of the chaos, I always pray for Jeff to pull out of it.
On and off, we talked about having another baby. An even number of kids seemed like a good idea, and since the first three were so close in age, we went for it. A couple of weeks in, I felt horrible and started having flashbacks to my first pregnancy. I knew I was pregnant with multiples—I feared it might be triplets! The doctor confirmed my suspicions, and once again we were having twins. It was a difficult time. For me, twin pregnancy was physically and emotionally draining, and even still, there were three little people who needed constant support. I carried the babies to full term. I felt so many things that I can’t begin to describe. I thought I was going to die. But amid the struggle, I was excited to meet the babies. This time around, I realized that something about impending childbirth triggered Jeff’s depression. So, all of these obstacles seemed to come at once. When the babies finally arrived, we ended up with one vaginal birth and one emergency C-section. We were grateful for the health and safety of our babies, but I was spent emotionally and physically. Despite these obstacles, we made it through.
I will never forget the day that my Mom, my Aunt, and I stood in my grandfather’s kitchen discussing the arrival of the second set of twins. They looked me straight in the eye, and with deep concern and disbelief said, “How will you ever take care of five little children!?” At the time I was really hurt by their lack of hope for the situation. I told them, “I don’t’ know! I’ve never taken care of five kids before! I do know we won’t all just lay down and die.” I guess that was my way of sticking up for myself. What I should have said was, it hurts my feeling that you said that. What I need now is love, support, and encouragement. I don’t have room for negativity and fear.
I relay that story to illustrate something very special about my relationship with Jeff Hood. Despite the challenges that we have faced over these five years. Despite a constant juggling of mental stability for both of us. Despite the demands of exponential family growth. We are committed to hope. We are committed to asking questions. And we are committed to creating a world that is not dominated by fear and rules. We believe that the image of God makes it thus, and if we are to be faithful, we must move forward, side by side, notwithstanding the expectations and fears of our world.
This creative way of living is complicated. It is full of unknowns as we forge new paths. But, it is a divine right and the pathway of freedom. As such, I return to the idea of the God we cannot fully know. The God in whose image we are created. There are fundamental characteristics that belong to the Divine. Love being the foremost. How do we imagine the love of God for the mentally ill? How have our churches extended divine love to the mentally ill? What does our society have to say about the mentally ill? You can take the time to answer each of these questions, and I think you will find incongruence and failures. The mentally ill are marginalized. They are defective. We are afraid of mental illness. Perhaps in this day and age, Jesus would say, “Blessed are the mentally ill, for they will experience the world in profound ways.” My academic mentor always talks about how outsiders often make the greatest theoretical contributions to any given discipline or field because they are able to see that particular world through a different lens. For many mentally ill people, the experience of the world is never normative. Even with medication there are struggles with each moment. Dealing with this kind of adversity, this instability, causes one to struggle and fight to survive. For my husband, his will to fight has ensured his survival and equipped him to do the social justice work that he does. His grit, along with the lens God has given him, allows him to make theological innovations, such as this book. In many ways, his mental illness offers him creative affordances that others will never have. I know Jeff is not alone.
What if we apply our creativity to God as well? What if we allow ourselves to imagine God in an infinite number of ways? I believe it is important to do so with humility, knowing that for now, our knowing is partial. Nonetheless, God calls us to be co-creators. God is in our midst and we are made in God’s image. For many that image includes mental illness, and so generating ideas about God based on psychosis allows those who are mentally ill to become an integral part of the flock. Many indigenous cultures have much more reverence for those whose minds allow them to experience the world in non-normative ways. Perhaps we can learn from their traditions. Perhaps we can reimagine God and in so doing reimagine mental illness, ultimately accepting it as a complex way of being that is fraught will challenges, and yet ushers unique knowledge into the world that would otherwise not exist.
This book is a theology of mental illness, and yet it is about all of us. This book emerges from Jeff’s personal struggles. Though it is an intensely personal topic, it is simultaneously collective in nature. Mental illness touches all of us in one way or another. We must decide how we will respond to mental illness in various context within our culture. This book calls the reader to imagine how psychosis and mental illness might be part of God’s divine perfection, and then asks the reader to apply their thoughts to practical engagements of theology in everyday life. May we never forget that the unknowable aspects of God are an invitation to imagine perfection more perfectly.
—Emily Jean Hood, May 2016
Preface
God is sick. Let every word of that statement sink in. Such thoughts make us cringe. Our earliest cultural engagements with God teach us the opposite. Our religious expectations inform us that a sick God is no God. We demand perfection from our God. Unfortunately, our thoughts of perfection are distorted around our own expectations of what perfection must look like. We assume that God must be without any type of defect. Our ideas of defection are rooted in the things that we are repulsed by. God has never engaged perfection and defection in such a way. God has always been found in spaces of defection. God has always been found with us. For God, defection is perfection and perfection is defection. The Psychosis of God is about finding God in defection.
Theologies of liberation begin in oppression and marginalization. Such theologies dare to construct a God that is intimately and intrinsically connected to the suffering of God’s people. Liberation theologians are persons dedicated to the task of demanding the liberation of God through demanding the liberation of God’s people. The Psychosis of God begins in a place of oppression and marginalization. The mentally ill are considered to be the most defective people in our society. Liberation theology is always about running to places of defection. Liberation theologians sprint to such places because we know that God is there. We know that God is most fully found in the oppressed and the marginalized. This liberation theology dares to imagine the movements of a mentally ill God through the movements of mentally ill people. Fighting for the liberation of the mentally ill is about fighting for the liberation of a mentally ill God. For the mentally ill, liberation comes from the wide recognition that in defection exists perfection. God is there.
Queer theologies dare to purport that God is located in that which is queer or strange amongst us. That which is queer has transcended boundaries of normativity. Mental illness has never been considered normative. The minds of the crazy are always outside of the boundaries of what society assumes normal minds are supposed to be. Normativity tells us to stay within the lines. We are told to hide everything that is outside the lines. The true queer refuses to be closeted. The true queer refuses to play by the rules. The true queer has always been considered mentally ill. God has never played by the rules. God has always refused to be closeted. God has never fit in. God has always been queer. God has always been mentally ill.
I didn’t start out in defection. I started in perfection. Throughout my life, I just wanted to be perfect as I assumed God was perfect. The older I got, the more I realized that God is perfect in defection and so are we. The Psychosis of God is about liberating the queer mentally ill minds amongst us. Lasting liberation always begins and ends with the knowledge that your perfection is found in your defection. This is a very strange book. The mentally ill image of God is used to resurrect a mentally ill God. I proceed from my mentally ill mind to other mentally ill minds to ponder the mentally ill mind of God. This is not an exact science. This is an exploration. Some will argue that this book is crazy, they will be right.
—Rev.
