In this Mental Health Week it is good to reflect on the ministry our Chaplains are having amongst the mentally ill and the hope they bring. Peter Frith, our Chaplain at a mental health hospital tells of his ministry.

The other day I wondered up to shops and there, sitting alone on the bus stop bench, was John from the hospital. I sat next to him and said, “Hello”. He greeted me with a smile in return. We talked very little, then I rose to leave. As I did, John eyeballed me and said “Thanks for sitting with me Peter”. I didn’t think that I had done much but just sitting beside John, not saying much, was huge for him. You see, outside the hospital, no one sits with John.

It is said that “we fear what we don’t understand” and there is much we are still learning about mental health, so there is a corresponding cache of anxiety in the community over the mentally ill. You will know some of them because about 1 in 5 Australians will suffer from mental illness at some point in their life.

At my hospital, there are people who are deemed too sick to care for themselves adequately. They suffer from anything from depression and anxiety to schizophrenia to bipolar to dementia. Some are only in for a short stint. Others have made the hospital their home. One woman in her 60s has been in the hospital for 40 years. She is not called a “patient”. She is a “resident” and when the Chaplain pays a visit, it’s a home call.

Some residents are highly educated. Others come from low socio economic backgrounds. But mental illness is no respecter of persons or privilege. One man I met was a paramedic at who attended a train disaster. Pulling bodies out of that wreck snapped something in his brain and he never fully recovered.

When I hear their stories, my heart goes out to them and, at times, I feel like sobbing. But that wouldn’t do them any good. So what can a mental health chaplain do?

Well, I can say that after 27 years in parish ministry it’s quite different here. For a start, everything I have been trained for in pastoral ministry relies on linear logic - sermon series, Christianity Explained courses, counselling sessions - all based on people’s ability to follow ideas in logical succession. But many of these people cannot hold two thoughts together, either because of their illness or the medication administered to them. So every encounter is a new one, a new conversation, just like John at the bus stop (although we had had many conversations previously).

Ideas of ministry need broadening in dealing with people who have mental illness. As I reflect on Jesus’ words to the disciples in the upper room after his resurrection, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21), I am driven to ask: so how did the Father send the Son? Via his incarnation! He became one of us, tabernacled among us, sat on our turf. Yes, there is a task of doing and goal setting and achieving in ministry - doing. But, as I ponder Christ’s incarnation, there is also a ministry of being. Not just telling the message of Christ but being present, in the likeness of Christ and injecting some love, acceptance, grace, and, above all, hope.

The world of the people in this hospital is filled with professionals who poke and prod and regulate and prescribe and take notes and assess and then do it all again. The darkness that overshadows the minds of the residents is often exacerbated by the dehumanizing environment in which they live. My ministry in this environment is about extending the humanity of Jesus in a dark place where humanity and hope have all but flown away from the cuckoo’s nest.

These residents need an oasis - where they find rest for their souls. As I sit with them, like I did with John, I am just in the moment with them. I want to communicate that they don’t suffer alone and that God is there with them too. In Him there is an oasis. When they feel the acceptance of a fellow human being, it is remarkable how open they become to hearing about Jesus.

I am amazed at the amount of faith there is among these tortured souls. But without friends, church, neighbours, clubs and in many cases family, I wonder, what would their existence be like if there were no chaplains?