Humans for the long haul. Jon Owen, Wayside Chapel

yeah look i am it's easy to call the label a non-conformist now now that i'm old enough i really don't care about conforming it's part of part of my story which we'll get into in a few moments but Getting back to your question, it is, I think, really important as we look at the current state of where we are at with our mental health collectively as a society, we need to step back and to look at some of the bigger movements that really get us to the point that we are in now.

And it is kind of the...

We're in the stages of the end... stages of the post-enlightenment world in which we've inherited that place the individual at the centre.

When if you look at some, and you acknowledged the country that we're on, some of the more traditional communities, they would configure the human and life within the context of community connection and land.

Mm-hmm.

and story and we have kind of cut ourselves adrift from that place and then we also have had medical interventions now that sees us in terms of not as a whole person but we reduce to our symptoms and that really flattens us out and so getting back to our philosophy about that is you know borrowed from uh martin buber which is no one is a problem to be solved they're a person to be met we meet people who have been shrunk down to a label you know which is and we're all carrying those labels like some might be dysfunctional mentally unwell unstable wealthy beautiful ugly uh dysfunctional I'm probably repeating myself now and people carry those labels on so it's important when people present to us that we're always looking beneath the label to the child of humanity and the person they are underneath it all.

I love the way you say the child of humanity.

I know one of my personal heroes was Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh and he would talk about seeing the person as the five-year-old, remembering the person as the child and maybe what was happening for them in their life and bringing that common humanity piece.

into our acknowledgement and our, we're very quick to judge and we're very quick to want to solve

As a human condition.

I'm sorry, I mispronounced his name.

One of his other great quotes is we're only beginning to awaken now to the myth that we are separated selves.

You know, he talks about the need for integration and, you know, if I look at the own...

And I'm a minister as well, a reverend at the Wayside Chapel.

Never set out to be one.

I wouldn't trust anyone who does come along the way.

But you're following the path of some incredibly wonderful and great people in Graham.

I'm a disqualified

social worker as well now.

I forgot I needed to keep my accreditation up with the AASW and I forgot to, but that's okay.

We can get into that later as well.

but look I think I would have much rather train as a Buddhist monk because there's a certain part in the Buddhist monk formation where they strip you down to beggars clothes and they make you beg you'll see it in Thailand still to this day and and for a few a period of time you are cast as a beggar and What they're trying to teach you there is basically saying when you become ordained as a monk or as a minister, you will hold... very gently in your hands power, and you will never understand how to hold that power unless you know what it means to be first powerless.

And I think that's a really important stance and position.

And it's how we position ourselves here at Wayside is we're not experts that come in over the top.

We're people who sit alongside and amongst.