Minds and Brains

The scriptures referred to are 1 Kings 19:1-15a, Psalms 42-43, and Luke 8:26-39.

Terry Bisson wrote a short story in which 2 aliens discuss the amazing findings of their UFO abductions and probes of human beings. As one alien puts it, “They're made out of meat!” The other alien simply cannot understand how meat made machines and the radio signals they've picked up. He doubts we have brains. The first says, “Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat.”

The other alien says, “So...what does the thinking?”

“You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat.”

“Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!”

“Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal!”

The idea so disturbs them that they decide to not answer the radio signals from earth and to let the humans think that the rest of the universe is devoid of life.

It's hilarious and not very long. I reposted it to my Facebook page. And while it is a gross simplification, even from an anatomical standpoint—hello, we have bones, too—it does have a point. While we are more than just meat, we are not merely minds. We have physical bodies and physical brains. People may argue over whether our minds are merely the byproduct of our brains or inhabitants of them, but it is undeniable that each affects the other. Damage to or diseases of the brain can affect our thinking and moods. Psychoactive drugs physically affect the brain and change the way a person thinks and feels. But so do immaterial things like thoughts and feelings. If I tell you something you didn't previously know, without physically touching your head, I will cause neurons in your brain to make a connection. If it is vivid or surprising enough, I will have caused your brain to physically encode it as a strong memory. And if I tell you someone you loved died, even over a phone, I will nevertheless have activated the limbic system deep within your brain, which controls your emotions and behavior. In our brain the physical and the nonphysical meet and interact with each other.

And they can make lasting changes. As I said a few weeks ago the death of his first wife changed George Carlin's comedy and made it very dark and pessimistic. I think it was only the fact that he married again a year later that kept him alive. When a person has been married for decades and their spouse dies, the survivor has a 66% increased risk of death in the first 3 months. After that he still has a 15% increased chance of dying. By all accounts Carlin's second marriage was very happy. But when he stepped onstage to make people laugh, his mind still went to very dark places.

In our passage from 1 Kings we can see that the prophet Elijah was very depressed. He asked God to let him die. And while the death threat he got from Queen Jezebel might have factored into that, he had just triumphed over the prophets of Baal and announced the end of the drought in the land. He should feel exhilarated. But he is not. Perhaps he is exhausted. In response to Jezebel having the Lord's prophets killed, Elijah just had the prophets of Baal executed in accordance with the laws of Moses. (Deuteronomy 17:2-7) But it was a bloody business. It had to have affected him. He also felt isolated. He said he was the only prophet of Yahweh left. Had he forgotten that Obadiah told him he had hidden 100 other prophets in caves? (1 Kings 18:13) Clearly, his perceptions and memory were affected.

Depression can interfere with memory and thinking. And research has revealed a connection between systemic inflammation and depression. While depression is not merely an inflammatory disease, inflammation is a factor and doctors have found giving anti-inflammatory drugs alongside antidepressants can lead to better outcomes. Among the causes of inflammation is emotional trauma. Stress causes a physical response in the body. Short-term stress can be helpful but long-term stress can cause damage to the brain. It can even trigger a chronic reaction from the immune system.

Why am I going on about this? Because many people still have erroneous and even harmful ideas about mental health issues. They say they are all in your head. And they are right, but not in the way they think they are. Thanks to fMRIs and PET scans, we can see how the brain is physically changed. There are visible differences in the brains of people with major depression or with PTSD or with bipolar disease or with anorexia or with schizophrenia. If the brain has functional or structural problems, it can't operate as it ought. Indeed it looks like mental disorders are brain disorders. What we think of as a mental illness might just be the symptoms of a brain that isn't functioning normally.

But as we said, nonphysical things can affect the brain. You pile enough problems on someone and they can get depressed. Carlin lost his wife and had a history of at least 3 major heart attacks and continuing heart disease. That would depress anyone. Research has found that people who had 4 or more major adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) were at a higher risk of both mental and physical health issues, as well as addiction and risky behaviors. Psychological trauma and stress affect the developing brains of children. Again the physical and nonphysical are intertwined in their effects on people.

All of which means that even believers in God can have mental health issues. It is not a sin to feel depressed nor is it necessarily the result of sin. Besides the experience of Elijah, we can look at the 2 psalms we read. Psalms 42 and 43 seem to be part of the same poem. The psalmist describes how he keeps crying, how his soul feels heavy, how his strength is gone and how he wonders where God is. He understands that this will pass and that he will be able to give thanks to God and worship him again some day. But this is not that day. And so he keeps reminding himself to put his trust in God.

It's almost as if he is doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on himself. He is acknowledging and naming his feelings but he is not falling into the trap of thinking they are absolute or will last forever. Instead he is countering them by reminding himself that the Lord is forever and that he is good and just.

Elijah, however, was magnifying his awful feelings. His situation was not hopeless, nor was he alone in his stand for the true God. Were our lectionary passage not inexplicably cut short, we would read that God revealed to Elijah that he was far from alone: there were 7000 people left in Israel who had not worshiped Baal. (1 Kings 19:18)

Often we let our negative mood exaggerate the extent of our situation. It's not true that everyone hates us; it's just that one person has a problem with us and it may be that he really has a problem with himself. We are not totally worthless; we may have trouble with one issue but we have other skills and strengths; no one is perfect. Things are not hopeless; they may be bad at present but they need not stay that way forever. Everything is not ruined; one or two things might have gone wrong but they may very well be correctable. We need to do a reality check and not view everything as a catastrophe.

