Scar-man, cutting yourself with rocks.
Among the tombs, in the place of death,
screaming among the hills,
breaking chains that bound.
You have the force and voices
of a mob within.
Internal torment visible in skin.
Scar-man, cutting yourself with rocks.
See my hands, my feet, my side.
Nails and spear bit in skin.
Hands, arms, hammers raised
with force to force spiked metal
through flesh to nail sin and death.
The mob without make me
to carry the mob within.
I am scar-man too, one with you.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Picture - The Offering.
Showing posts with label self harm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self harm. Show all posts
Wednesday, 17 July 2013
Monday, 21 June 2010
Self-harm & self-worth
Mandy Stone is a friend of mine from St Margaret’s in Barking. When she was 14 years old, Mandy began to self-harm and continued to do so for 14 years only stopping about 6-7 years ago after she had become a Christian.
Mandy identifies with the man that Jesus healed in Luke 8. 26 - 39 because, in addition to all the other things he is described as doing, when the story is told in Mark’s gospel he is described as wandering among the tombs and through the hills screaming and cutting himself with stones. So, this man appears to be the only reference in the Bible to someone who self-harmed and his situation both before and after his healing has similarities with Mandy’s experience.
Mandy’s foster brother encouraged her to come to Church and to go on an Alpha Course. She did but describes herself as rebelling against Christianity and the Church for about nine months after she had begun to go. Eventually, one night, she felt she had reached rock bottom and, on her own, asked Jesus to come into her life and take over. Since that night she has not self-harmed again, although she has felt the temptation to do so on many occasions, and has set up and run support groups for others who were self-harming that have helped some to stop their self-abuse. In 2007 I had the privilege and joy of taking Mandy’s wedding back at St Margaret’s and she has since been blessed with three children and another on the way.
The man that Jesus healed, who called himself ‘Mob’, had strong, violent urges and would walk in lonely, isolated places linked to death, shouting and screaming and cutting himself. This description of his behaviour and torment has much in common with the way Mandy has described her experience of self-harming. She says:
“When I think back to my self-harming and the way that I would be feeling, it’s like the anxiety of my inner battle was becoming unbearable and I wanted to let something out. The anxiety I felt would have been so easy to give in to but then I would have lost all awareness of my surroundings and myself.
I would cry and look desperately into my eyes, reflected in the mirror, wanting to know the answers to the way out of my mental prison. I began to cut myself in anger and to hate my own body. I was sure that I had feelings but they didn't seem to show. I became very violent towards myself. The world around me was becoming as unforgiving and intolerant as I was to myself. I would lay down after a violent outburst and fall asleep, very drunk.
Sometimes I would wake up in another part of the room, hiding from something in the room which only my sleeping mind had seen. I would get up, have more drink and drugs and cut again to stop the feelings. Then I would lie there in silence until it was light. There was so much silence in my head and everything else seemed a thousand miles away. My energy was gone, I would stare at the ceiling of my bedroom. The silence inside my head was so loud.”
The torment inside the person needs some physical, external expression which for the person who self-harms is achieved by cutting their body. Doing so, actually releases a chemical called Seratonin which, when released, leaves the body feeling calm. As a result, self-harmers like ‘Mob’ and Mandy enter a vicious cycle in which cutting themselves becomes the way to release their pent-up emotions and return to a measure of calm and control.
For both ‘Mob’ and Mandy there was a sudden moment of encounter with Jesus that changed their lives. For ‘Mob’ it may be that, just as he had needed a physical, external release for his anguish through cutting, he needed to see something that symbolised his full and final release in order to believe that he was finally free and that that is what the episode with the pigs provided for him.
Life after that encounter was very different for them. Jesus told ‘Mob’, although he would no longer have called himself that, to go back to his home and tell people there what God had done for him.” Mandy, too, through her support groups and by giving her testimony to a number of different groups has shared her experience of being healed by Jesus with others.
