Mental Health: The Other Pandemic - Hamline Worship 1/30/22

uh [Music] you [Music] hmm [Music] [Music] good morning welcome to worship at hamlin church united methodist in saint paul minnesota today sunday january 30th 2022. we are coming to you live this morning and are so happy to be worshiping with you my name is david kazizek and i'm the director of music and worship here at hamlin church today associate minister for spiritual formation heather grantham will reflect upon mental health in the second installment on this other pandemic plaguing the world it is always a blessing to hear heather preach and we've got some great music in store for you along with a special video prepared by betsy hodson our community director of communications and this video will celebrate the ministry of hamlin church in 2021 you'll find the bulletin posted in the comments or the chat section on both facebook and youtube and there you'll see the order of service scripture and other readings and what's coming up this week in the life of the church also please take a moment to fill out the online connection card this lets us know that you're here and how we can best connect with and serve you we are thrilled that you're with us today and look forward to connecting with you during worship and afterwards on zoom for a coffee half hour and now our opening prayer oh god who has created each of us in your image and made us one body each as holy vessels of your presence to one another create in and among us a holy place as we worship this day give us hearts and minds we pray to be open to human vulnerability to listen to each other with patient and thoughtful attention and support to perceive the grace of the differences in our embodied experience to resist what excludes and diminishes and to dismantle what acts as barriers to flourishing together in love and justice and help us to trust in your spirit's work to make us whole together in relationships of mutuality and partnership in sacred rhythms of giving and receiving as your beloved children amen please join me in singing our opening hymn blessed assurance jesus is mine [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] this is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] this is [Music] [Music] amen good morning again a special welcome to my young friends today we are so glad that you could join us for worship i want to make sure that you all know it's been so wonderful to see many of you at our zoom gatherings for spiritual formation the last few weeks and we will continue our spiritual formation on zoom before worship at 9 15 during february and then your family is welcome to join us either online for the live stream or in person for worship so friends i have something to show you today in my bag here i have a box of tissues and some handkerchiefs i wonder when do you use tissues sometimes i use them when i cry when i'm having those really big feelings that don't always come out as words and so sometimes they come out as tears i wonder what big feelings you're having when you cry did you know that when we cry god is crying too god is there with us and god is feeling what we're feeling all of those big feelings today we're talking about lots of big feelings when we're sad or mad or happy or excited and we can tell god about those feelings because god is with us whatever it is that we are feeling i wonder what else do you use tissues sometimes i use them when i'm sick when i have a cold or a runny nose and maybe you've had to go to the doctor when you're sick to get some medicine so that you can feel better sometimes our brains can get sick too just like the rest of our body and we have to take care of our brains by going to the doctor too so that our brains can get better and we can feel better and this is what we're talking about when you hear the words mental health just like pastor moriah talked about this week and pastor heather will talk about today so what i want you to know is that when you have those big feelings god is with you god is with us god loves us when we are sad or mad or angry or sick and god loves us when we are happy or excited or joyful friends will you pray with me you can repeat after me thank you god for tears that show how we are feeling thank you god for brains that help us know your love thank you god for mental health and people who help us feel better in jesus name we pray amen today's prayers come to us from nami national alliance on mental health let us pray loving creator we come to you during this worship series on mental health because we know that you are a god of love and compassion we come as a people seeking your presence comfort and guidance we come to worship today because we love that you divine one love each of us just as we are as you walk with us on our individual journeys through life god of love stir in us a deep compassion for people living with mental health challenges and brain disorders and their families raise our awareness of how we can create a supportive and safe spiritual community for people who feel isolated shunned and ashamed inspire us to reach out in love as a sign of your radical hospitality and grace inspire us as we seek to overcome fear acquire knowledge and advocate for compassionate and enlightened treatment and services enable us to find ways to become inclusive as persons living with mental health struggles in our everyday lives be with doctors therapists researchers social workers and all of those in helping professions as they seek to overcome ignorance and injustice with care and compassion sometimes divine spirit we feel discouraged and hopeless in the face of so many challenges help us to see ourselves as you see us persons of value and worth persons of creativity and potential may we come to understand the interconnectedness of mind and body and spirit in bringing about health and wholeness and may we go forward into our communities with renewed sense and vision