CoffeePods
A series exploring Christian healing in a handy coffee-break sized podcast. Plug yourself in, pick up your mug of coffee, and let's go.
CoffeePods
When UTIs Look Like Madness: Healing's Hidden Dimensions
What do World War II bombers and Christian healing have in common? More than you might think. Join hosts Lisa Way and Reverend Chris Kramer as they explore the fascinating concept of "survivorship bias" and how it affects our approach to spiritual and emotional healing.
The conversation begins with heartwarming reflections on virtual "Sip and Pray" gatherings, where team members share their morning beverages and life experiences across distances. When elderly members recount growing up during wartime bombings in Bournemouth, a surprising revelation emerges—many felt safer during those predictable dangers than in today's uncertain world. This leads to profound questions about trauma, resilience, and how we process difficult experiences.
Chris shares a compelling wartime analogy about aircraft reinforcement. Military analysts examined returning bombers covered in bullet holes to determine where to add protection, until statistician Abraham Wald pointed out they were only looking at planes that survived. The truly vulnerable areas were where the destroyed aircraft had been hit—an invisible dataset. This powerful metaphor illuminates how we often address superficial wounds while neglecting catastrophic vulnerabilities in our healing journeys.
The discussion deepens with a remarkable hospital story about a woman experiencing what appeared to be a mental health crisis, until one curious nurse discovered the true cause—a severe urinary tract infection creating neurological symptoms. This perfectly illustrates Acorn's healing approach: looking beyond visible symptoms to discover the true sources of suffering. Most striking is that this profound ministry is offered freely, without charge. As Chris beautifully expresses, "It's a bowl of water on a table... The cost was paid by the Lord."
Ready to experience healing that goes beyond the surface? Connect with an Acorn prayer hub near you through our website, or join our virtual gatherings where distance is no barrier to encountering God's restorative power.
It's time for another episode of Coffee Pods with Acorn Christian Healing.
Speaker 2:Foundation and your host Lisa Way and the Reverend Chris Kramer.
Speaker 1:Grab a brew and make yourself comfortable as we explore what's happening in the world from the perspective of Christian healing.
Speaker 2:I've got a couple more things I'd like to put on and just chat through. So this morning, for those of you who don't know, at the moment, we've had this brilliant well, I think it's been brilliant drop-in on Zoom, because a lot of our team are all over the country, so we've been using Zoom for sip and pray, which is where we just we literally bring our beverages, don't we? Tea, coffee, whatever it was great.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, we just catch up with each other. There's the nice mug, we catch up with each other, and then we we pray, and we had some of our team on today, um, who were sharing with us their experiences of growing up. And ann, who's one of these lovely ladies, always says she thinks she's the oldest lady in acorn, um, which she may well be, but she had some really amazing stories and it just interested me because last week when we recorded, we were talking about VE Day and to hear their experiences was really enlightening. But also, as you can see, I'm trying to tie everything together. We've got training coming up on trauma, coming up on trauma, um, and I just wonder, um, obviously there are a lot of people living with the trauma of um, world world war ii, um, but anne was talking because she lives, she grew up on, but bournemouth. She was saying that there were bombs just dropping, weren't they there? And? But it didn't really startle her, it would, they were used to it it's incredible.
Speaker 1:Her stories were amazing yeah that she felt safer then yeah, she does now and I thought that was a. It was a real wake-up call to to us to think that ration cards and and air raids um are not nearly as startling um as the unsettled nature of the world, with people fighting in wars and stories of war and economic decline and things. So it's fascinating but such good, good people down in dorchester we're blessed to have a good hub there yeah, they're really wonderful people, and and their ones as well.
Speaker 2:Like all of our hubs, you can just contact them via the website and, although they have set times that they operate, they will offer prayer, uh, whenever they're available. But I, I just I found it interesting how what I would consider could be so traumatic was so traumatic.
Speaker 2:This is just how it came across yeah wasn't as much of a uh, it didn't have as much as of an impact negative impact but that might just be how they were communicating it. Obviously, we caught them just in a moment. Um, yeah, yeah, I just wonder if, like, is there any relation to? Them sort of I think you've called it before survivorship bias yeah, I, I.
Speaker 1:The big thing is like when you hear those stories of what people endure. People endure war and hardship and trauma, and somebody gets robbed, they get scammed. Each of those things cause the trauma response and so there's a need there for healing, for prayer, for restoration, and it's not just about suing somebody. It's about finding out what that damaged in you.