Both, however, carried with them visible reminders of their self-harming. Mandy’s arms are badly scarred and Mob’s would have been too. While change began suddenly for them the rest of lives involved living with the implications both of what they had done to themselves and of the changes that encounter with Jesus had brought into their lives. None of that is easy, particularly as people relive experiences from their past when they talk about them to others. Mandy has been helped by the knowledge that, like her body, Jesus also bears scars on his body. In his case, the scars from the nailprints on his hands and feet and from the spear wound in his side. For her, this means that Jesus understands the pain and emotions that she continues to feel and is an assurance that he is alongside her in those times. Because Jesus’ scars remain on his resurrected body, she knows that she is accepted as she is; scars and memories and all.
As Mandy says:
“Having Jesus in my life now has made me look at things in a very different light. You see, to be an anybody, anywhere is to look into the eyes of someone who matters to you and know that they don't care what or who you are, where you have been or what you have achieved. To be an anybody, anywhere is to look into those eyes and know that if you see love there, then you have earned it. Not for being a walking achievement or an interesting case or a social inspiration or a charity case, but just for being you. That is the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ; A loving and understanding heart. Not someone that is looking at what you did instead he looks at what you will become. I have now found the best friendship and a sense of belonging and the love that I have always longed for. The mask that I had hidden behind for so long has now gone and I am no longer a label but a child of God.”
Many of us will also have experienced trauma and difficulty in our lives, although, for us, that pain may not have been expressed through self-harm. Where those experiences exercise control in some way over our lives today, Jesus wants to bring release and healing as he did for ‘Mob’ and Mandy. Where that release has already come he promises to be alongside us as we cope with the implications of the changes he has brought. In both situations, we need to continually come to him in prayer asking for his healing touch and his words of life.
God of grace, in my rejection I remember the cruel words which all too easily undermine my confidence, the harsh actions which make me feel worthless, the petty complaints which make me feel useless, and the scornful looks which make me feel unloved and unloveable. Help me to know that I am your child, of infinite worth, both loved and lovable. Help me to hear your voice, to accept your forgiveness and love and to forgive and love myself. Amen.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Call - You Run.
Mandy identifies with the man that Jesus healed in Luke 8. 26 - 39 because, in addition to all the other things he is described as doing, when the story is told in Mark’s gospel he is described as wandering among the tombs and through the hills screaming and cutting himself with stones. So, this man appears to be the only reference in the Bible to someone who self-harmed and his situation both before and after his healing has similarities with Mandy’s experience.
Mandy’s foster brother encouraged her to come to Church and to go on an Alpha Course. She did but describes herself as rebelling against Christianity and the Church for about nine months after she had begun to go. Eventually, one night, she felt she had reached rock bottom and, on her own, asked Jesus to come into her life and take over. Since that night she has not self-harmed again, although she has felt the temptation to do so on many occasions, and has set up and run support groups for others who were self-harming that have helped some to stop their self-abuse. In 2007 I had the privilege and joy of taking Mandy’s wedding back at St Margaret’s and she has since been blessed with three children and another on the way.
The man that Jesus healed, who called himself ‘Mob’, had strong, violent urges and would walk in lonely, isolated places linked to death, shouting and screaming and cutting himself. This description of his behaviour and torment has much in common with the way Mandy has described her experience of self-harming. She says:
“When I think back to my self-harming and the way that I would be feeling, it’s like the anxiety of my inner battle was becoming unbearable and I wanted to let something out. The anxiety I felt would have been so easy to give in to but then I would have lost all awareness of my surroundings and myself.
I would cry and look desperately into my eyes, reflected in the mirror, wanting to know the answers to the way out of my mental prison. I began to cut myself in anger and to hate my own body. I was sure that I had feelings but they didn't seem to show. I became very violent towards myself. The world around me was becoming as unforgiving and intolerant as I was to myself. I would lay down after a violent outburst and fall asleep, very drunk.
Sometimes I would wake up in another part of the room, hiding from something in the room which only my sleeping mind had seen. I would get up, have more drink and drugs and cut again to stop the feelings. Then I would lie there in silence until it was light. There was so much silence in my head and everything else seemed a thousand miles away. My energy was gone, I would stare at the ceiling of my bedroom. The silence inside my head was so loud.”
The torment inside the person needs some physical, external expression which for the person who self-harms is achieved by cutting their body. Doing so, actually releases a chemical called Seratonin which, when released, leaves the body feeling calm. As a result, self-harmers like ‘Mob’ and Mandy enter a vicious cycle in which cutting themselves becomes the way to release their pent-up emotions and return to a measure of calm and control.
