Institutionalized

The word Institution is a complicated word. The institutions of society provide us with order and vehicles for us to belong to something larger than ourselves or even give meaning behind what we do. The church, the school, the nation are all powerful motivating institutions in our world today.

If a person is institutionalized we often think they are in the crazy house, loony bin or whatever crass description of a mental hospital we can give. It is often one of the greatest shames in our society, a person is so insane they must be locked up. Partly because we still think mental illness is a state of mind we choose, if the person would only have more faith they would not have been crazy. Obviously untrue but it is easier to believe we are strong enough to choose not to be crazy than be vulnerable and accept the fear that it may happen to us someday.

But there is another way to be institutionalized. Red (Morgan Freeman) in Shawshank Redemption, talked about how an institution can manipulate a person to such a degree the person loses his/her sense of self apart from the institution. In other words, your identity is highjacked and lost should you ever be ripped away from the institution (the old librarian convict in Shawshank committed suicide because he no longer knew himself outside of prison after serving a life sentence and getting out early). It is a crisis of identity.

Often times we see this in ministry. Though a single person is more at risk because there is nobody to keep the person grounded or from working 120 hours a week, even a married person can allow an institution to highjack their own identity. But God never asks this of us. Our only true identity is in Christ alone.

As Oscar Romero prayed, "We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest."