The core elements

LAST year I wrote an article which highlighted the alarming levels of anxiety, depression and stress which were taking their toll on people across the generations.

That piece appeared in the April 2020 edition of Life and Work, but it had been written six weeks earlier without any idea that we were about to enter a period which would test the mental health resilience of every one of us.

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic we were optimistic that a period of lockdown would put this virus in its place and by the summer we would begin to see life return to normal. That article also promoted a CrossReach Golf Day which would be an awareness raiser and a fundraiser for the work that CrossReach was doing to promote wellbeing and good mental health. At that time, it never crossed my mind that the Golf Day would have to be postponed, but it was moved from June to September, further postponed until summer 2021 and then abandoned in the hope that it might happen sometime in 2022.

It was not until this time last year, when we hailed the approval of vaccines, that we enjoyed the first rays of hope that life might eventually return to some semblance of normality. The vaccines; however, did not appear in time to save our Christmas services, celebrations and gatherings. Now, almost two years since the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Wuhan it is clear that this pandemic has led to a further escalation in the levels of anxiety, depression and stress being experienced by people in all walks of life.

It was one thing to cancel a golf outing but the accumulation of cancelled events, postponed weddings, curtailed funerals, periods of self-isolation and separation are quite another. The truth is that most of us have ways of coping with ‘one-off’ disappointments and difficulties but repeated blows to our wellbeing are harder to measure and harder to dissipate.

Some years ago, when the decision was made to replace the Forth Road Bridge with the new Queensferry Crossing it was because the old bridge was suffering from stress. It had not been overtaken by one single traumatic incident which rendered it in need of repair. It was that day after day, month after month and year after year it had been placed under repetitive strain.

It was the accumulated effect that led to the need for renewal.

Interestingly, the Forth Bridge, the rail crossing built in the wake of the Tay Bridge disaster, was made so robust that it hasn’t suffered in the same way. People living under the demands of the present day are more like the old road bridge rather than the old rail bridge and that has been highlighted by the repeated blows to life under the hammer of a pandemic.

For many people CrossReach counselling and residential services are where the grace of God meets the need of vulnerable people.

At the forefront of the Church of Scotland’s work to help people cope with mental illness and breakdown is the work of CrossReach. For many people CrossReach counselling and residential services are where the grace of God meets the need of vulnerable people. It is where people are listened to and encouraged, where people discover their place in a caring community and where they find the deep inner resources to turn their lives around. I think that the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews was onto this formula a long time ago; he recommended the medicine of being kind to one another, being sure to meet together and taking time to encourage one another (chap 10: 24-25). These are core elements that you will find in the work of CrossReach and they are core elements that are needed now as never before.