May 10, 2010Losing God for Mental HealthMay is Mental Health Awareness Month--a fact that I was, ironically, unaware of. Mental health as a social issue often takes a back seat to more pressing concerns--oil leaks, volcanic eruptions, televised performances by Lady Gaga and the like. It also often gets shoved to the side for more romantic health epidemics; not to take anything away from breast cancer or the AIDS pandemic, but the World Health Organization, the World Bank and Harvard University discovered in their Global Burden of Disease study that "mental illness, including suicide, accounts for over 15 percent of the burden of disease in established market economies, such as the United States. This is more than the disease burden caused by all cancers." Mental health, its bad press notwithstanding, is a problem that could use a little more attention. Matt Rogers is honoring Mental Health Awareness Month by trying to springboard a conversation, using his Likewise book Losing God as a case study. In that book Matt tells his own story of the interplay of theological doubt (How can I be assured of salvation? How can I experience a relationship with an invisible and sometimes apparently distant God?) with what is ultimately identified as depression. The book is enough of a memoir to make for good beach or book club reading, enough of an extended essay on doubt and depression to spur some rigorous thought, enough of a confession (in the self-disclosing, not the self-blaming meaning of the term) to aid your attentiveness to someone you love who is wrestling with this far too common and far too underreported illness. Who knows--you may even find yourself in the story of Losing God. Posted by Dave Zimmerman
at May 10, 2010 9:36 AM
|
|
Comments are closed for this entry.