hope and possibility for the future we pray all of this in the words of jesus who also taught us to pray our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen [Music] hmm hold your breath till the morning hold your breath till it's light when shadows find us they thieve and they blind us till it's all until it's all [Music] lay your ghost in the river let it burn in the sun [Music] warmth it reaches it whispers and preaches till it's all until it's all gone save your strength for the valley the morning soon to come your soul [Music] so let it breathe or let it fall apart the trouble won't find you in the dark find a little light a little spark you're closer than you think you're closer than you think you're closer than you think closer than you think save your [Music] your soul [Music] enough save your strength [Music] your soul is strong enough [Music] save your strength for the life the morning soon to come your soul is [Music] today's scripture reading is psalm 88 oh lord god of my deliverance when i cry out in the night before you let my prayer reach you incline your ear to hear my cry for i am sated with misfortune i am at the brink of shio i am numbered with those who go down into the pit i am helpless abandoned among the dead like bodies lying in the grave of whom you are mindful no more and are cut off from you your care you have put me at the bottom of the pit in the darkest places in the depths your fur your fury lies heavy upon me you afflict me with your breakers sila you distanced my companions from me you make me aberrant to them i am shut in and do not go out my eyes pine away from affliction i call to you oh lord each day i stretch out my hands to you do you work wonders for the dead do the shades of do the shades rise to praise you selah is your faithful care recounted in the grave your consistency in the place of peridition are your wonders made known in the netherworld your benefit deeds in the land of oblivion as for me i cry out to you o lord each morning my prayers greet you why oh lord do you reject me do you hide from me and your face from me from my mouth i have been afflicted and near death i suffer your terrors wherever i turn your fury overwhelms me your terror destroys me they swirl around me like water all day long they encircle me on every side you have put a friend you have put friend and neighbor far from me and my companions out of sight the word of god for the people of god thanks be to god [Music] good morning please pray with me may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable to you our rock and redeemers still i'm so grateful to be standing here with you today and to be able to ponder and experience together how god is alive in each of us here as we worship we continue our worship series this week on mental health the other pandemic within our midst as david told us pastor mariah opened up the series last week naming the reasons that we as people of faith should tackle this epidemic of anxiety and depression and loss of hope and disorientation that is permeating through humanity i encourage all of you all to listen back to her sermon since we had some technical issues last week for some foundational blocks on this series on our website there's even a podcast version if you don't have time for the whole thing or you can experience the whole worship series which included some great music and the baptism of lauren eddie and avery and for today you may be able to tell from the psalm that sharon read to us i'd like for us to lean in to the experience of intense emotions that folks with mental health struggles carry with them one in four have diagnosed mental health struggles not to mention the countless undiagnosed in the social media world folks put up trigger warnings to signal what they are about to post might elicit a strong a response in the viewer or the reader or the friend and i'd like to issue that same warning here and invite you to check in with your body be aware of any emotion or sensation perhaps agitation or judgment or sorrow or uncomfortableness as we talk or cringe or wiggliness and i encourage you to eat meet each emotion or sensation with curiosity oh hi dry mouth do you need a drink of water or oh hi anger what do you want me to know and totally no know that it is okay to do what each of your individual body heart and mind need to do to remember that you are safe and you are god's beloved in this moment and in every moment so please put your hand on your chest or on your belly and as you breathe in say i am here and as you exhale i am god's beloved [Music] and so we begin with psalm 88. these very human composed words entrenched with sadness and anger and fear these words offer no vision of hope no words of praise to the creator that we'd expect to read and a book of songs to god throughout the sermon writing process i have asked myself more than a dozen times why is this even in the bible and i'm not the only one this is one of the few psalms that's never in the lectionary scholars kept noting that it's rather full of uncomfortable challenges to god and that this particular psalm never once contains the neck tempta a verse but resolution is hopeful like every other psalm of complaint as psalm 88 is usually classified hebrew bible scholar and professor walter brugemann divides the entirety of the psalms into psalms of orientation to god walter brugemann divides the entirety of the psalms into psalms of orientation to god disorientation from god and then reorientation towards god uh guess which one this is brugaman notes that not only is 88 a disorientation psalm it is the most extreme version of the example and breaks the mold because it doesn't have that hint at re-orientation this is a song of a person or a collective on the brink of it all and various scholars throughout the ages have suggested this is something with someone that is suffering from chronic health chronic mental or physical health issues and we