Speaker 1:If you were assaulted by somebody and that assault left a mark, you have scars that may be visible, but you may have scars that are invisible be, visible, but you may have scars that are invisible, and it reminds me of a sermon illustration from years and years ago, where you know the story was the Battle of Britain I think it was, or there was a the UK. The bombers would go in and do missions over France and over Germany, and then they would come back.
Speaker 1:And some of the planes wouldn't make it back, and so the planes that did make it back, they would look all around the planes and they would see all these bullet holes, bullet holes. And the really strange thing is there was a period where they started plotting like where the holes were in all of the fuselages of all these planes and in the wings, and they even had diagrams made to show what they saw as perceived vulnerabilities. And so then they started thinking, well, we need to reinforce these planes, and they were using these plotting maps to reinforce the planes. And then there was a statistician that came along and I think his name was Abraham Wald, and he basically said you're doing this backwards because you're looking at the planes that made it, yeah, and you're assessing the damage and saying we need to reinforce these planes based on the damage to the planes that survived, yeah. And so the idea of survivorship bias is the assumption that the damage points us to what needs wholeness and healing and fixing, when what we really need to do is to say the 12 planes that ended up crashing in Germany, where did they get hit? Because those are the places that need reinforcing, yeah, the places that create catastrophic response or a disaster is where we need to reinforce the fuselage. So it's kind of funny how, when you have something that shows all of this shrapnel damage and you say, oh, we just need to put a little more metal on the wings on these spots and then we'll be good, we'll know that that plane will also go down because you fail to identify the real threat to the aircraft at a time of war.
Speaker 1:And so how that translates to humans, you know, I think a lot of times we look at somebody and we just evaluate the superficial things that we see and we don't dare to say, well, what about, you know, my friend Fred, who took his life when he was 17? And that's catastrophic. But to look at that is costly, because then I have to look more deeply within myself to see my vulnerabilities and to see the places where I actually truly could suffer a catastrophic response, rather than just saying, oh well, let's talk about healing, prayer and talk about, you know, nice things. The color of the paint in the lounge wasn't quite the shade that I wanted it to be, and I really want to pray about that because it's really been bothering me. Oh well, if we pray about that, then life will be better because the lounge will be the right color.
Speaker 1:And so sometimes I think we get caught up in focusing on the things that are superficial and fixable rather than daring to go into the places where we say this is real. This is like a crevasse In the chaplaincy world we would call it staring into the abyss Right Moments in life where you literally are staring into the abyss and the only thing that will help you is faith, because it's an abyss, it's a free fall and you're having to learn how to be comfortable with the reality of just pure faith. And so I think you know the story of the planes coming back. I always found that fascinating to think the story of the planes coming back. I always found that fascinating to think Eager people want to fix it, want to fix the plane, win the war, and to think that we immediately are focusing on the wrong things because we focus on the things that are in front of us, that we see, rather than becoming deeply curious about all the things that are not right in front of us. Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2:It does, and I think it's. It reminds me, kind of like we have our own blind spots, don't we as individuals like spiritual blind spots? But how important it is for us to think in our own discipleship journey about these things Like what are the deeper things that are causing me to maybe even have physical pain in a place or hostility in our minds, as well as using the support and the resources of organisations like ACORN or your local church. We're all in it together. We're all complementing it. It'd be easy, I suppose, for me to quote that there's many parts of the body, but to me, what you were just saying made me think okay, what can I do to take responsibility in that area of my life? That might be not the area that I've been putting my attention on. It does make sense.
Speaker 1:I've seen um in in the hospital world. I saw someone come in and they were evaluated and the doctor said this person's having a mental health crisis. They're clearly having a breakdown so we need to give them this medication, strap them to the bed, just tolerate their swearing and yelling at staff and it will stop. And the husband comes in. He's appalled, so ashamed. I'm so embarrassed. My wife doesn't usually cuss like this and yell at people and it's just so horrifying. I've never seen my wife like this. And then suddenly a nurse becomes curious. Instead of looking at the reaction, the spitting, the yelling, the horribleness, she kind of looks at this lady and she realizes something's not right chemically.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And the lady urinates and they collect a sample and the nurse goes this woman's got an infection. Sure enough, she had an advanced uti and the urinary tract infection often will present itself in psychosis in some people.