For both ‘Mob’ and Mandy there was a sudden moment of encounter with Jesus that changed their lives. For ‘Mob’ it may be that, just as he had needed a physical, external release for his anguish through cutting, he needed to see something that symbolised his full and final release in order to believe that he was finally free and that that is what the episode with the pigs provided for him.
Life after that encounter was very different for them. Jesus told ‘Mob’, although he would no longer have called himself that, to go back to his home and tell people there what God had done for him.” Mandy, too, through her support groups and by giving her testimony to a number of different groups has shared her experience of being healed by Jesus with others.
Both, however, carried with them visible reminders of their self-harming. Mandy’s arms are badly scarred and Mob’s would have been too. While change began suddenly for them the rest of lives involved living with the implications both of what they had done to themselves and of the changes that encounter with Jesus had brought into their lives. None of that is easy, particularly as people relive experiences from their past when they talk about them to others. Mandy has been helped by the knowledge that, like her body, Jesus also bears scars on his body. In his case, the scars from the nailprints on his hands and feet and from the spear wound in his side. For her, this means that Jesus understands the pain and emotions that she continues to feel and is an assurance that he is alongside her in those times. Because Jesus’ scars remain on his resurrected body, she knows that she is accepted as she is; scars and memories and all.
As Mandy says:
“Having Jesus in my life now has made me look at things in a very different light. You see, to be an anybody, anywhere is to look into the eyes of someone who matters to you and know that they don't care what or who you are, where you have been or what you have achieved. To be an anybody, anywhere is to look into those eyes and know that if you see love there, then you have earned it. Not for being a walking achievement or an interesting case or a social inspiration or a charity case, but just for being you. That is the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ; A loving and understanding heart. Not someone that is looking at what you did instead he looks at what you will become. I have now found the best friendship and a sense of belonging and the love that I have always longed for. The mask that I had hidden behind for so long has now gone and I am no longer a label but a child of God.”
Many of us will also have experienced trauma and difficulty in our lives, although, for us, that pain may not have been expressed through self-harm. Where those experiences exercise control in some way over our lives today, Jesus wants to bring release and healing as he did for ‘Mob’ and Mandy. Where that release has already come he promises to be alongside us as we cope with the implications of the changes he has brought. In both situations, we need to continually come to him in prayer asking for his healing touch and his words of life.
God of grace, in my rejection I remember the cruel words which all too easily undermine my confidence, the harsh actions which make me feel worthless, the petty complaints which make me feel useless, and the scornful looks which make me feel unloved and unloveable. Help me to know that I am your child, of infinite worth, both loved and lovable. Help me to hear your voice, to accept your forgiveness and love and to forgive and love myself. Amen.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Call - You Run.
Friday, 7 September 2007
Save Community Champions
The Community Champions Fund has supported literally thousands of individuals across the country to get exciting and creative new projects off the ground in their communities. The fund will end in March 2008, and there are no plans to replace it. The Scarman Trust is campaigning to save this unique programme.
All the Community Champions have done extraordinary things, building positive community activities from the grass-roots and reaching literally thousands of people. My friend Mandy Fenn became a national Community Champion because of the funding that she received through the scheme which enabled her to begin self-help groups for people who were self harming. Mandy's work was featured as a Case Study in the Scarman Trust report Learning Power:
"Mandy Fenn started harming herself from the age of eight until 29. With support from the Scarman Trust, she set up three Cutting out the Pain groups in Barking & Dagenham to help other selfharmers. She produced leaflets, materials and ran groups to raise awareness. She didn’t realise how big the issue was until people started contacting her from across the borough and the UK. “Getting support from health services was difficult at first, because people didn’t want to know. Self-harm is a scary and confusing. But now they understand and are helping.” Mandy is doing a survey of self-harm with the hospital and setting up an anonymous help-line. She has shown a great deal of courage by speaking up and show people her badly scarred arms to raise awareness. By taking a stand Mandy is giving hope and help to many others, reaching through the hurt to start the healing."
