9/10/2017 - God, Choices, Evil?

My Social and Cultural Foundations class in graduate school requires that I immerse myself in a different culture than my norm. I have considered many different options for this project but finally decided to visit a local forty bed residential facility in Watts, Oklahoma for mentally ill people. The residents are considered too sick to live by themselves and too healthy to live in a mental hospital. My church visits this facility every Wednesday and provides church transportation on Sunday mornings. On our way to the facility, we passed poverty stricken homes along with a strip club called the Loose Caboose.  A girl riding with me talked about preparing to minister to the women at the strip club. Two of the people in my car had their own sad family stories, and I was deeply moved by all of their efforts to go out and minister to others that were down and out. 

During our visit, we engaged in conversations with anyone that wanted to talk, or we initiated conversations with them. I mainly spoke with a woman named Stacy. She is 46 years old and seems from first appearance to be unhealthy physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. I first talked and prayed with her with our community pastor then I went back later and talked to her on my own. She was complaining about things hurting on her body. She sat slumped on the couch with a huge gash in her right knuckle. She said it was from puling her ring off of her finger. When I first saw her bloody knuckle, I was wondering why she did not have a bandaid or some medicine. Later on, several of us asked the facility workers for a bandaid.  I had to apply the bandaid because she seemed incapable of doing it herself. Stacy showed signs of schizophrenic behavior along with possible substance addictions. Her teeth showed signs of substance abuse along with her sickly appearance. She wore two hats on her head and did not wear shoes. Her clothes were big sweatpants and and a dirty shirt. She smiled when we spoke with her and complemented my teeth and my appearance. I tried to find common ground such as our age, birthdays, music, and hair. She seemed to enjoy my conversation but her continued monologue which I could hardly hear kept our dialogue from being meaningful and 

Going to this residential facility, conjured up thoughts about God, evil, and human choices. I knew before I entered this residential facility that I would not like many things about what I was going to experience. I hated some of the smells and the uncleanliness of the people and the environment. As I watched the facility workers dispense daily medicine to the residents, I wondered if the medicine was a cognitive poison. My community pastor introduced me to Kim who has worked at the facility since it started 35 years ago. I was amazed at her resilience and smile even though she worked in a place where there seemed to be very little behavioral and physical improvement. Our weekly presence was hopefully creating a disturbance in the daily sadness of a forever mentally ill state. I just thought to myself that I would hate to work her. I think I would be mentally ill if I worked here. 

After leaving, we spoke of our experience with the residents trying to place a positive spin on our presence in their lives. One of the residents stated at the end of bible study time, that their had been changes happening since we had been coming to visit. I really hoped so. Sometimes when you are praying with them, you wonder if they are really hearing the prayers or they are enjoying the attention. Either one I guess is positive.