If you close one eye and hold a quarter close enough to the other you can block out your ability to see the rest of the world. Pull back from the problem, open both eyes and get a sense of perspective and proportion. Don't assume that obstacles are permanent or immovable. Don't assume there is only one path to your goal. Don't assume that because you can't accomplish something the exact way you wish to do it that it can't be done at all. All things change and there are some things you can change including your mind.

In Elijah's case, he needed basics like food and drink and a good sleep. Then he needed something to do. So he climbed the mountain of God and took up residence in a cave. God showed him a great wind and an earthquake and a fire. And while God caused them, they are not him. But they gave Elijah a demonstration of God's power and a sense of proportion. Are his problems greater than God's power to deal with them?

Then there follows the sound of a soft whisper (a better translation of the Hebrew). When he hears it, Elijah moves to the mouth of the cave. God asks him what he is doing here and Elijah tells him what is on his mind and on his heart. Then, in addition to the news of the 7000 Israelites still loyal to God, the Lord gives Elijah some tasks to do. One of his tasks is to find and anoint Elisha who will be his successor. Elijah's term as God's chief prophet in Israel is almost over. God is letting Elijah retire from his labors for him.

Sometimes a mental illness can't be dealt with so easily. In our gospel Jesus encounters a man who is living in the local graveyard, naked. His people cannot control him. When he has an episode, he can break his bonds and run off into the wild. Mark's account tells us that the man would cry out night and day and cut himself with stones. (Mark 5:5) He is literally battling his demons. When he sees Jesus, he knows who he is and asks that Jesus not torment him. Exorcising the man feels like torture to the entity within him. Jesus asks the man his name and the identity in control answers “Legion.” A legion was a division of the Roman army consisting of 6000 infantry plus cavalry. This man has been overwhelmed by the large number of evil voices at war within him.

He is beyond any talking cure. His problem is not a matter of shifting his perspective because the instrument through which he perceives the world and himself is totally compromised. Today we might classify him as psychotic. So Jesus throws out the identities that are tormenting the man. And when people from the city and countryside come, they find the man, “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”

And they are freaked out—by the cure, not the disease. It may be that they think the cure was too costly to their local economy. Mark tells us the number of pigs drowned was about 2000. (Mark 5:13) That's a lot of pork. The question is whether saving a person is more important than pigs. We know what the answer is for many people. One reason we don't have adequate mental health care today is this swinish inversion of priorities, valuing wealth more than health. Jesus puts the man before money.

In Matthew 4:23 we read, “Jesus went throughout all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of diseases and sickness among the people.” It gets repeated in practically the same words in Matthew 9:35. Because it is an excellent summary of Jesus' ministry: teaching, preaching and healing. Why have we largely dropped one third of Christ's mission? Why do people, including Christians, not show as much compassion for those whose physical illnesses are manifested in mental symptoms as they do for those whose afflictions are more obviously physical? And why would we ever equate any kind of illness with sin or a lack of faith? When his disciples saw a disabled man they asked, “Rabbi, who committed the sin that caused this man to be born blind, this man or his parents?” Jesus replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but he was born blind so that the acts of God may be revealed through what happens to him.” (John 9:2-3) Jesus' response to people suffering was not to assign blame but to help the person. And so should we.

According to the World Health Organization, there has been a 13% increase in mental health conditions all over the globe. Just under 20% of Americans have experienced a mental illness, around 50 million people. More than half do not receive treatment. The percentage of adults expressing serious thoughts of suicide has increased every year since 2012. It now stands at 4.5% of adults. 2/3s of those who die by suicide are men, with the highest rate among middle-aged white men. More than half are by firearms and 1/3 are found to have alcohol in their system. Triggers to suicide tend to be stressful life events, especially rejection, divorce, a financial crisis or another life transition or loss.

According to the American Association for Suicide Prevention, there are 5 main factors that can protect people from killing themselves. They are: access to mental health care and being proactive about mental health; feeling connected to family and community support; problem-solving and coping skills; limited access to lethal means; and cultural and religious beliefs that encourage connecting and help-seeking, that discourage suicidal behavior, and create a strong sense of purpose or self-esteem.

We Christians can help. We can be aware of when people are facing extremely stressful times in their lives. We can give support, both practical and emotional. We can listen. We can encourage the person to seek help by calling the new national suicide helpline, which is 988. We can remove lethal means from their home, keeping them or giving them to a friend for safekeeping until the suicidal person is healthy. And we can remind the person that they are inherently valuable, because they are created in God's image, loved by God, and redeemed by Jesus. We can help them find a purpose in life using the gifts and skills God has given them. Often people find helping others helps them.

Health is never a permanent state. We all get sick or injured from time to time. Sometimes the injury or illness is not visible. That doesn't make it less real. And people cannot just snap out of it anymore than they can snap out of a broken leg. Healing takes treatment and time. And just as I have a permanent limp from my physical trauma, people can retain scars and vulnerabilities from psychological trauma. Paul prayed 3 times for God to remove what he called his “thorn in the flesh.” But he learned to accept it humbly, realizing God could work through him nevertheless. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

Jesus made people better, not just spiritually but physically and psychologically. By healing lepers, the physically handicapped, and those possessed, he also overcame the barriers that kept them from being accepted as part of the community. We, like he, must act to overcome the stigma that attaches to the mentally ill and which often keeps people from seeking help. I think it helps to understand that the root of the problem may not be with a person's mind—the software—so much as their brain—the hardware running it. We all have our health issues. So like Paul, let us be humble and like Jesus, let us be compassionate towards all who suffer. And like the psalmist, let's put our trust in God. For one day we will receive the ultimate update—our software debugged and in very best hardware—when Jesus raises us up whole and healthy, with a head full of his wisdom and a heart full of his love. In that promise we find our hope.