I remember the pictures of John Nash he placed on the overhead.  I remember how he held up a copy of his 25-page thesis and offered graduate students in the audience a copy if they want to show their professor a reason why 250 pages is not necessary.   He told a story behind an experience he had with Mr. Nash at a conference where they met.   I remember the pain in my heart when I heard this story.  Fred had invited John to go with him on the elevator to level T4 in the building where they were speaking.  The photographers were waiting for them there.  Nash refused to go to T4, he insisted on going to T1.  Fred finally made a connection when he remembered that in the beginning of WWII the Nazi's killed hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people at a place they called T4.

I was completely transfixed when Fred came out to the very front row of the audience and performed a real life drama of his experiences in 1968 "when he became a guest" in a famous Insane Asylum.  He told us how he believed that he was called to "proclaim peace, justice, and love in the world" and went into the streets where he lived to do this.  However the world was not going to listen to and embrace his message.  The police came to take him to the most elaborate architectural structure in America at the time, the pride of the architectural world, the Ohio Insane Asylum.

How did he make it out of the asylum when the doctors pronounced that he would never live outside their locked doors, this man who now speaks to the House of Representatives about the important needs of persons with mental illness.  I don't think there was enough time for him to tell us his whole story but I could have listened to him for hours. 

I remember the picture of his family, his wife and four grown children, a beautiful family.  I appreciated his comment that he married and never went to a hospital again, a testimony of the power of his wife's love.

I remember how he led us to realize that the schizophrenic mind is not necessarily a "bad" one.  Those who can see beyond what "normal" people see can be important to our society.  The question in my mind is, will we who experience schizophrenia and anything that makes us different from others mentally turn toward ourselves and see what we have, step outside our fears, and accept the challenge of using our gifts in the world?  When we love ourselves this way then maybe we will experience a world that blesses us for being here.

With a man like Fred Frese giving hundreds of speeches across the country every year we can be sure that some hearts will open and remember love.  Love of self leading us to love others as ourselves.