Mentally ill people have a lot of pain in their lives. But at this church we believe God has a special concern for the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, the neglected, the unloved. We believe God's primary nature is compassion. At first glance most of the mentally ill members of North Church do not appear unusual. They look like the kind of people who might gather in any small church in a blue-collar neighborhood.
Medications control the symptoms of their illnesses for long periods.
From time to time, however, a war of emotions, impulses, and even disembodied voices may be rolling through their heads. I just look at the numbers and subtract them from each other, and then add them up again. Once I thought that I had to rearrange all of the groceries on my shelves in just the right way. I had to move everything around so that each package was exactly where it should be on the shelf. I saw patterns in the ways the packages related to each other.