Please sign the petition to Save Community Champions (on the Number 10 website) - and encourage as many others as possible to do so. Click here to sign the petition which reads: 'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ensure Community Champions awards continue to give active individuals the opportunity to do extraordinary things and make a real difference in their communities.' Support the campaign further by writing to your MP.
All the Community Champions have done extraordinary things, building positive community activities from the grass-roots and reaching literally thousands of people. My friend Mandy Fenn became a national Community Champion because of the funding that she received through the scheme which enabled her to begin self-help groups for people who were self harming. Mandy's work was featured as a Case Study in the Scarman Trust report Learning Power:
"Mandy Fenn started harming herself from the age of eight until 29. With support from the Scarman Trust, she set up three Cutting out the Pain groups in Barking & Dagenham to help other selfharmers. She produced leaflets, materials and ran groups to raise awareness. She didn’t realise how big the issue was until people started contacting her from across the borough and the UK. “Getting support from health services was difficult at first, because people didn’t want to know. Self-harm is a scary and confusing. But now they understand and are helping.” Mandy is doing a survey of self-harm with the hospital and setting up an anonymous help-line. She has shown a great deal of courage by speaking up and show people her badly scarred arms to raise awareness. By taking a stand Mandy is giving hope and help to many others, reaching through the hurt to start the healing."
Please sign the petition to Save Community Champions (on the Number 10 website) - and encourage as many others as possible to do so. Click here to sign the petition which reads: 'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ensure Community Champions awards continue to give active individuals the opportunity to do extraordinary things and make a real difference in their communities.' Support the campaign further by writing to your MP.
Sunday, 24 June 2007
Ministerial speeches
At Wednesday's FRF dinner the Minister there, Jim Murphy, gave a relatively unscripted speech that came across, to me, as refreshingly honest and human.
In my past life within the Civil Service I occasionally wrote speeches for Ministers and heard a significant number; most were deadly dull with bullet point after bullet point justifying what we thought Government policy was at the time (we usually thought we had a better grasp on this than the Ministers themselves!). At one point, Ministers recognised the dull nature of the scripts that were being presented with and asked us to find jokes or anecdotes to open speeches; as though we had gone into the Civil Service to be gag writers!
Of course, not all Ministers used what was given to them and their speeches were usually all the better for that! I did some work with Margaret Hodge, when she was Minister for Disabled People, and she had a reputation for never using the speech that she was given. On one occasion though, by putting the whole speech onto powerpoint, she used every word of my prepared speech in order not to stray from the next set of points that were coming up on screen. Margaret Hodge later gave good support to the ESOL courses, Faith Forum, and support groups for Self-Harmers that I was involved with from St Margaret's Barking but I never, in that time, got around to reminding her about that anecdote!
The best speeches I have heard from a politician have been by John Battle in his unofficial (and non-Ministerial) role of link between the Government and faith communities. John would typically share some anecdotes from his constituency and summarise parts of his recent reading before linking these to his presentation of Government policy on faith communities. He'd generally prepare his material himself (often on the train on the way to the event) and his delivery was all the better for being personal and self-prepared.
In my past life within the Civil Service I occasionally wrote speeches for Ministers and heard a significant number; most were deadly dull with bullet point after bullet point justifying what we thought Government policy was at the time (we usually thought we had a better grasp on this than the Ministers themselves!). At one point, Ministers recognised the dull nature of the scripts that were being presented with and asked us to find jokes or anecdotes to open speeches; as though we had gone into the Civil Service to be gag writers!
Of course, not all Ministers used what was given to them and their speeches were usually all the better for that! I did some work with Margaret Hodge, when she was Minister for Disabled People, and she had a reputation for never using the speech that she was given. On one occasion though, by putting the whole speech onto powerpoint, she used every word of my prepared speech in order not to stray from the next set of points that were coming up on screen. Margaret Hodge later gave good support to the ESOL courses, Faith Forum, and support groups for Self-Harmers that I was involved with from St Margaret's Barking but I never, in that time, got around to reminding her about that anecdote!
The best speeches I have heard from a politician have been by John Battle in his unofficial (and non-Ministerial) role of link between the Government and faith communities. John would typically share some anecdotes from his constituency and summarise parts of his recent reading before linking these to his presentation of Government policy on faith communities. He'd generally prepare his material himself (often on the train on the way to the event) and his delivery was all the better for being personal and self-prepared.
