By Dr. Lani Wilson
Good Morning, Allen Temple’s warriors! I pray that you have had a good week. The Christ often retreated to the edges of the sea or the mountaintops and it is good to follow His model. He sure knew human beings, didn’t He?
As we bid “Farewell” and “See you later” to that Warrior Woman Preacher Reverend Gloria Aguilar, God’s timing is so clear in the choice of the word this week. It was highlighted for me before Reverend Aguilar’s passing and I can see God’s handiwork again: The word is “fear.” If there is anything I sensed from Reverend Aguilar whenever we spoke was that she was pretty fear-less. Although interracial and interethnic marriages are more common now, when the Aguilars and especially when my parents married 40 to 60 plus years ago, they were oddities. It took facing fear and moving through it to make that kind of public statement, much less have children who would face fears of their own for just “being.” Fear.
How interesting that used as a noun, “fear” has all the negative connotations that we are so accustomed to feeling. The etymology of the word is from the Old English faér and one of the earlier uses of it was in translating the book for who we now know as Europeans around 1000 CE.
OE Exodus 453 Wæron Egypte eft oncyrde, flugon forhtigende, fær ongeton.
1. In Old English: A sudden and terrible event; peril.
Oxford English Dictionary/fear
This is probably the standard usage of the word, right? Then there is another use of “fear.” When used as a verb, the Oxford English dictionary says that the archaic usage usually means “to revere God.”
Mid 17th century: from French révérer or Latin revereri, from re- (expressing intensive force) +vereri 'to fear'.
Thus, intensely fearing God is reverence, giving the Lord the respect due Her/Him. In our modernity Christians tend to focus on the benefit of a reduction in fear in knowing The Christ. Interestingly, we don’t talk much about a reduction in fear as a group; it is as if fear is something that can only be experienced individually.
Depression, especially Major Depression, is a common malady of American adults. Yet in the African-American community it is still something to be seen as a weakness rather than a condition of modern life that can be discussed and treated. Allen Temple’s active role in counteracting the negative views of mental health treatment by becoming a “mental health friendly” church is to a testament to our leadership and historic role as a model modern African-American church. The 2012 table below shows the prevalence of reported depression, but we must remember that because of the stigma attached to this common condition many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, don’t get the help they need. It is my personal and professional belief that the percentage represented in this table of African-Americans who experience depression would be at least doubled if Black folk understood how just being Black in America can lead to depression. Also in this table, it is not surprising that our Native American brothers and sisters have a higher reported incidence of Major Depression Episodes than any other group. How can they not?
To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
James A. Baldwin (brainyquote.com)
Our communal denial of this common mental health condition leads to physical illness, years of pain, familial dysfunction, and even violence and death. Is it possible for us to experience communal depression?
The state of being helpless is regarded as a central aspect of depression, and therefore the learned helplessness paradigm in rodents is commonly used as an animal model of depression. The term ‘learned helplessness’ refers to a deficit in escaping from an aversive situation after an animal is exposed to uncontrollable stress specifically, with a control/ comparison group having been exposed to an equivalent amount of controllable stress. A key feature of learned helplessness is the transferability of helplessness to different situations, a phenomenon called ‘trans- situationality.’
Landgraf D, Long J, Der-Avakian A, Streets M, Welsh DK (2015) Dissociation of Learned Helplessness and Fear Conditioning in Mice: A Mouse Model of Depression. PLoS ONE 10(4): e0125892. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0125892 PLoS ONE. Apr2015, Vol. 10 Issue 4, p1-17. 17p.
This article discussed different models for studying mice behavior and the significance of the environments and conditions in which they experience the stressors or pain. LH or learned helplessness is a state in which an animal fails to escape from a stressor (or pain or painful situations) even when they are physically able, and they transfer this failure to escape to other situations that may not even resemble the original pain. LH is central to depression.
