Here in southeastern Virginia, one local news station has stirring up paranoia and fear.  Why?  John Hinckley, Jr. is due to be released from the hospital soon.  Mr. Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Reagan in 1981.  I was home sick from school that day, and I was sitting on my parents’ bed with my mom watching television when this happened.  It was a scary thing, seeing this larger-than-life man being shot, and I’m glad this happened before the cable news stations had to try to fill every minute of the day with action.  I was too young to really follow the story of the investigation and the trial. I was far too young to understand what insanity meant; it was a scary word, conjuring up images of Arkham Asylum and other dark places.

Undercover Nun is far better acquainted with insanity now.  In 1998, I was hospitalized three times with severe depression, the third time following a suicide attempt.  I’d heard words like schizophrenic and manic-depressive and multiple personality before, but I hadn’t known what they meant; they were just dark and scary.  But during those weeks in the hospital, I encountered other men and women who suffered with depression, with bipolar disorder, with the hallucinations and delusions of schizophrenia and other psychoses, even one woman who was truly dissociated.  It was still pretty scary to see that we truly can “lose” our minds. It was humbling to realize how tenuous our control over our thoughts and feelings truly is.  I loved my fellow patients, my heart breaking anew to see the suffering.

While I was in the hospital, I also saw some wonderful things.  I saw patients arrive in a complete fog, not responding to anyone around them, so depressed that they were paralyzed.  And then I saw the miracle brought about by ECT, that within 2 or 3 days, these catatonic women and men became engaged in the world around them, cheerful and chatty.  It was resurrection.  I saw hope take fire in that dissociated woman, who had finally found a doctor who had experience helping merge the dissociated pieces.  She arrived under a black cloud, afraid to touch or to let anyone touch her; she left beaming, even giving me a hug.

Mr. Hinckley was ruled to be insane, and he has been confined to St. Elizabeths hospital in DC since his trial.  He has had increasing freedom to leave the hospital for visits with his mom in Williamsburg.  A judge ordered that he get a driver’s license again, and almost a year ago a doctor at the hospital testified that Mr. Hinckley is no longer a danger to himself or to others.  He wants to live with his mother, who lives in a posh gated community in Williamsburg, and his siblings are ready to support him.  But the residents of this community are afraid of the damage to the reputation of their homes, and have the cash to try to fight this. 

This news station has aired “reports” over recent days, stirring up fear that Mr. Hinckley might be sitting in the next booth while you’re out for dinner, or two rows behind you in the movie theater… and you won’t even know it! 

Undercover Nun wonders why it would matter one whit whether you knew that a volunteer librarian who is under treatment for an organic brain disorder was sitting in a movie theater with you.

Undercover Nun wonders how these wealthy Kingsmill residents would feel if their sister had been in a mental hospital for three decades and had the opportunity to be released and return home.

Undercover Nun wonders why a person would think that he or she would have the right to decide who can or cannot move into the neighborhood, particularly if this decision would involve blatant discrimination against people with disabilities.

Undercover Nun wonders why gates around neighborhoods would make anyone feel more safe or secure, because gates keep out only those who follow the rules already.

Undercover Nun wonders when professed Christians (not that I know Mr. Camp or Ms. Michael to be such) will truly believe that healing is possible, that reconciliation can happen in this world, that people can be made new and can have second chances, that forgiveness is not only possible but mandatory, and that even the worst sinner will be redeemed.

Undercover Nun wonders when we will let go of our fears, the fears that lurk behind every anger, the fears that separate us from the abundance of life God has given us, the fears that are not just the opposite of faith but the rejection of it.

And Undercover Nun prays for our immortal souls.  May God have mercy on us all.