Mike's Message
As the 21st century began, a South African psychiatrist named Derek Summerfield Was in Cambodia to carry out research on the psychological effects of unexploded landmines - At a time when chemical anti-depressants were initially marketed in the country.
Local physicians were not familiar with these medications, so they asked Summerfield to explain them. When he finished, they said they didn't need these new chemicals because they already had anti-depressants. Bewildered, Summerfield had them explain, expecting them to bring up a local herbal remedy. Instead, they told him about something quite different.
The doctors told a story about a farmer they had treated. He worked in the flooded rice fields, and one day he stepped on a land mine and his leg was blown off. He was fitted with an artificial limb, and eventually returned to work. But it’s very painful work with an artificial limb that is underwater, and going back to his trauma site must have made him very anxious. He became deeply depressed.
So the doctors and his neighbors sat with this man and talked through his life and his struggles. They realized that even with his new artificial limb, his previous job—working in the paddy fields—was just too difficult. he was under constant stress and physical pain, and that these things combined to make him want to just stop living. His doctors and neighbors had an idea.
They suggested that he work as a dairy farmer, a job that would place less painful stress on his false leg and reduce disturbing memories. They believed he was perfectly capable of making change. So they bought him a cow. In the months and years that followed, his life changed. His depression, once profound, lifted. The Cambodian doctors told Summerfield: “You see, doctor, the cow was an analgesic, and antidepressant.
In time, I came to believe that this little scene in Southeast Asia, which at first sounds just idiosyncratic, deeply foreign, in fact represents in a distilled form a shift in perspective that many of us need to make if we are going to make progress in tackling the epidemic of depression, anxiety, and despair spreading like a thick tar across our culture."
Loneliness levels are increasing along with its by-product of depression and anxiety. Choosing to be part of a community can be one of your greatest tools to fight the emotions and difficulties many of us are experiencing today.
In the weeks ahead we will be encouraging you to join a circle group, or even host a circle group. Then on October third we kick off a new 8 part series called AKOLOUTHEO. It will be an amazing time of sermon and group studies.
Thank you Gary and Kristal Allen and Jeff & Meredith Mayberry for hosting circle groups for this new series.
Have a great week.
Mike
