The following is a paraphrase of a story offered to us by Robert K. Greenleaf.
I visited a large mental hospital. My guide was a staff psychiatrist. After a bit we entered a locked ward, a large room in which there were about 50 men in the charge of two orderlies. The patients were sullen and hostile looking and they were standing or sitting as isolated beings with no apparent interaction among them. As we left, I remember turning to the doctor saying ‘this was scary to me.’ And then I asked if the staff were safe in that locked ward. I wondered if there wasn’t a chance that the patients would gang up them. The doctor’s quick reply was, ‘not a chance, they are quite safe. You see, it is part of the illness of those men that they cannot get together on anything.’
I believe this story is a metaphor for most institutional life today. I perceive it to contain a number of powerful implications for us and I invite you, dear reader, to consider the following:
==> unlike the patients – individuals in our institutions have chosen to ‘lock themselves in.’ Questions: In what ways have people chosen to lock themselves in? When and how do you lock yourself in? What is the benefit of this choice? What is the cost? Why would one choose to lock oneself in?
==> unlike the patients – individuals in our institutions have chosen not to use their power and have, in fact, given their power away to others. POWER = one’s ability to act. Questions: Why do people choose not to act (that is, to exercise their power)? When do you choose not to act? Why? When do you choose to act? Why? What is the price one pays for choosing not to act? What is the price one pays for choosing to act?
==> like the patients – individuals in our institutions have also experienced their ‘voices’ not being called forth nor honored nor nurtured. Questions: What does it mean, ‘to call forth’ the voices of others? To Honor them? To Nurture them? When have you called forth your own voice? When have you called forth others’ voices? In what ways have you nurtured your own voice and others’ voices? Why is this calling forth important anyway?
==> like the patients – many individuals in our institutions are driven by ‘fear’ – perhaps they have even chosen fear as a means of avoiding either bringing their ‘voice’ or of being ‘response-able.’ Questions: When have you chosen fear as a way of coping? What is the benefit of ‘living from fear’? What is the cost? What are some viable alternatives to ‘living from fear’? Have you ever ‘become’ your fear?