LayGuy

In time, I will elaborate on the piano and and the piano player analogy. For now, I will invite you to think of the piano as the physical brain and the piano player as the soul, the spirit, the heart and the mind - ie. the metaphysical.

Without the other, each part is redundant. When the other doesn’t function in it’s proper capacity, the music is warped - this represents mental illness.

We can tune the piano with medication, however if a sick piano player stomps on the keyboard, the piano will be out of tune rather quickly.

In mental illness, there are a number of theories as to why people become mentally ill. I once had dinner with a very respected psychiatrist and mentioned this analogy. In the back of my mind, I thought he was going to dismiss it out right. To my surprise, he said that it had merit.

My brother is a psychologist and is extremely interested in the Christian view on mental illness. We both agree that in many, if not most cases of mental illness, there is a spiritual connection. In the gospels, there are many examples of people being healed of mental and physical illnesses by Jesus casting out a demon.

This doesn’t mean that all these people were demon possessed - in most cases they were - but I strongly believe that some of these people were demon oppressed. With the above piano analogy, the player is afflicted by his enemy and as he interacts with the keyboard - the brain - he is not using it properly. He is stomping on the keys, not hitting the right ones, out of melody, out of sync.

The result of this is manifested in the physical world as mental illness - be it depression, anxiety, psychosis, whatever. The bible says that we have the mind of Christ. So our piano player should be Christ Himself. But we are also asked to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

Just because we became Christians doesn’t mean we automatically became the mind of Christ - we have the capacity to become like this. And when the Mind of Christ is our piano player, the music in our lives will be the fruits of the Spirit.

mental illness, christian perspective, piano, mind, brain