The Poem Help, taken from Bible Wisdom: Psalms of Praise & Power
Translated by John Howard Reid
“Pity me, Lord God, for I’m in trouble:
My eyes are afflicted,
My belly trembles with fear,
And my soul is suffused with sorrow.
My life is spent with grief
And my years carry a burden of groans,
My strength has been sapped away by anxiety
And my bones are wasted with worry.
All my enemies have a grand time
Poking fun at me, and even my neighbors
treat me with scorn
My acquaintances take to their heels as
soon as they see me in the street,
they don’t wish to be caught anywhere near
A man marked with death.
I am already dead to those who know me – –
I couldn’t be more completely forgotten
A man marked with death
The Write Way To Build Relationships
At some time in our lives we all need help just like the poem above reads. Most of us have the good sense to ask for help when we need it but how about those who don’t even know they are sick. Many that walk the streets around us are depressed and dysfunctional.
They need help but many have too much pride to ask for help. Many don’t know they are sick.
They think they are unlucky. We all wonder who is to blame for the Tucson tragedy? The killer obviously thought he was unlucky in life, uneducated, poor, preferring to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol, isolate and then blame everyone else for his problems.
It wasn’t until he put a gun in his hands I imagine did he feel powerful and in control of destiny.
I’ve heard it said that in Tucson, it is easier to get a gun than a Driver’s License. Hopefully, there will be reform but it is too late for those killed and maimed Rep. Gabrielle Gifford, who the nation is praying for as well as the others hurt.
By way of message through her husband, she wants everyone to honor Martin Luther King’s Day and heed to their strong beliefs that “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?”
These words that describe the spirit behind making the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday a day of service came from the slain civil rights leader himself, in a 1957 sermon.
Today, on the 25th anniversary of the first observance of the holiday honoring his birth, Americans are increasingly putting King’s words into action, making it a day on, not a day off.
The nation’s caustic political climate has become a suspect of sorts in the rampage that left six dead and a lawmaker critically injured in Arizona. Will the killing ever stop?
Like the above prayer says, those depressed and mentally unstable most always feel like they couldn’t be more completely forgotten.
They live daily angry, scorned and wasted in worry and hate. They are already the walking dead. I don’t think putting them in jail will help them.
It will only protect their next victims. Relationships and friendships all play a huge role in our overall happiness factor even for the mentally unstable.
Building healthy relationships isn’t easy for the well of us. When a person is not loved, he probably feels like his life is empty and their life is useless.
Before we can befriend each other there must be trust. Before trust comes bonding. Before bonding comes commitment and forethought. We’ve all got issues in our lives that prevent us from befriending others.
These issues need revisiting and rethinking whether they’re professional, personal or health-related. Relationships make life more rewarding.
It is not easy repairing relationships once we disassociate ourselves from others. We still carry their absence in the stress levels of our mind and our heart. My heart hurts that I cannot get a do-over with my mom or even my own kids.
With depression medicine, counseling and a lot of love and understanding for all of us, it still takes a lot of time to feel acceptable self-esteem.
The guilt and fear of not being functional in a world that clearly rewards those who are can turn the mentally unstable into killers. Misery does not desire company.
Those of us who are not high achievers and unlucky in circumstance can turn our luck around by doing what we do best. We need to communicate on good days and on bad days. We can use a pen not a gun to get our point across.
We need to teach others how hard it is to live with paranoia and depression. If you’re feeling helpless, you’re not. Pick up a pen and write your family.
Write a letter to your doctor. Tell them how you feel. Don’t let anyone tell you to cheer up! Depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in many and there is no cure.
It is not your fault. It is your fault if you don’t try to use the gifts you do have to make others understand your plight in a world gone wrong.
Creative expression has always been at war with boredom and unhappiness ever since the days of the cavemen. It reduces stress, ill health and depression when we’re busy doing something we love. Anyone can make the invisible visible.
Draw a picture. Doodle. Scribble like you were a child. Just assembling magazine pictures and photographs into collages make a great past time especially for the depressed. Think positively. Count your blessings.
You don’t have to be happy or a genius to create. We can learn a lot from children who sit and draw or color for hours. Even our pain and sadness can be turned into fine art; poetry and prose that can make us and others smile. When we smile we feel good.
Those who witness our efforts feel good, too. See how contagious a creative thought, or smile can be.
We all can try to evoking passion in a life otherwise thrown away just as I am writing this article. It is my hope others will find a way to use their own divine gifts by enjoying mine.
Reading and writing are both gifts. Looking at art can be as encouraging as making art. Check out your local art galleries. Try to imagine what the artists were trying to reveal about themselves in their work.
Sylvia Brown, the psychic says, in her book Phenomenon, “It is just a fact that every single one of us had a God-driven purpose and every life we experience is a building block toward fulfilling that purpose.
Our spirit minds know what that purpose is, whether our conscious minds can define it or not.”
We are not always willing participants in God’s plan for us. To be honest, if I hadn’t been ill, I would never have had the opportunity or the time to explore creative expression and the arts.
There were even times when I wanted to run away from the black letters pouring from my heart into print. Nothing I did was perfect.
Slowly, I began to quit planning and enjoying the spontaneity of serendipity. Some of worst mistakes became my best pieces of art.
Some of worst prose became my pieces of poetry. Unfortunately for those like me, fear often dictates how much love, happiness, and success we think we are or are not worthy of.
Dinah Craik, author of A life for a Life, says, “Oh, the comfort – the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person – having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”
We do not always see eye-to-eye with others. There is something almost mystical about mothers and daughters.
Mom and I lost each other and found each other over and over. It was not until I had my own kids that I finally realized errors, hesitations and human failings can be repaired where there is love.
You can change your life by changing how you communicate. Listen well and talk slow. Practice kindness and pay attention to the elderly and the needy.
If you’re shy, talk with a pen, blog, write letters to our service men. If you’re housebound, use your computer to travel the world.
Reach out to others through blogs and chat rooms. Be honest. Be Yourself. When something is missing in your life, it usually turns out to be someone who needs you in their life, too. Enjoy my poem below about mom, my daughters and me.
Women
A kick here and there for my mom, my daughters and me, rivalry inscribed from birth to grave, our mouths disengaging our brains, sweet kisses turning into salty tears, do as I say not as I do!
Silent wars, screaming hostility, with pods revolting and roots diving deep for refuge, Galileo painting our minds with jealousy and conflicting opinions, from one generation to another.
Caffeine, Nicotine and Prozac swallowing our kingliest bliss, our happiness depending on our estranged loyalty to one another, Women are flags of far too many dimensions to unfurl on paper.
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Joyce White – Winged for Art Therapy
