Last week, Dr. R. Jonas Collins, skillful, multitalented, warm and personal oral surgeon, stood by my side. Smiling, he said, referring to the recent presidential election, “I don’t know, but I feel good. It is like winning a big basketball game.”
He wanted me to feel no pain as he extracted abscessed tooth #14. “Eighty per cent of chewing is done with tooth # 14, so I’m inserting a post. In 3 months, you will have an implant . . .”
I wanted to be as brave as Dr. Collins was nice, but there was no match. Almost childlike, I begged, “Please give me all the pain medication you would give a coward.”
Thank God and Dr. Collins. I felt no pain.
Cory Templeman, kindest neighbor, like the Samaritan described in the Bible, drove me to Dr. Collins’ office, brought me home, devoting 3 hours of his valuable time, never uttering a complaint. His only interest was my wellbeing and safety, holding my arm firmly as we navigated the entrances with my hands firmly on my walker.
Cory is the neighbor who drove me to the famous UVA Dr. O. for cataract surgery, the neighbor who asked me if he could offer a prayer before I faced ultrasound removal of my diseased cataracts.
My childhood was spent with good neighbors in a good home with good parents in Norfolk. I attended public schools and Burrows Memorial Baptist Church, the center of my religious and social life. The church was located 100 yards from my house. It had a strong positive influence on developing my sense of right and wrong. Good neighbors taught Sunday School. Good neighbors sang in the choir and visited the sick.
In Burrow’s church, I met Dottie. We married in Burrow’s church nearly 71 years ago. She is the most precious of God’s greatest blessings in my life.
A recent interview of a learned, elderly Rabbi on the Jewish Broadcasting System, JBS, TV channel, provided insightful perceptions:
At birth, every member of the human race, the only race mentioned in the Bible, all the rest man-made terms too often used to denigrate or glorify others, is born in bondage. The bondage is self-interest. It was self-interest that led to disobedience of God in the Garden of Eden.
Hatred, the consequence of impeded self-interest, reaches its tentacles into every aspect of human thought, feeling, and behavior. Hatred is the mostly deadly poison conceivable. Love is the only proven antidote for hatred.
Pride, the subtle, most evil, and clandestine form of excessive self-interest, shares its spiritual DNA with all forms of self-interest.
The inspired Word of God, the Holy Bible, replete with confirmation that sin springs from self-interest, describes God’s plan to save us from ourselves. William James (1842-1910), a master wordsmith, an early pragmatist, conceptualized it by stating:
“We all need to give our little, private, convulsive selves a rest and to find the Greater Self. When we find the Greater Self, our life and our work will take on a sense of lyrical enchantment.” Varieties of Religious Experience, 1903.
As we infer from Jesus’ command, some self-interest is essential:
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40.
Reasonable self-interest assures good physical health practices. As we are reminded biblically, our physical bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Reasonable self-interest includes addressing, developing, and maintaining mental, cognitive, and spiritual health as well as we can.
Unfortunately, many today have bulging self-interests as a body builder has bulging muscles. The bigger and enlarged one’s self-interests, the smaller is one’s love for others.
We are told in earlier versions of the Bible that “The Lord God also made the man of the dust of the ground, and breathed in his face the breath of life, and the man was a living soul.” Genesis 2:7, 1599 Geneva Bible. “He showeth whereof man’s body was created, to the intent that man should not glory in the excellency of his own nature.”
“In a spiritual context, “psyche” refers to the human soul, essentially the inner essence or spirit of a person, derived from the Greek word “psyche” which directly translates to “soul” or “mind” and is often associated with the idea of a deeper, more intangible part of oneself beyond the physical body.”
I look back on my psychoanalytic training as a psychiatric resident. How much more would I have learned had a biblically sound theological professor been an active member of the teaching faculty? Had the teachings of Jesus received the same academic emphasis as the teaching of Freud, the views of the Jewish Jesus verses those of a Jewish atheist, would I have been better prepared to help relieve the anguish of disordered minds whose suffering is unimaginable?
The answer is a resounding YES!
Psychiatric residents are uneducated in matters of the “soul,” ill-prepared to relieve the suffering of their patients. There are no medications for the disturbed soul. Ministers are best when they preach and teach the Bible. Christian counselors try to apply biblical teaching to aching souls. Too often, it is too little applied to the pressing need.
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson wrote in his new book, We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine, 2024, urges us to “renew our covenant with God whose magic words structure our consciousness and our societies insofar as they are functional and productive.” “God is not dead. God is born again.”
God is alive and real.
Robert S. Brown, MD, PHD a retired Psychiatrist, Col (Ret) U.S. Army Medical Corps devoted the last decade of his career to treating soldiers at Fort Lee redeploying from combat. He was a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Education at UVA. His renowned Mental Health course taught the value of exercise for a sound mind.