However, most studies in mice use learned helplessness protocols in which training and testing occur in the same environment and with the same type of stressor. Consequently, failures to escape may reflect conditioned fear of a particular environment, not a general change of the helpless state of an animal.
PLoS ONE. Apr2015, Vol. 10 Issue 4, p1-17. 17p.
But if I may attempt a gross simplification…when different stressors are imposed across different environments, the mice developed learned helplessness without the presence of the original fear produced.
Here we describe a simple and reliable learned helplessness protocol for mice, in which training and testing are carried out in different environments and with different types of stressors. We show that with our protocol approximately 50% of mice
develop learned helplessness that is not attributable to fear conditioning.
PLoS ONE. Apr2015, Vol. 10 Issue 4, p1-17. 17p.
Based on the abovementioned experiment and if we can extrapolate just a bit further and extend this discussion to human beings, we could say that the potential is there to enter into a state of learned helplessness leading to depression if one is exposed to different stressors without hope of escape across different environments.
PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a psychological condition that requires professional intervention. It was called “shell-shock” in WWI veterans and continued in usage until after the Vietnam War. There are very specific criteria required for a diagnosis of PTSD, but in general it is a condition resulting from exposure to a traumatic or traumatic events. In 1980 the American Psychological Association (APA) first added it to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual III (DSM III) that therapists use to diagnose mental health conditions. In the current DSM V, there is an entirely new category of “Trauma and Stress-Related Disorders,” of which one is PTSD. The U.S. Department of Veterans Administration houses the National Center for PTSD and is an excellent source of information for the general public. There are other causes of PTSD besides war.
During a traumatic event, you think that your life or others' lives are in danger. You may feel afraid or feel that you have no control over what is happening around you. Most people have some stress-related reactions after a traumatic event; but, not everyone gets PTSD. If your reactions don't go away over time and they disrupt your life, you may have PTSD.
ptsd.va.gov
PTSD is a relatively common word in American society that is used without understanding its seriousness. But recently, it has been used in describing and diagnosing very young children and youth.
What are the effects of community violence? If hurt by violence, a child may have to cope with physical or medical problems. A child may also have mental health problems, including PTSD. Some people think that young children are not harmed by community violence because they are too young to understand or remember. However, studies have found signs of PTSD in babies and young children.
http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/types/violence/effects-community-violence-children.asp
In my professional community mental health practice, I treated toddlers and their parents as young as 18 months old for what was then unnamed PTSD symptoms beginning in 1980 in both East and West Oakland. These children were exposed to violence from police raids, drug-related violence, familial domestic violence, severe physical abuse, and parental murder. It was uncharted territory: That was 35 years ago. What are our children growing up with now?
Jesus must have seen crucifixions as a child in Roman-occupied Palestine. He must have experienced the terror that peasant Jews lived with all their lives over centuries. There were no breaks from the pressure, the constant struggle for subsistence. Race aside, Bruce McEwen, a neuroscientist at Rockefeller University in New York, describes these relationships as one way that ''poverty gets under the skin.'' He and others talk about the ''biological embedding'' of social status. Your parents' social standing and your stress level during early life change how your brain and body work, affecting your vulnerability to degenerative disease decades later. They may even alter your vulnerability to infection. In one study, scientists at Carnegie Mellon exposed volunteers to a common cold virus. Those who'd grown up poorer (measured by parental homeownership) not only resisted the virus less effectively, but also suffered more severe cold symptoms.
Status and Stress By Moises Velasquez-Manoff The New York Times, July 28, 2013 Sunday Late Edition - Final
And yet when He began His public ministry, He was constantly going away by Himself to the sea or mountains and insisting that His uneducated, simple, tough disciples do the same.
He said the them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”
Mark 6:31 (NRSV)
More than likely, His disciples had never experienced this type of stress-relief behavior before. What Jewish fisherman, tax collector, housewife, tentmaker in those days went on meditative breaks to rest? And who talked about not being afraid in the Hebrew Scripture except God, His prophets, and Her angels?
