CLAYTON -- As a Methodist minister who had worked in one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods, John Baggett thought he had an unspoken agreement with God. He had risked his life to serve God's church, so surely God would protect him and his family in return.
But then his bright and ambitious 17-year-old son began behaving strangely. Mark Baggett laughed at inappropriate times, talked incoherently and soon began having episodes of violent anger. Before long, Mark was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and John underwent a seven-year crisis of faith.
The lessons from that difficult period have now been condensed into a slim volume, "Times of Tragedy and Moments of Grace." In it, Baggett, now 73 and retired, describes the stages of grieving as he sees them and how he grew to see his "seven-year sojourn in the desert" as a spiritual journey.
"I had to give up that notion of faith as a talisman, a protective shield from anything harmful happening to you," said Baggett, who has a doctorate in psychiatric anthropology from UNC-Chapel Hill. "Faith is what gets you through the difficult times; it's not what keeps you from the most difficult times."
The book was written for Christians experiencing a loss, whether it's a job, a divorce or a death. Baggett, who was the state director of mental health, has a well-reasoned and pastoral writing style.
He tells the stories of eight men and women who have undergone profound losses and their journeys toward healing. Though these men and women are based on real people, he has changed the identifying characteristics.
But his own story is just as compelling.
A native of Nashville, Tenn., Baggett studied for the ministry at Vanderbilt University and then led a church in Chicago. In 1965 he marched alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala., and got arrested in the process.
Baggett, his first wife and three children moved to North Carolina in 1973 to be closer to his father. Four years later, his son Mark began behaving erratically. Baggett said he had a hard time facing the reality of his son's illness.
First, there was what he calls "primary denial," refusing to accept the diagnosis of schizophrenia. Maybe Mark was just being a teenager, he thought. Then he said, he went through a secondary denial, in which he accepted the diagnosis but held out hope he would find a quick fix.
But that quick fix came at a price. Baggett took out a second mortgage on his house so he could pay for a monthlong hospitalization he hoped would cure Mark. But the treatment was not a cure, and he ultimately lost his home.
Next he went through anger, first at himself -- thinking he had done something wrong in rearing his son -- then at others. Ultimately he realized his anger was directed at God.
Over time, he learned that his anger wasn't productive and that it didn't change his situation or God's.
"God is not the least bit bothered by our anger," he said. "God can handle it just fine."
Between spells of anger came waves of depression. Unlike someone who experiences a death of a loved one, Baggett had to deal with his son's illness day in, day out, and the frustrations mounted.
Everything changed on a day in 1984 when he drove to a meeting of the state chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. There, he found other families that had gone through what he had and were ready to offer information and support.
"I remember clearly going to the meeting, and on my way home ... I had the most powerful, transforming kind of spiritual experience I ever had," he said. "I knew that I had a new calling."
That calling was to be an advocate for people with mental illness. Over the next six years, he moved from serving on the alliance's board to becoming its executive director, eventually opening 42 affiliates across the state and building the alliance into a strong advocacy organization.
Such a journey into advocacy is not unique. In his book, he writes that many people find healing fighting the wrongs that led to their tragedies. That kind of work, he said, often allows people to turn their agony into hope and ultimately find peace.
Baggett, who became deputy director of the N.C. Division of Mental Health and then director from 1997 to 2000, has found that peace.
"He understood people and how to motivate them," said Michael Pedneau, former mental health director. "He's very kind and gentle, but he has strong opinions."
Mark, now 49, lives independently in a housing complex for mentally disabled people in Durham. He has been hospitalized only once over the past 10 years.
"The message ... is not that I don't have to suffer, but that God is with me in that suffering," he said. "God is seeing me through my difficulties."