cannot know the specific or particular cause of the speakers distressed that is lost throughout the ages we can however meet it where we are today related to out of our own experiences of chronic mental health issues a millennia later and so i want to offer you all my story along with this psalmist's prayer to illustrate that it's okay not to be okay sometimes god can take it all and loves us still i share my story because one in four people suffer from mental health issues here in the u.s and for generations before now it was not okay to speak about these things in public let alone a pulpit and so i share this because it's important for those of you who resonate with any part of my story or know someone who would that you are seen you are god's beloved and you have space here in god's house and again trigger warning that i will be talking about medications and cutting and suicide and disordered eating it's okay to tune out it's okay to take a breath break i won't be offended please continue to check in with your body and take a deep breath saying i am here and i am god's beloved my own mental health struggles began when i was in middle school i started suffering from intense migraines along with prolonged weeks and months of heightened emotions my eating began to be disordered alternating between weeks of not eating anything two weeks of eating everything and purging in order to escape the pain that my head and my heart were going through i started making marks in my thighs with razor blades and because my community in rural oklahoma in the 1990s didn't have the language or the tools or the resources to know what i was going through i was told numerous times to just stop it just cut it out just be you're being irrational grow up eat right stop hurting yourself and i wanted to i tried i focused on schoolwork and maintained a's in all my classes when i was on the upswing i joined clubs and took on leadership roles and in teens for christ and prayed and prayed and prayed for god to make me normal i wanted to act right but i couldn't and things escalated that one day i thought that my wrist would be a better place to use my self-harming tools and by the grace of god and some lovely community people i was rushed to the nearest hospital who could deal with this type of situation and given some acute coping skills and a reset but the community that i was released back into didn't have those resources and my family saw my distress and came together to try to get me into therapy at this facility known for to work with teens and mental illness and it didn't take our assurance insurance and it was two hours away with both my parents working jobs so the psychiatrist did the best they could with a diagnosis and medications and my family did the best that it could with caring for me and taking me to therapists high school was filled with the same overachieving and social girl that i was on the outside popular and smart but hiding that same pain within i went through bouts of changing medications not wanting to take medications different diagnosis regis ranging from maybe it's a minstrel thing to chronic depression to manic depression to bulimia to anxiety and thankfully as i hope you all can tell we did find a diagnosis and a medical regime that worked and i've had years of therapy processing my teen experiences and developing coping skills and fostering relationships for my ongoing mental health and that previous sentence is not the point of this story my struggle with mental illness and this particular snapshot of myself and my teens is my psalm 88 moment i wonder what your psalm 88 moments are your story of disorientation from god and maybe even think about our collective psalm 88 moments taken alone without the full breadth of my experiences now that story that i shared could feel hopeless and one in four people suffer from diagnosed mental illnesses here in the u.s and probably much more undiagnosed and that's a lot and when one part of the bodies of christ suffers we all suffer and it hurts author and professor the late bell hook said sustained grief is particularly disturbing in a culture that offers a quick fix for any pain let me read that bell hooks quote again sustained grief is particularly disturbing in a culture that offers a quick fix for any pain and once our what our current situation with the covet pandemic and the mental health one reminds us that there is a lot of grief in the world right now that needs to be sustained a lot of grief that we will need to sustain from here on forward now the person or community that wrote and sung and prayed psalm 88 knew that it was okay to be okay not okay and it was perfectly okay to bring that intensity intensity and rawness and vulnerability and pain to god in fact god invites us to this psalm shows that these experiences also have a place in the life of faith it is read in parallel to the songs of joy and celebration and praise in fact the hint at the reorientation to god only occurs when looking at the psalm and its placement as the penultimate chapter of the book three of psalms the next psalm psalm 89 begins i will sing of your steadfast love forever o lord for my mouth will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations when i was unable to love myself because of my mental health struggles and because that's the human nature i was surrounded by folks who chose to love me and breathe that life into me i was a member at this church or a kid at this church and they prayed for me offering me an ear to chat even teaching me weaving and knitting and were there for me saying heather i know you and because of those caring adults who may not have understood what i was going through they loved me still you see we build resilience for these periods of disorientation for these psalm 88 moments by being a community together sharing and hearing stories and being vulnerable and holding one another in love and in grace and compassion we