It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.
Deuteronomy 31:8 (NRSV)
When an attendant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. His servant said, “Alas, master! What shall we do?” He replied, “Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than there are with them.” Then Elisha prayed: ‘O LORD, please open his eyes that me may see.’ So the LORD opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw; the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
II Kings 6:15-17 (NRSV)
Not just horses and chariots but “horses and chariots of fire” surrounded Elisha; you may choose to see this as a great story or you may choose to believe that there were chariots of fire. I believe.
Although professionals may bemoan their long work hours and high-pressure careers, really, there's stress, and then there's Stress with a capital ''S.'' The former can be considered a manageable if unpleasant part of life; in the right amount, it may even strengthen one's mettle. The latter kills. What's the difference? Scientists have settled on an oddly subjective explanation: the more helpless one feels when facing a given stressor, they argue, the more toxic that stressor's effects.
Status and Stress By Moises Velasquez-Manoff
Elisha’s servant must have felt that helpless stress. Jesus’ disciples, males and especially the females, must have lived that helpless stress. Jesus must have witnessed that helpless stress take its toll on His mother and father over the years.
That sense of control tends to decline as one descends the socioeconomic ladder, with potentially grave consequences. Those on the bottom are more than three times as likely to die prematurely as those at the top. They're also more likely to suffer from depression, heart disease and diabetes. Perhaps most devastating, the stress of poverty early in life can have consequences that last into adulthood. Even those who later ascend economically may show persistent effects of early-life hardship. Scientists find them more prone to illness than those who were never poor. Becoming more affluent may lower the risk of disease by lessening the sense of helplessness and allowing greater access to healthful resources like exercise, more nutritious foods and greater social support; people are not absolutely condemned by their upbringing. But the effects of early-life stress also seem to linger, unfavorably molding our nervous systems and possibly even accelerating the rate at which we age. The British epidemiologist Michael Marmot calls the phenomenon ''status syndrome.''
Status and Stress by Moises Velasquez-Manoff
So if Jesus thought it best to get away and rest, how is that possible when you never have a chance to “get away” and what are the consequences even when you are able to later?
This research has cast new light on racial differences in longevity. In the United States, whites live longer on average by about five years than African-Americans. But a 2012 study by a Princeton researcher calculated that socioeconomic and demographic factors, not genetics, accounted for 70 to 80 percent of that difference. The single greatest contributor was income, which explained more than half the disparity. Other studies, meanwhile, suggest that the subjective experience of racism by African-Americans -- a major stressor – appears to have effects on health. Reports of discrimination correlate with visceral fat accumulation in women, which increases the risk of metabolic syndrome (and thus the risk of heart disease and diabetes). In men, they correlate with high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.
Status and Stress by Moises Velasquez-Manoff
One Sunday, our Sunday School teacher Deacon Reggie Lyles made a point of how often in the Bible angels prefaced their interventions with the words, “Do not be afraid” or “Do not fear.” It was an admonition that we heard and still hear every Sunday in Sunday School coming straight from scripture: “Do not be afraid. Do not fear.”
But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded.
Mark 6:49-51 (NRSV)
Over and over again, we are told to not fear, especially when Jesus was around. You’d think we’d get a clue.
As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.
Mark 16:5-6 (NRSV)
In the NRSV translation of Mark there is an interesting six-word sentence at the end of a two-verse passage that we probably unconsciously overlook because it is an anathema to our understanding of Jesus the Christ, our personal Savior, our fear-less Son of God and man.
When evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea. He intended to pass them by.
Mark 6:47-48 (NRSV)
The Message Bible translation says it like this.
Late at night, the boat was far out at sea; Jesus was still by himself on land. He could see his men struggling with the oars, the wind having come up against them. At about four o'clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them, walking on the sea. He intended to go right by them.
