Most of us think we can find God within jumbles of rosary beads, between stacks of Bible pages, and within the rise and fall of hymns. Nobody expects to find him within squeaky linoleum reflections on psych ward floors, stark white hospital walls, and old, abandoned corridors. And yet, it is often these very places that resonate with God’s presence the most. Some may say that they have seen more disbelievers convert to religiousness while waiting for news about their loved ones in plastic hospital chairs than at the altar.
In fact, we often think religiosity is poles apart from psych wards, don’t we? But faith needs one thing that Priests don’t have: time.
Imagine being inside a facility. It is dark, and you are staring at the small rectangle of light filtering in through the window on the door. There is only so long that you can only blink mindlessly before you begin to think. You go through the lists of endless regrets, things you could have done, overthinking, weaving thoughts, and more rapidly weaving worries. But then, hour after hour and night after night, your thoughts about yourself run thin, and you start to think things like, ‘What now? Where did it all begin? What is my purpose?’
You think, ‘Okay, I have reached a dead end here, but I must have some sort of purpose, or am I purposeless?’
That is when you strike gold. As you uncover more, you realize that you are deliberately created the way you are. When you think of the term “creation,” you think of the term “a creator,” which is, in itself, a godly entity.
Thus, you find God…within yourself. It’s like Buddha trying to achieve complete peace through starvation, resistance, discipline, and lots of time. That’s already a lot of commonality between the facility and spirituality, so can we say that we might be on the right path? Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Those who don’t find a religious entity find a purpose, and often, the purpose is God. The purpose is what we find in desperate times and dire situations, between screams and manic episodes, and within the crux of anxiety-ridden shivering. That might seem like romanticization, but we never hear stories like, “I got drunk in a bar, slept with a really hot person, and found my life’s purpose,” do we?
We hear stories about people who have been in life-altering situations, stared death in the eye, made it out alive, and then decided to rethink their life’s purpose. Belief, in any form, is more often found within ourselves, desperation, and blank psych ward walls where we have nothing but time on our hands.
If you want to read more about the endless life realizations that may arise as a result of desperate situations, read more about it in the book, My Time At The Palm Beach Spa by Pamela A. Newman. This outstanding book offers real-life advice about a rocky life in jail and the offset of a lifelong journey of rediscovery.
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