First thing on Easter: Thoughts on Schizophrenia

I read all the comments on my blog but almost never respond to them since I am blogging for myself.

I woke up on Easter morning my first thoughts were for this woman who left this on my blog over a post I made on December 20 last year. The message was for Dr. Tan Cheng Bock. Did she think Dr. Tan will visit my blog? Well if he googled himself and click through.

She needs a new beginning. She and countless others, me included could use the Easter miracle in our lives. She caused me to remember my visits to Woodbridge Hospital as a kid. I distinctly remember playing Chess with an Indian patient. He was a big fellow but very gentle or perhaps I was small then. You know, when we were small and Christmas trees were big... I was told he was the top student at Victoria School. He had wanted to be a doctor.

Should I write about my late mother in law? She was also schizophrenic. The faith Christ gives us help to make us appear reckless. We can choose our in laws you know. The one who conquered death and broke out of his tomb is fond of upsetting the apple cart. He told me I could be more reckless but my faith is often too small, but it grows. I try his patience but he is always patient. Likewise my kids try my patience and with very rare exceptions I am also patient with them. This is how God breaks vicious cycles in families and society.

A classmate at NUS developed schizophrenia in the first year of our course. When my class had our reunions, I wondered if they remember R....For many years now I try to keep up with my friend's brother who suffers from schizophrenia too. We were classmates in primary school. Of course I always remember the movie, "A Beautiful Mind". It is a wellspring of hope.

God is always more reckless and shocking than I can bear. You caught up with him and he moved on again. It is amazing how so many people try to bottle him up as a genie in a lamp with the Bible. Meanwhile over in Rome, a theologian pope made way for one who takes after the reckless Francis of Assisi. Get this. The genie owns the lamp and not the other way round. The risen Christ had to explain the ancient scriptures all over again for them. Over the years, you understand better how Job must have felt. Those who came after Job were thrown into utter despair but God preserved them long enough for Easter morning.

Schizophrenia will cease but not on our terms. It will be on Easter terms, and don't imagine we completely understand the power of Easter. Do you understand the Book of Revelation? I don't and my elder child has often said it is a frightening read.