Conversation with God. David C. Wilson

about 2.45, when they put me to bed. She managed to talk me into giving her the aspirin and now I’m regretting it already. Didn’t sleep, had perhaps one hour all night. Now I’m very tired.

      For fully two and a half months, the diary entries record the prevalence of persistent low mood, and towards the end of May, Chris discharged herself. Throughout June, the concerned social workers attempted to persuade Chris to return to the ward. Finally they succeeded, and by the middle of the next month Chris voluntarily admitted herself, before seemingly realising the pointlessness of it all and leaving again on the very next day. I was weary of it all, for although these voluntary admissions allowed much freedom—permitting for example, evenings and weekends to be spent at home—they were completely ineffectual, failing to alter either mood or behavior. I decided to bring Chris home for good, knowing full well that such a decision could have led to Chris’s death, since a heart attack in her weakened anorexic condition was a distinct possibility. Nevertheless, come home she would, whether to live or to die.

      The medical record of the late summer of 1991 shows that my (unilateral) decision to discharge Chris, and to subsequently block attempts to section her, had thrown both the medics and the social workers into consternation. The consultant psychiatrist made his fears known to the G. P. in a letter discharging Chris from his care, at the same time making clear his belief in the continued need for her “psychiatric management.” Modern Western society will not permit individuals to make such life-determining, decisions against the collective wisdom of the medical profession, and in such circumstances, the system has remedies. When presented with this state of affairs the social services department considered invoking Section 29 of the Mental Health Act, which can be used to displace the nearest relative, “where consent is unreasonably withheld.” Despite the advice of the social services department, and notwithstanding Chris’s brief admission to Accident & Emergency following another overdose, the G. P., in whose primary care Chris now was, failed to act.

      Throughout that autumn, and against this tragic background, I continued to struggle with the other problems, to which had been added the medical debts from the period Chris had spent in private care. We were now hopelessly behind with the accounts, financial services regulation was even more onerous, and we had been obliged to (prematurely) employ staff. The hiring of a general branch clerk to deal with an enlarged motor insurance account had become essential, but in terms of (wo)man power, our clerk had merely replaced Chris in the office, and at substantial further cost into the bargain. Interestingly, it came to light that our clerk’s husband was a member of a well known, fraternal, and charitable fellowship, the same one it turned out, that I had joined a few years earlier. One of the major tenets of this fellowship is a professed belief in ‘The Great Architect of the Universe,’ and prior to initiation into membership, candidates are asked the question: ‘Do you believe in God.’ To answer this question in the affirmative forced a major turning point in my life, for I had always previously vocalized a kind of vehement, scientific atheism, loosely based on the theory of evolution. The examining committee had, of course, only wished to have me mouth the words in a compliant manner, but strangely, it had meant so much more to me than that. Now, in the hour of my greatest need, I found that this worldwide fellowship of brothers, was not so much unwilling, as unable to help us in our desperate situation—they were simply out of their depth.

      The Feast of Christmas

      Christmas had always been a difficult time of year for us ever since the death of Chris’s father in the early eighties. With Stan’s death, a central focal point of the wider family had gone, leaving no one among the four married daughters who felt either willing or able to assume the mantle of family head. All this meant disarray at Christmas, when social arrangements tended to be made in a tentative and half-hearted manner, frequently leading to mild upset of one form or another. In order to avoid such complications, we began to spend the Christmas holiday away from home. The Christmas this year was no exception, being the eighth such year spent away, and the four of us duly departed for a five day sojourn in a rented cottage in Wales. Winter in west Wales is, as often as not, a fairly mild affair and that week in Harlech proved to be one of the warmer ones, positively balmy in fact. Nevertheless we stocked up with coal, not so much for fear of harder weather or even for aesthetic effect, but more to combat the bodily coldness Chris was feeling due to her emaciation. The emotional pain of the past twelve months was now reaching a crescendo, as Chris combined her long-standing culinary skills with the anorexic tendency to constantly work with, and be around food, whilst avoiding eating much of it. Gradually one becomes accustomed to the tiny portions of food and the drinks of diet Coca Cola, but to be sat at the Christmas table—the table of plenty—and be served by an emaciated, five and a quarter stone anorexic is the most harrowing experience imaginable. At such a low weight Chris was constantly tired, and when this was reinforced by the C. F. S. symptoms, she was in the habit of taking frequent naps, and I would, like as not, take advantage of this time to venture out for an after dinner walk to think things through.

      The Deal

      The streets of the town were completely deserted (indeed there is nothing quite like a Welsh seaside town during the Christmas break for peace and quiet), as my mind turned over the seeming impasse of our situation. In the past I had always found it possible to solve every problem thrown up by the vicissitudes of life, for although a little introverted, I possessed confidence and courage of a sort, in good measure. We had begun a business on a shoe-string budget, based on a partnership between two people who contributed different skills, both of whom had assumed that good health was a given, that would always be there. As long term illness encroached on our lives, the unanticipated costs of that illness had accrued to the business, which was now approaching a debt-ridden crisis point. All the possible solutions to our problems, such as the employment of domestic cooks and cleaners, or the hire of a bookkeeper and private nurse, seemed to involve yet more uncovered expenditure. I was beset on all sides not only by the regulators, but also by numbers of other creditors whose ranks had now been joined by the Revenue, and who distracted me from the sales and marketing so essential to continued earnings. As I walked along that deserted main road, I knew that I had reached the end of my capabilities, and I knew moreover, that nobody else could help me either.

      It is well known that low light levels can have an adverse effect upon a person’s mood, and I feel sure that the gloom of that late December day heightened the sense of despair I felt. As I continued to mull over the intractability of my problems, I noticed a small, stone church, slightly raised above the road, to my left. The churchyard seemed a yet quieter place—if that were possible—in which to think through my predicament, so I opened the gate and entered. Truth to tell, I felt like praying (for the first time in thirty plus years), or at least vocalising the situation to somebody–anybody. Expecting the church door to be locked, I was surprised when it yielded, giving me access to a very simple, empty church adorned only with a few children’s drawings. High up on the wall at the far end of this one-room church, was a filled crucifix, which struck me as unusual for an Anglican church in congregational mid-Wales. To this figure of Jesus I spoke these words:

      I have no power to affect anything in my life, but you have the power. If you will help me, I will serve you.

      No answer came, no still, small voice, indeed, having spoken these few words in the deadliest earnestness and sincerity; I simply turned on my heel and left the building. The only feeling I had as I walked back up the road to the cottage, was one of having done something concrete, something quite particular, and which made the ‘after’ different from the ‘before.’ Perhaps it was my imagination, perhaps it was hope, but I knew that a new factor was there now, which hadn’t been there before.

      Looking back on that moment, having had the benefit of five years of full time theological study, I still find myself amazed at those words, for I had somehow managed to condense most of both testaments of the bible into a couple of dozen words. To begin with—and most importantly—there was repentance, which at that time I thought simply meant an oft-repeated apology to God for ongoing sin. Now whilst it may mean that, it has a much more fundamental meaning involving a person’s orientation towards God. Put simply, repentance is a once-for-all about face, in which a (wo)man makes the irrevocable decision to turn around from facing self to facing God. Sin is subsumed within that decision, which by its irrevocable nature, ensures that sin