The title of this article is inspired by a statement Liza Long made in her post of December 16, 2012, at Gawker.com: “I am Adam Lanza’s mother. No insurance plan will cover this kind of thing.” In a lyrical and riveting narrative on the troubling spectrum of her son’s behaviors, Ms Long writes about the December 14 tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Raising her brilliant and disturbed child was a profound challenge for her. She goes on to say, “This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense.”
On Sunday, December 16, in a presentation at an interfaith vigil in the town of Newtown, Connecticut, the President said, “These tragedies must end, and to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and it is true. No single law, no set of laws, can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this.”
When Caroline Myss, a New York Times best-selling author and dynamic teacher of spiritual psychology, is asked for her insight on the cause of illness or the reason for tragedy, she admonishes that there is never any one cause that leads to a specific result. There are always many causes or reasons that are ultimately behind any situation or effect.
As long as we believe that others who are “high maintenance,” that is, the poor, the mentally ill, the homeless, the uneducated, the chronically depressed, the elderly, the jobless, the terminally ill (and the list goes on), are not deserving of compassionate and ongoing intervention and assistance (because they should somehow have done something to have helped themselves), we will only have inefficient and inadequate social programs to address these issues. And there will be no reason to have insurance plans that cover the gaps or pick up the slack of inadequate social programs – because we don’t think they’re necessary. As long as we believe that any underachiever, addict, or down-on-their-luck person needs to exercise more self-responsibility and all will be well, I assert that we also need to have programs and funds and housing and food and transportation and clothing to assist them with climbing out of their pit. Human beings cannot improve their lives and develop greater sufficiency without resources. Period. How long would any of us last in the desert without food, water, and a tent? Or how about just without our current utilities infrastructure? As long as we expect that the burden of care for the high maintenance among us must be borne solely by individuals and their families, whose tents are only so big, we will collectively continue to pay dearly. It’s worth stating here that any misconceptions, and even arrogance, we have regarding the “lessons” of those in trouble should consider that there is never a single cause for a single effect, and that we are all subject to the same physical laws.
Mental illness, like poverty and accidents, will likely always be with us. It is inherent in our lesser nature to default to an incomplete and imbalanced understanding of all the factors that create these conditions, and to understand justice through the lens of polarity rather than through the heart of compassion. When we understand and accept that we are all in life together, we realize that it is our divine obligation to care for those with whom we do not share familial DNA. We can build a vision of a collective family. From this vision, different structures, legal processes, and programs can emerge.
What can we do that is undoubtedly better than what we have done? We can create new systems, but to do so, we will need to step outside our known experiences. Perhaps what we need is to create new paradigms that take us to places in our consciousness that we have never been to before – to think way out of the box in the most extraordinary and exalted ways!
I believe it’s possible to call in a future that’s far more aligned with the real values many of us subscribe to. If we believe that everyone should have a roof over their heads and be able to pursue the education that will develop their innate talents and build their ability to contribute, then we find or create the means to make this happen. If we believe in universal health care, we envision the systems that will bring it into being. And while we do so, let us not ignore the organizations already in place, which depend heavily on donations. We can get these into the mainstream, making them an integral part of the culture. The shift here is that these organizations can be empowered to be far more than charities.
Let us put on our best strategic minds in service of a more beautiful and just world —one that engages our many different skills and talents. It is our collaborative and cooperative efforts that are the insurance plan that can cover many different kinds of claims. The vision and the value are this: each one of us has the right to claim, and indeed must claim, their highest and best expression. Imagine a community where everyone is contributing at their peak! In the meantime, we can continue supporting organizations that support others and continue reaching out to each other in humility and without judgment, as none of us has been deprived of the foundation of support that enables us to become who we are now.
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