Published in the Westchester Guardian, March 2013
There are times and places where a man, a woman or even an entire group exceeds the norms of what is expected. They reach an ideal mentioned so often in the Bible, with simple actions that are common place in their eyes but extraordinary in the eyes of outsiders. They are places of acceptance and kindness, where the spiritual unites with earthly reality. The people of the City of Geel (Gheel, population approx. 37,000) are such an example of the saintly becoming ordinary – and it started thirteen centuries ago with the brutal murder of a young woman.
What they have done and accomplished for so long is so simple that their methods are exemplified by institutions in our country, hopefully resulting in the same positive outcomes. For years, in America, those who suffer from mental illness have been institutionalized, warehoused until the courts decided that individuals rights out-weighed forced confinement and released them to the streets where they languished, ostracized from the rest of the world. Now treatments and housing have improved though far from perfect for the stigma still exists, the pain is still prevalent, combined with loneliness going beyond sadness.
Geel is so special because through its spiritual heritage they unite the inflicted with host families fostering strong social and communal bonds. The mentally ill become members of households, live with them and become part of extended families for generations, for life. There are no homeless, no individuals sleeping in streets. There is no fear of those who suffer, who are different. No ridicule. No stigma. No mocking. Even the children learn to accept, understand and not fear. Generation after generation open their homes to those suffering.
A fifteen year-old girl, faith and miracles started a tradition; a model of care for an illness that some thought not an illness but demonic. Sometime between 620 and 640 AD, the pagan Celtic King Damon of Oriel was driven to madness with the death of his beautiful Christian wife. Unable to find a wife of similar beauty, he sought marital relations with his daughter Dymphna. She escaped with her priest, but was eventually caught in present day Belgium and the human obsession on beauty took its terrible toll. The priest was executed and Saint Dymphna’s final ‘no’ led to her beheading by her father at the age of fifteen. And so the spiritual seeds were planted starting the unique humane treatment of those tormented by mental illness.
In the Middle Ages, human perceptions and ideas of the spiritual, material and political worlds differed greatly to our conceptions and manifestations of the twenty-first century. Also, medical treatment, especially for mental illness was through religious institutions such as the Catholic Church.
Events surrounding the mystical, such as St. Dymphna, do not occur in a vacuum. Word of cures, healings, slowly spread beyond the local districts. Pilgrims would seek housing as they sought physical and spiritual healing. They had faith enough to travel difficult distances for cure, comfort, guidance. Residents had faith enough to dedicate their lives assisting others on illnesses that were beyond their medical grasp. Acceptance of those suffering as individuals, as children of God, with lives worth living, grew. The fear of treating these illnesses subsided and lives improved. As the spiritual world manifested with our material world, the story of her martyrdom and related miracles grew and by 1249 she was granted sainthood. In 1286, a guest hospital was built. In 1349, construction began on a new church building. The miraculous has withstood the test of time and continues.
Myths can be entirely truthful or can contain various degrees of historical facts. Can one accept the possibility that whole truths will never be known and that events can occur that are beyond our understanding? How great a difference does it make especially if good comes from it? Hopefully, one accepts that the spiritual realm may have a great influence on lives.
Of course there is a screening process to assure that those placed are suitable. Residency is open to the various diagnoses of the mental illness spectrum. The inflicted are assigned tasks and chores. They are given responsibilities and responsibilities beget a sense of self-respect, self-worth and belonging. When the foster parent or family member passes on they continue as members of the host family with the next generation. One figure for today shows 500 individuals are currently housed. This general well-being brings a drop in the prescribed medication dosages. The average stay in a foster family is 30 years.
The deinstitutionalization in psychiatric care was considered too radical but now the benefits of Geel’s humane and generous policy may be seen in studies where patients are treated as guests and then as family members, where they have jobs, chores, routines and responsibilities – consistency. And they have a home, a room of their own and people to look after them. A world totally different to the sterile inpatient psyche wards we heard about.
Sometimes good can be easily washed over by the tide of humanity moving forward on a path controlled by the progress of time. And sometimes you get a glimpse of hope from the unexpected in the little corners of our world, like Geel, that reach out to those of various needs, but they are too far and few as the negative aspects of human nature can still predominate.
Generation after generation passes their humanity into the future where the mentally ill find self worth, acceptance, a family and community to live, to learn, and to love – for life. And being different is not seen as a reason to be treated differently but to be loved more. Geel’s secret to caring can be identified as recognizing God in all things.
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Glenn Slaby Blog