Helping to find the lost

In the three months since Savannah Guthrie's mother, Nancy, disappeared, authorities have employed extensive, high-tech resources, including FBI-analyzed DNA from her home, doorbell camera footage and genetic genealogy. Law enforcement has fielded 18,000 tips, analyzed digital surveillance and offered a $100,000 reward. While I pray for her return, I can't help but wonder who would search for me if I became lost. Would my old National Guard buddies search for me in helicopters while dogs tracked my scent on the ground? Would churches light prayer candles for me while mystics recounted visions of my whereabouts? We make heroic efforts to recover the physically lost, but are we equally valiant in retrieving those who are spiritually lost? The question calls to mind a patient I'll call Rachael. I met her in the dayroom of our hospital psych ward some years ago, where she hid her ashen face behind her long and uncombed black hair. Her wiry frame stretched across a coffee table as she mindlessly worked a jigsaw puzzle. A cursive tattoo across her right forearm spelled the name of her firstborn. Brian, the charge nurse, called me because officers scooped Rachael off a bridge, again. In our ER, she was reciting a profane litany of reasons why she should be allowed to die at the age of 22. "Hello. I'm Chaplain Norris," I said. "What?" she asked, as if startled by a disembodied voice. I handed her a few matching jigsaw pieces and repeated my name, telling her I was available if she needed to talk. She said she didn't. But, over the next few days, her medications were adjusted and she began to smile with staff. Soon, she invited me to sit with her each afternoon until her parents arrived for family therapy. She explained how her family had once brought courageous faith and generous means to her mental health treatment. Her father was a retired military officer, and her mother was a mental health worker. In a previous hospitalization, Rachael saw her family resources bring an optimistically quick discharge, all of which gave Rachael hope to discontinue her medications. When that didn't work, she tried using her medication stockpile to end her life. She was readmitted to our hospital, and her medications were again readjusted. Her family felt reaffirmed in her immediate turnaround, and the doctors discharged her again, noting the family's buoyant outlook. A year later, I found a despondent Rachael in our Labor and Delivery unit. Social workers placed her newborn into emergency foster care, and our psychiatrist admitted Rachael for the third time. After a week's stay and rebalancing of her medications, doctors again sent Rachael home with family. If you're looking for a happily-ever-after ending, you'll rarely find it in the lost world of mental health. Rachael's case is about as happy as it gets because her family loves her enough to reclaim her from the avalanche of mental illness. Jesus suggested he knew something of that kind of loving search when he asked his listeners: "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety-nine … and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully … calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' " I think Jesus was saying we devalue our society when we discard any of our members. Maybe that's why some of Jesus' last words on Earth were to his disciple Peter; he commanded him to "Feed my sheep." Rachael was one of those lost sheep, and because of the loving shepherds managing her care, she's on her way back to the flock. The last I heard, she was studying to become a veterinary assistant, where I hope she is now caring for some sheep of her own. Join me for Sunday worship at Community Church in Nevada City at 10:30 a.m. on 300 Main St. Read all of Norris Burkes' columns at www.thechaplain.net. Send comments to comment@thechaplain.net or 10566 Combie Road, Suite 6643, Auburn, CA 95602. Contact Chaplain Norris at comment@thechaplain.net or voicemail 843-608-9715.