Speaker 1:This woman was a lovely, lovely woman and finally, when they got her chemicals right and they treated her uti, all the rest of the things went away. But the strange thing is, if all they did was focused on the things they could see, they would have never been able to actually address the thing that was causing the problem. And I was always thankful that nurse I remember she was so because she kept saying there's got to be, kept saying there's got to be something, that's got to be. So this is such a nice lady and the husband's grief was driving her curiosity into a situation where other people might just look at the superficial and and and just kind of quick evaluate. At this level, acorn is like no, we, we want to go deeper. This is a place of trust. This is a space where you can actually say no, this is what's been going on.
Speaker 1:I've been having a sensation which may be indicative of UTI. It's that revelation that oh, yes, I have a low-grade fever. Oh, you have a fever, so there's a fever. There's a burning sensation, there's a pungent smell, there's all. There's all little clues, but nobody's paying attention because she's too busy telling everybody to f off yeah, that's, that's, and you're just like, oh, she's spitting, this is just a crazy woman, this is a crazy person.
Speaker 1:And so, um, it's so good I to be intentional about focusing away from the Holy Spirit and bind those wounds so that people can rise up and be free of that burden that they're carrying. And it's incredible too, because a person who goes through a psychotic episode like that often has no recollection. That often has no recollection. Their spouses, their families are horrified because we all saw how bad it was, but we often get the joy of seeing the restoration. So when it's when it's the craziness is over and normal, you know, and she says, could somebody bring me a Bible? You know, would a chaplain come and pray with me? And they're like what happened to the other patient that was in that room, you know. And then when they leave and they're carrying balloons and flowers and you hug them and you see that peace and things back the way they're supposed to be, and then the husband hugs you and whispers in your ear. You know, I'm so sorry, but thank you, thank you for believing me, thank you for believing that she really was a better person than you were seeing.
Speaker 1:You know, it's that kind of thing and our hubs are they don't judge people. People come and it's not like you're going to be judged and we think you're a bad person, or we're going to pray that you're a better person because we know that you're a bad person. It's common and they look for God in each person that comes to a hub. And what can we pray for? And sometimes people may say I don't know, I'm just here. And sometimes people may say I don't know, I'm just here.
Speaker 1:And then it's like well, then, let's just go on this journey together and we'll figure out what it is that it exists anywhere in the church. I think it's a specialized thing where people have been trained to sit down with another person and to say tell me, tell me where you are and tell me what you feel, and tell me what is the Holy Spirit saying to you feel. And tell me what is the holy spirit saying to you. Um, that's a boy, that's a gift. I mean you could, you could package that and put it anywhere in the world and it has a purpose and a use it really does, especially because but as you say, it's so hard to find elsewhere.
Speaker 2:um, in particular, just getting the time with somebody, someone who's going to give you more than 10 minutes of their time and it is focused on you as the person receiving ministry, that is a real gift.
Speaker 1:And a lot of people don't realize it's free. There's not like a charge. Someone said to me well how much do you charge for a session? And that's not how Acorn was set up and it was never the idea that it would be a business model. The idea is it's a service. It's a bowl of water on a table and you have a ladle and you walk into a room and they say have a drink. And it's our job to figure out how to keep water in the dish, you know, and to keep the hubs alive and functioning. But it's not transactional.
Speaker 1:And I think people are surprised. They say, well gosh, if I want to go have a coffee at Nero, they're going to charge me. They're going to charge me for a coffee and I say, well, come and have the water of life free. The cost was paid by the Lord. And that's the part that is so wonderful to think that the price was paid by the Lord going to the cross. And here we are, basking in the shadow of the other side of the resurrection yeah, thanks for listening to coffee pods today.
Speaker 2:Don't forget to like, follow and subscribe. This podcast is made possible. Thanks so far for the generosity of people like you, you, you, you.
Speaker 1:It's time for another episode of Coffee Pods with Acorn Christian Healing Foundation and your host, Lisa Way.
Speaker 2:And the Reverend Chris Kramer.
Speaker 1:Grab a brew and make yourself comfortable as we explore what's happening in the world from the perspective of Christian healing. Two Thanks for listening to Coffee Pods today.
Speaker 2:Don't forget to like, follow and subscribe.
Speaker 1:This podcast is made possible thanks in part to the generosity of people like you.
