Christ on the Psych Ward Quotes

“Grace is a pre-existing condition.”
― David Finnegan-Hosey, Christ on the Psych Ward

“I found a different perspective in the last few verses of the tenth chapter of Mark’s Gospel. Mark recounts the story of a man named Bartimaeus, who is physically blind but is, as it turns out, able to more truly perceive Jesus than the disciples. On the surface, it’s your basic healing miracle: Bartimaeus asks Jesus to help him, Jesus heals him of blindness, Bartimaeus gets up and follows Jesus. But what struck me in particular, as I read the story on the psych ward, was the use of the word “call.” The word is used three times in rapid succession to describe how Jesus interacts with Bartimaeus. Jesus calls Bartimaeus. Calls him to do what? Simply to be healed. Bartimaeus’s healing seems miraculous and instantaneous—that is not how I experience healing. Yet the call to be healed is both a moment in the story and the beginning of a journey. At the end of the story, Bartimaeus gets up and follows Jesus, but, importantly, that is not the original call on his life. His call, at first, is simply to be healed. The story traveled with me throughout my time on the various psych wards, and beyond. Called to be healed: here was a new understanding of vocation for me, one not based on what I could do or achieve, but based in a deeper call on my life, a call to wholeness.”
― David Finnegan-Hosey, Christ on the Psych Ward

“Swinton articulates an important differentiation between Christ-like friendship and professional services aimed at people with mental health problems: Unlike many agents with whom people with mental health problems may come into contact, the task of the Christlike friend is not to do anything for them, but rather to be someone for them—someone who understands and accepts them as persons; someone who is with and for them in the way that God is also with and for them; someone who reveals the nature of God and the transforming power of the Spirit of Christ in a form that is tangible, accessible, and deeply powerful.6”
― David Finnegan-Hosey, Christ on the Psych Ward

“Wrecked relationships. Alienation from life. A fundamental brokenness. These are realities that I understand exactly through the lens of mental illness. That’s not because mental illness is “a sin,” but rather because my struggles with mental health have put me in deep touch with the brokenness and pain that is a universal reality of human existence. We who have mental illness are no more sinful than anyone else, but perhaps we are able to be a bit more honest with the problem.”
― David Finnegan-Hosey, Christ on the Psych Ward

“In the hospital, I needed the presence of people. People with bodies. Those people were able to provide presence, paradoxically, by being willing and able to sit with the discomfort of my expressions of abandonment and isolation. I didn’t need disembodied, intellectual arguments about God’s presence. I needed people who could be physically and emotionally present when I asked, “Why isn’t God present?” In those people, and in my experience of absence, I experienced God’s presence by questioning God’s presence.”
― David Finnegan-Hosey, Christ on the Psych Ward

“The idea that humanity’s irredeemable sinfulness and guilt can only be forgiven through a wrathful Father violently sacrificing his Son (the gendered language here is quite intentional) sounds less like good news for those suffering and is, instead, the kind of disturbing, intrusive image that might lead one to the psych ward in the first place.”
― David Finnegan-Hosey, Christ on the Psych Ward

“As we take the bread and fruit of the vine, we participate in the solidarity of God as experienced in Christ on the cross...
We keep pointing toward our hope in a kingdom yet to come. We keep discovering God and each other, God in each other. We keep believing that these small acts, like grace, can be transformative, can move us to somewhere we have not yet been. It may not seem like much. It may not always seem like a miracle. But it just might be enough.”
― David Finnegan-Hosey, Christ on the Psych Ward