HURON Am I my brothers keeper? That was the question Ron Volesky posed as guest speaker last Wednesday at NAMI-Huron, a mental health support group that meets weekly at Dont Spill the Beans.
Volesky has been an attorney in Huron for more than 40 years and served 16 years in the state legislature. He worked with NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) as a legislator, helping to pass laws to help those dealing with mental illness. In 2023, he was commissioned as a lay minister and regularly preaches at First Congregational Church and several other area churches.
We deal with the issue of mental illness, Volesky said. Some people make six figures, are leaders in the community, and suffer from mental illness they didnt know they had pride.
Pride is destructive, he said. Pride defies God, pride defiles man and brings about division. Worst of all, pride destroys souls.
Volesky told his own story of pride, one that affected his entire family. Most people know that he and his wife, Tara, raised four sons. His twin sons were stars on the basketball court from an early age, and their obvious talent became a source of pride in his own life, he said.
Starting in elementary school, Volesky said he and his wife enrolled their twins in various school districts, hoping to reach higher goals for the boys on the basketball court.
One time they didnt play, so we were ready to go to Mitchell, (they) could really make ball players of them, Volesky said. They did not want to go to Mitchell, but they had to for mom and dad pride.
Pride brings about destruction in families, he said. I know in my own life how pride affected us.
Volesky said it reminds him of Cain, who asked God, Am I my brothers keeper? when asked where his brother Abel was.
We become so proud we forget to ask what we can do for our brother, he said. We suffer from a lack of compassion. We do not as a community have a homeless shelter. We need to find the wherewithal to create a place of refuge, a place of encouragement a homeless shelter.
Volesky said churches can help put someone up for a night or two, but its not a sustained effort to give someone who is homeless hope for a better tomorrow.
He encourages community members to work together to create a task force to look at the feasibility of creating a homeless shelter in the community, a sentiment shared by many clergy in the region.
We become too prideful, Volesky said. I am what I am, and I have what I have because it came from the Lord.
Weve been given so much, he added. What are we doing? We need to build things that will have lasting impacts.
NAMI-Huron is a mental health support group that meets each Wednesday from 3 to 4 p.m. at Dont Spill the Beans at Third Street and Dakota Avenue South. Everyone is welcome to attend. Members will discuss the recent NAMI convention at the Oct. 29 meeting.
Leave a Reply