Together We Will Win is My 2024 New Year Prophecy: What is Yours?

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

“Whoever you are, no matter what you are feeling, put something of what you know and love toward a larger idea of existence that does not depend on violence.”¹

As I was contemplating the new year, I serendipitously read Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation titled “We Are All Prophets.” I have been called a prophet or prophetic at times, but that usually makes me feel uneasy. Prophets, like Cassandra, are often subject to ridicule and risk and, as the saying goes, you cannot be a prophet in your own land. Now, if I am just a prophet among us all, that feels better.

This Daily Meditation focused on Native American prophets and asked readers to join them as we, too, are likely in a period of crisis and even “apocalypse.” The last paragraph ends with²:

“You have been chosen because you have been born. You are a prophet because you are awake. You are a keeper of revelation: a person with a thought that may create a new world.”

Actually, because I have been writing these daily weekdays columns, Psychiatric Views on the Daily News, and other publications for years now, what may my prophetic thought be among all these writings?

Well, if I am going to be true to my serendipities, the answer came as soon as I opened the computer to write this. Checking email first, I read one of my own favorite columnists, Leah Garner, with December 29th’s “Day 83: Iron Swords War.” Usually, her columns bring me to tears with their poignancy. Early on in that column, she mentioned the slogan, “Tougher we will win” and I immediately and excitedly said to myself, that is my prophecy!

But how could it be my prophecy if it was someone else’s slogan? Likely it is because I think that I was taking it with a broader meaning than she might have intended. My “together” interpretation goes beyond any working group, meaning the greater good and positive resolution of any number of our current conflicts: within oneself, within families, between psychiatrists, between political opponents, and between countries at war, among others.

Skeptics, who may well be right, will say that is impossible. That is just what humans are: conflictual, divisive, and warlike. That has its truth, but we are also cooperative, unifying, and peaceful. Our cerebral cortex thinking can override our irrational fears and we in psychiatry experience that every day in our clinical practice. Goodness knows we have even seen that among countries at major war, as with the United States, Japan, and Germany after World War II.

Then, as if I was asking for confirmation, I received an email titled, “A Sustainable and Peaceful Future is Possible” from Tareq Abu Hamed, an Arab Israeli who I had previously met in Milwaukee. Whether or not “together we will win” is a prophecy, I will try to fulfill it by making it a New Year’s Resolution, among others that I will share in upcoming columns.

Some get their prophecies from dreams. Others from visions. I guess mine is from the computer cloud.

Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation ended with:

“Do not hide that piece of the sacred tablet, for the time is short, but give it to as many as you can, as often as you can, until the apocalypse becomes a blessing.”

So do not hide yours! What may be your own prophecy for 2024?

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.

References

1. Yuknavitch L. Fire: Be the Revolution. Poets & Writers. 2024;Jan/Feb:34-35.

2. Charleston S. We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope. Broadleaf Books; 2023.