Let me start by saying that I very much dislike that song. It was by R.E.M. right? It is one that makes me change the station immediately. But none the less, it is a fitting title to my latest random thoughts. I was reminded last month about the importance of spirituality in a person’s recovery from addiction. Dr. David Mee Lee had a great write up about it in his monthly newsletter and it focused on how much therapists will avoid the topic. I’ve never been one to fully buy into the “disease” concept, but I certainly do think that addiction is very much a spiritual disease and I won’t hesitate to take the discussion with a client to that place and level if they are ready for it and open to the idea of exploring it deeper.

This somewhat odd because I’ve never been very “public” with my own spirituality. I don’t attend any Bible studies or even discus spirituality very often with those around me. I’ve always kept my beliefs and conversations with God between me and God. I know I have room to grow in my own spirituality, but most days I’m pretty comfortable with where I’m at with it. The issue I’m having is more related to religion and church. I’m a born and raised Roman Catholic and for many, many years I attended church just because it was expected if I wanted a roof over my head and food in my belly. As I got older I attended mostly out of guilt. About 8 or 9 years ago we had a great priest at our church who actually made it interesting to attend mass again and who sparked my interest in theology. We weren’t super active in the church but we did attend regularly and when my son started pre-school he attended the Catholic school.

Two and half years ago we moved to our new home and ironically enough Fr. Scott was also transferred to a new parish at the same time, unfortunately it still wasn’t near us. Needless to say the past two years we have spent little time in church, attending three different parishes during that time and still not finding “the right fit”. Heck, we even went to a Lutheran church several times with a friend of ours and I’ve strongly considered making the change from Catholicism. Not having  regular church to attend bothers me for only one reason, my kids. I’m quite comfortable with my overall spirituality and my relationship with God, but I’m not a good teacher or an expert on the subject and I wonder how this affects them. We say grace at dinner, very occasionally pray together as a family and we sometimes read Bible stories at bedtime but other than that and a week at Bible school with their friends in the summer that is the extent of their spiritual education.

So I’m getting a bit anxious about settling down with a church and making a strong effort to attend regularly. The problem is I don’t want to just settle for the sake of being there and I want my children to actually get something out of the experience, not just feel like they are being forced to be there. Does that really exist? A few people have mentioned non-denominational churches and while that has been a consideration I can’t shake the feeling that those may be a bit touchy feely for me, although I have no experience to back up that assumption. I’m sort of an introvert, especially when it comes to religion and I’m perfectly fine with being a quiet member of the flock. So, my mission is first to decide if I’m worrying over nothing and then, if it is in fact something I need to get my butt in gear about, then I need to find a church where we fit in. No small task considering my stubborn ways.

Since most of my time the past two weeks has been dedicated to getting use to hitting the books again, I haven’t taken much time to put together any blog posts. So, I figured I would share some of the weekly discussion posts I create for my class this semester “Criminal Mind and Behavior”. It is an online graduate course that I’m taking through the University of Massachusetts Lowell as part of the Masters of Arts in criminal justice program there. The class material was a bit dry the first week but this weeks topic of crime as a social process and criminal intent were interesting. Here is one of my posts:

In “Primary definitions of crime and moral panic” (Welch, et al 1997), the authors explained a concept I had never before paid attention too yet was painfully obvious once I started to read the article. Definitions of crime are shaped largely by the dominant ideology of the time, typically shaped by higher ranking public officials who genuinely have some sort of underlying motivation for their basis and their views are further manifested by the mainstream media. As mentioned in the article, there appears to be a media bias towards “street crime” which usually highlights the offenses of the poor and minorities. While there have certainly been some high profile while collar crimes hitting the news in recent years (such as Bernie Madoff, and more geographically close to me the Kwame Kilpatrick/City of Detroit corruption scandals) it is street crime that usually steals the prime time headlines on any given night, in any given city’s news cast.

The pendulum has always swung back and forth with ideas such as the war on drugs, truth in sentencing and death penalty debates. I can recall a specific example as a teenager when there was a big uprising against gangs, which occurred during the early 1990’s, even in rural geographical area where I grew up. There was a constant flow of reports about teen violence across the country and I can remember doing a research paper on the topic during high school because of the vast amount of information available. Because gangs were everywhere in the media, even small gatherings of teenagers in my rural town we looked upon with a suspicious eye. Certain colors and clothing were banned from school and just hanging out at the lakeside park was no longer permitted by police.

Politicians usually utilize fear to drive their political agenda and talking about crime in the media is an easy and effective way to do it. However, as the article points out, it does little to actually address the root causes of crime and violence. Here in Michigan there is a big push by the attorney general to hire an additional 1000 police officers. In of itself it is not a bad idea, however, it still does not address the lack of jobs and other social factors contributing to crime and it does not address what we should do with criminals when we get them off of the street. We still have little to no resources for mental health and substance abuse programs to treat some of the root causes.