth (I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be), it has been successful so far. This spring I told Tracy I appreciated her and was certain our last few months had been successful, if for no other reason than I hadn’t done anything really stupid this winter. The journey isn’t over, and I’m sure there will be more bumps along the way. I’m also sure it will all be worthwhile.

I think it’s important to make sure we take care of our mental health just like we would our physical health. “A check-up from the neck up” as Tracy puts it. Our entire being, mind and body, needs to be healthy.

Lately, I’ve read a few things and watched some interviews with those who struggle with mental health issues. I have a couple takeaways that seem pretty significant to me. Inside our heads can be a scary place, so when we help others with their battles, we get out of our heads. This is good because we are not only helping those around us, but are also helping ourselves in the process. One of best quotes I’ve read lately is, “In your darkest hour, when the demons come, call on me brother and we will fight them together.”

We also need to work hard to break the stigma attached to mental health issues. I had an A&P professor who pounded that into our heads over and over again. He was adamant that mental health issues should be treated no differently than any other health issue. He said we are just seeing the manifestation of some injury or imbalance, and that we should treat all of our patients with the same respect. Just because someone is fighting a battle we know nothing about, does not mean they don’t deserve to be treated with dignity and be helped.

As a child, I remember having rabbits and finding rabbit burrows. The mother lovingly pads her burrow with the fur she pulls from herself to create a warm, fuzzy, safe place for her newborn offspring. How ironic, this trip I’ve chosen. This journey down a rabbit-hole. It doesn’t feel so warm, fuzzy, and safe! Sometimes, in order to grow, you have to step outside your comfort zone!

Today I weep
I struggle and try
How I wonder why
This life has gone awry

The twisting of the soul
The struggle of the mind
Wondering what kind
Of sadness makes us blind

Today I cry
Trying to understand
How one takes this stand
Friend missing from this land

The thoughts run wild
Gut wrenching pain
Was it all in vain
God cries with me in the rain!

Her call tugs gently at first, like a seductive whisper in the night. The longer it goes unanswered, the stronger it becomes. I resist, for years it seems, as time drags on. Trudging down the path of life like a good soldier, doing my part to fit in and be a productive member of society. I was doing the right thing, being smart and reasonable. But the whispers in my ear are long gone, replaced by the screams of a pissed off banshie. Drowning out sanity and common sense, what little there may be left in this aged head. Her wanderlust demands to be satisfied! Now!

My wife tells me, half jokingly, that I may not listen to Jose V. Rojas, Dick Duerksen and Shane Claiborne speak. She fears I’ll come home, fired up to move to some long lost, devastated part of the world, ready for a grand adventure that is bigger than me. But what is wrong with that? Why not? It might be fun!

As a younger person, I worked in a lot of different places and saw many unique things. It only served to fuel the strong gypsy desires within me. After my freshman year, I had planned to take a year off from college. I was going to work for six months then travel the world. Two weeks before classes started, I changed my mind and headed back to college. That year I met a cute young lady and was deeply smitten! At the end of that year she broke my heart and the siren’s call was returning, stronger than ever!

Staying focused was so hard when there was no definitive goal. I was just going through the motions because that’s what you’re supposed to do. There were fun days, but many dark days. So confused, so lost, so distracted by the desire to hit the road. I told my buddy Lyle, that if he woke up to a good-bye note on his door, I had succumbed to the call, packed a bag, and headed to parts unknown on my motorcycle. Wind on my face, known roads behind, the terrifying excitement of the unknown ahead.

Prevailing wisdom won out, I slogged through for the most part. I spent four more years attending some of my classes, only to march as a summer graduate, three credits shy of my degree. There wasn’t much motivation to finish. What was the point anyway? Let’s get on with life! And so I did. Marriage, work, play, maybe kids some day. Most risk was limited to fast trips along winding roads. There were glimpses of roads less traveled, but commitments needed to be fulfilled. Clients still had to be satisfied, jobs had to be finished.