Sunday, 17 June 2007
Forgiveness and love
Reflecting on today's gospel (Luke 7. 36 - 8.3) for a sermon, I began thinking about contemporary parallels to the experience of the woman who poured perfume on Jesus' feet.
I've had Johnny Cash's Unchained album on this car recently and the song, 'Kneeling Drunkard's Plea', is one possible parallel. This is a song about an alcoholic prompted to cry, ‘Lord, have mercy on me’ through the death of his mother. Johnny Cash, of course, had his own experiences of addiction to overcome - I've also been reading the Steve Turner biography The Man Called Cash (Bloomsbury, 2006) - and, for Cash, returning to his Christian faith was one of the factors that eventually made that possible. The song comes from the series of albums called American Recordings that Cash made towards the end of his life in which he sings honestly and affectingly of sin and the salvation that comes through repentance.
Another parallel story would be that of my friend Mandy Fenn from St Margaret's Barking. By giving her life to Jesus, Mandy has moved from self harming to setting up groups that give support and help to others who self harm. The work she now does is an expression of her gratitude for all that Jesus has done for her.
The story that I eventually used in my sermon is about the artist Peter Howson and his painting, The Third Step. Howson became a very successful painter at a young age but for a number of reasons was not a happy person. An alcoholic and a drug user, he would drink and drug himself into a stupour. One night, when he had done just that, his 13 year old daughter Lucie packed a suitcase, let herself out of the house and for several hours wandered through a Glasgow park frequented by drug addicts and tramps. Howson said, “you have to reach your own personal gutter before you ask for help.” Realising how he had failed Lucie was that moment for Howson.
As part of his rehabilitation he joined Alcoholics Anonymous. In AA, Howson explains, the Third Step comes when alcoholics have “made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understand him.” The Third Step, then, is about his “conversion to Christianity and giving up the booze.” In the painting a man has been stripped and is crawling out of a grave towards a church and the light of Christ. The painting shows the moment when a person in torment realises that it doesn’t have to be that way. Like all of Howson’s work it is a dark picture but, while dark, it is a painting of hope, not despair. This is the way of Christ, the way of darkness endured in order to reach the light, the way of salvation.
I've had Johnny Cash's Unchained album on this car recently and the song, 'Kneeling Drunkard's Plea', is one possible parallel. This is a song about an alcoholic prompted to cry, ‘Lord, have mercy on me’ through the death of his mother. Johnny Cash, of course, had his own experiences of addiction to overcome - I've also been reading the Steve Turner biography The Man Called Cash (Bloomsbury, 2006) - and, for Cash, returning to his Christian faith was one of the factors that eventually made that possible. The song comes from the series of albums called American Recordings that Cash made towards the end of his life in which he sings honestly and affectingly of sin and the salvation that comes through repentance.
Another parallel story would be that of my friend Mandy Fenn from St Margaret's Barking. By giving her life to Jesus, Mandy has moved from self harming to setting up groups that give support and help to others who self harm. The work she now does is an expression of her gratitude for all that Jesus has done for her.
The story that I eventually used in my sermon is about the artist Peter Howson and his painting, The Third Step. Howson became a very successful painter at a young age but for a number of reasons was not a happy person. An alcoholic and a drug user, he would drink and drug himself into a stupour. One night, when he had done just that, his 13 year old daughter Lucie packed a suitcase, let herself out of the house and for several hours wandered through a Glasgow park frequented by drug addicts and tramps. Howson said, “you have to reach your own personal gutter before you ask for help.” Realising how he had failed Lucie was that moment for Howson.
As part of his rehabilitation he joined Alcoholics Anonymous. In AA, Howson explains, the Third Step comes when alcoholics have “made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understand him.” The Third Step, then, is about his “conversion to Christianity and giving up the booze.” In the painting a man has been stripped and is crawling out of a grave towards a church and the light of Christ. The painting shows the moment when a person in torment realises that it doesn’t have to be that way. Like all of Howson’s work it is a dark picture but, while dark, it is a painting of hope, not despair. This is the way of Christ, the way of darkness endured in order to reach the light, the way of salvation.
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