come together at this table and remind one another of god's faithfulness throughout the past and pray and demand for god's justice in the future living in that tension of almost but not yet we pray and protest and sing and feed one another and carry each other's burdens because that is what jesus taught us to do we stay in relationship with one another to be christ's hands and feet on this earth and friends i've been at hamlin church long enough to know the incredible witness of this congregation to be with one another in those psalm 88 moments whether it's the death of a loved one or the the big crisis of the the global warming of what we do to figure out the social justice issues here later in the service you will see a slideshow of how we've been that body of christ here and as we keep going in this community let us deepen those relationships so that resilience is born and transformation is always in our midst and know that if you are suffering if you need to talk if you need anything in your life you can reach out to katie to me to pastor mariah there are things that you have on your heart that you want to share always know that it is welcome here with god my friends let us reflect on how we are the body of christ to this community as we listen to our our quartet saying how can i keep from singing amen so ah [Music] [Music] [Music] i hear the sweet a new creation [Music] [Applause] [Music] how can i foreign [Music] [Music] i hear the truth [Music] [Music] no storm can shake my innermost hall while till my hope i'm bringing since christ is lord of heaven and earth how can i keep from singing through all the tombot and the strife [Music] ringing it finds an actual in my soul how can i keep from sin the peace of christ my heart [Applause] [Music] how can i keep from seeing [Music] if [Music] how can i keep [Music] my god [Music] oh [Music] amen amen thank you so much it comes to the point in our service where we talk about ways that we make this community work our ways to give there are many ways to give and you will see in the slideshow in a little bit that there are many ways that we use our bodies and our minds to create a more just way there are also ways that you can give with our monetary support there are ways you can give via text online hamlinchurch.org give and you can also do checks payable here to the life of the church but my friends it takes many ways to be the hands and many people to be the hands and the feet of christ and so you will see that with our celebration of ministry 2021 year in review video so please stay tuned to how god is working into hamlin church good job guys so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] friends it is well with our soul here i know that that didn't have everything in it that we did in 2021 but it sure was a lot and we are being the hands and feet of christ here before we wrap up i would like to make a couple of announcements here now next sunday february 6th we will again begin with in-person worship here using all the covet guidelines and we request that you use an n95 or a canaan 95 or equivalent mask as we worship here together and if we will have we are trying to work with ways to make those here for everybody to have one if you do not have one a couple of other things sacred studios will continue online for february as katie had said earlier and kids are invited to attend afterwards with worship together with their families nursery care will continue to be provided our beloved community series starts next week in february we have this all church read which you are all invited to read together we are reading stamped anti-racism racism and you and we're there are many versions there are three versions of this book the kids version the remix version which we are doing which is the young adult version and then there's the more scholarly version as well and all are available at the church office so if you come by during the week 9-3 9-12 on friday please pick up one you will hear more information and we will be basing our worship series and all of our kind of spiritual formation activities in line with that there are reading groups as well to sign up for if you are interested in reading this book with um with this community so we can challenge one another so we can get to know one another where we are in this world you can find those on sign up central hamlinchurch.org up central and you'll be directed to where you can connect with those one more thing tonight we have a zoom workshop we have uh opportunity for middle school and high schoolers and their caregivers to come together for anxiety stress and coping this is a workshop provided by nami national alliance for mental illness as well as katie will be there we will be there to support you in any way so we invite you to share widely with your friends if you want to go any anything that you this is a way that we can reach people and let them know that we are here from this faith lens too of how to deal with this current pandemic so friends let us sing together one more time listen to oh and just how wonderful it is thank you big thank you to our musicians who had to stand here big thank you to our tech team and to all of our staff here that are bringing worship to you in your home so come on to coffee hour sign on zoom for our maybe our last online coffee hour um after worship and let us uh let's talk about this stuff so here we go peace [Music] peace [Music] amen and friends may we go from this place knowing that you are left knowing that you are god's beloved and that nothing you can do can separate you from that so my friends may god go with you before you to show you the way in your heart to give you peace and behind you to encourage you amen and amen [Music] um [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Hamline Church

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Length: 56min 11sec (3371 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 30 2022