Our first child arrived and my wife stayed home to care for him. Cheap apartment rent and a good job, that seamed manageable! Through some unexpected circumstances, we became homeless. We were given 25 days to pack, find a new home and move, all while working and trying to manage life’s daily challenges. Thankfully, I had an incredible grandmother that allowed us to move in to her house for a short time. We purchased a travel trailer and found ourselves living on a job site in California, then returning home to live in a friend’s yard. I miss the trailer life! Not much stuff. Not much space. No significant maintenance. You have enough room for seven days of food and clothes. If you don’t do laundry and go grocery shopping once a week, you’re hungry and naked.

Finally, we bought a house. Another child graced us with his presence. My wife still stayed home with the little ones. We had the American Dream… or did we? I felt trapped, chained to the bank by my house. Trapped in the nightmare of the every day struggles to have the American Dream. I was lost, struggling and desperate. I needed adventure, I needed the open road, the unknown, but it was not to be.

I gambled, changed jobs, and went back to school. I sacrificed my time and fun. I set wild, crazy, age inappropriate goals! I reached for the brass ring, and I got it! Blood, sweat, and tears paid off. At long last I reached my goal. I did what others said I could not. I succeeded where others had not. The success tasted sweet.

Guess what? Slowly, sweetly, the siren’s call has once again begun to reach my ears. Wanderlust runs in my blood! Somehow I must figure out how to satiate this desire and balance life. I guess there is always another goal, another mountain, and always another unknown road!

We get up in the morning and we open our closets. We shove our skeletons in for safe keeping and grab our finest clothes. We shower, shave and get dressed to kill. We paste a smile on our face and venture out into the world, headed to church to show how good we are. We don’t want to be contaminated, we don’t want others to see we have some residue we forgot to remove. We purr so sweetly when asked how we are, as we shake with fright that someone just might see past our facade, and know that we are fake!

Over the last year I’ve had a chance to learn how much I appreciate church. As a young person, I used my Sabbath as a true day of rest from my labors, but it included sleeping most of the day. Later in life I attended church most weeks. Lately, my work schedule only allows me to attend every other week, and I miss my weekly church visits. I miss my community!

I’d like to pause this train of thought and apologize to Alex Bryan and all my pastoral friends in advance if I offend. While I enjoy the spiritual food I receive on the weeks I attend, I fear we have taken what church should be for granted! Not to say that the Pastor’s message isn’t important, it is, but that is not what church is for. We were called to be a community. A community who supports each other through thick or thin, in good times and bad. Instead, we soldier on, bearing our own burdens in silence because we are afraid of what others might think. How crazy!

Too many people view church as performance theater instead of the spiritual hospital that it is! We try to look right, act right, and talk right, so we can prove that we are right. But we are not right! We all have skeletons in our closets. We have all made mistakes. We are all battered, bruised and broken!

This view that church is for good, perfect people is such a horrible warping of what, I believe God intended! Church isn’t a museum, it’s a hospital. It makes no sense to expect someone to come to church and suddenly be perfect. If I take someone into the Emergency Room with a serious illness or injury, we don’t expect them to get up and walk out that same day perfectly healthy. So why do we expect that of broken people when they go to church?

Life is hard, messy and overwhelming. People are broken, dirty and searching for support. We owe it to each other to be there and to support each other through life’s challenges. We need to be real with each other. We need to willing and lovingly call BS on our friends when they need it, and carry them when they can’t walk through the valley of darkness. We need to be God’s heart and hands on this earth. We need to be community for each other!

Everyone has skeletons in their closet. Almost everyone hides those skeletons. Maybe we should make an effort to be real with each other. Maybe we should take our skeletons out of the darkness of our closets, into the light, and dance with them. It just might make us a little more real. It just might make us a little bit more understanding and empathetic. It just might help us help each other.

Sunlight illuminates the dark places. Sunlight kills bad stuff. So grab your skeletons and dance with me. And in the process, let’s be someone’s community!