Journal of Sacred Work

Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible – not to have run away. – Dag Hammarskjöld – former United Nations Secretary General

   I’m not sure I would have believed the last sentence of the above statement if it hadn’t been written by one of the great leaders of the 20th century. Until his tragic death in a plane crash in 1961, Dag Hammarskjöld was one of the most admired men in the world. He never ran away. And in his book, Markings, he talks of our need for courage as caregivers for each other.
   Amy suffers from mental illness. Many, when subjected to physical and mental abuse like Amy was from age seven on, escape into an altered reality. By age seventeen, Amy started hearing voices. She began to mutilate herself and was institutionalized.
   What is the relationship between Hammarskjöld, a world leader, and Amy, who is so anonymous I’m not even using her full name?… 

   The quality of Amy’s life today – even its very existence – is due in many ways to the loving care of people in an organization called the Park Center. Park Center caregivers refuse to "run away." With courage and eloquence, Amy tells some of her story in the public newletter published by the Center.
   Who wants to be around a person who is depressed, hears voices, and wants to kill herself? Almost everyone ran away from Amy. Worst of all, Amy wanted to run from herself by leaving the world that had brought her nothing but torment. In so many ways, the Park Center saved her life by helping bring peace to the battle raging within this one woman.
   On the grandest scale, Dag Hammarskjöld wanted to bring to this earth the thing everyone dreams about and Miss America candidates used to say they prayed for (perhaps to please the judges.) Hammarskjöld refused to give up on his dream for world peace. During his nearly eight-year term, he immersed himself in the world’s problems rather than running from them. And he found the deep courage to interpose himself between warring parties engaged in the language of hate instead of love.
   You can lose your life when you step between combatants – especially if you bring a message of love. In fact, on the last day of his life, Dag Hammarskjöld was on a mission to bring about a cease-fire between warring factions in the Congo when his plane crashed.
   A war has been going on inside Amy since she was a child. The only difference between CEO Barbara Quinn and her fellow caregivers at The Park Center on the one hand, and the Secretary General of the UN on the other, is a question of scale. One group seeks peace for the world, the other focuses on bringing peace to the minds of individuals – one at a time.
   Gradually, Amy and her caregivers are winning their battle against the dark voices that sometimes frighten and disorient her. "When I first started at Park Center, I could not get through a full day without a panic attack," she writes in the Center’s newsletter. Along with this, she openly shares the truth of her many past attempts at suicide. "The good voices were my bears," she continues. "They kept me safe…The bad voices…told me I was the scum of the earth, fat, ugly and many other nasty, negative things."
   Fortunately, after years of treatment, Amy tells us she is now going to a community college, working part time at the Center and helping orient new members in the club-style model which Park uses. With the help of the Park staff, she is facing into the harsh winds of her "bad voices." Amy has enlisted the help of Park Center caregivers to support her in pursuing the only feat possible – not to run away from her troubles.
   Famous star or anonymous caregiver. World leader or woman living with mental illness. There is not so much distance, or difference, among us in the challenges we face.
   The question is not how hard our problems are, but whether we find the courage to face them with love, not fear. And whether we are wise enough to engage caregivers, like the angels at the Park  Center, to walk with us through our darkest forests past the demons that threaten us.

-Erie Chapman