“He intended to go right by them.” What!?! Jesus saw his disciples in distress and He was going to walk right by them. His beloveds were terrified and He was going to “pass them by?” What kind of a personal Savior is this?
But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and screamed, scared out of their wits. Jesus was quick to comfort them: "Courage! It's me. Don't be afraid."
Mark 6:49-50
An interesting concept was studied (again in rodents) about the acquisition of fear responses in groups versus individuals. In other words, does it make a difference in you experience something scary alone or in a group?
In other words, rats need not experience fearful reminders also in a group setting for the reduction in fearful behavior to be manifest. Put differently, if the group effect is to be perceived as “protective”, it is also enduring beyond the initial confines of the fearful experience. This is important clinically as victims of collective trauma or stress invariably experience their posttraumatic symptoms individually. These symptoms have been associated with, among others, an inability to inhibit fear [25,26]. Thus, fear conditioning models, while not completely representative, can help better understand the neurobiology of PTSD.
The Fragrant Power of Collective Fear
Roa Harb and Jane R. Taulor PLOS ONE. May 2015, Vol. 10 Issue 5 p1-13, 13p.
Said in a different way, there are protective after effects of experiencing trauma in a group as opposed to alone and the trauma is best mediated specifically because of the group experience. If we extend this (and it may be quite a stretch for some) to the experience of modern American racism and the collective history of African-American slavery, we could say that we will always be better off dealing with both extant experiences together…in a group…in our group.
Huh.
“He intended to pass them by.”
“He intended to go right by them.”
“Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
“Courage! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”
Why did Jesus assume that at 4 o’clock in the morning, when it’s pitch black out on the sea, the wind is raising the waves over the sides of the boat, these tough and hardened men are fighting against the biting rain and growing swells, obviously losing, that they…that we…would survive? And that He could just “go right by them?”And what did He say when He realized that they still didn’t understand who He was and what He was about to do?
“Courage! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”
As soon as he climbed into the boat, the wind died down. They were stunned, shaking their heads, wondering what was going on. They didn’t understand what he had done at the supper. None of this had yet penetrated their hearts.
Mark 6:51-52 (TMB)
What will it take for us to understand even now after all we’ve survived as a people that what “he had done” is real and forever? Babies wounded by bullets in broad daylight in their strollers? Vicious attacks on people because of whom they love? The slaughter of praying innocents in Bible study in a church basement? How much evil has to flagrantly rear its ugly, demonic head for us to recognize that no amount of status or money or position or title or presumed power will trump Jesus getting into the boat with us to calm the storms because we don’t want to accept His imperatives? That those imperatives are not personal, saving graces that individually lift us up to some secular expression of success? That those imperatives are to heal the sick, comfort the wounded, free the oppressed, lighten the load, care for the widowed, the orphaned, the alien? These are His imperatives to His priesthood who is each one saved by the power of the resurrected and living Christ, to minister to all the others just as He ministers to us as we work. Our depression, our PTSD, our history, our wounds, and yes, even our present are best handled in group, with each other. And as we work, He will get into the boat with us. Even as we scream in terror and cry out in great fear, if we call Him He will get into the boat with us. Maybe Jesus’ intention to pass us by was so that we would call out to Him, knowing that if we finally recognized Him, we would be saved.
Lord Jesus, You reign and we can only bow and lie face down at Your Feet. We thank You for making us call out to You as a group, straining against a seemingly impossible task, fighting the tide of injustice in an increasingly unjust society. Reach down and grab us by the scruff, if you must, so that we can stop screaming and hear Your voice, recognize Your grip, and feel Your warmth. Breathe on us, Breath of God, so that we can lift each other up. Remind us that you expect us to be in this together: Salvation was for the world, not for individuals. We won’t keep trying to hoard You for our individual selves which then drives You away. Light of Light, we will bask in Your brilliance and keep searching for those lost in the ocean swells, until You bring us ashore…Home. Just always, please get in the boat with us.
Please.
Amen.
