|
Ron Rolheiser's Writings on Suicide
Rolheiser's column touches on many issues
connected with spirituality and our relationship with God. Each year,
he writes one column on suicide, which he says is the single most
gratifying pieces of work he does because of the feedback he receives
from people who have lost loved ones and are grateful for the hope
and consolation that his column has provided them..
Click
here for Rolheiser's website:
Below are a few quotes from selected articles on Suicide
|
Too-bruised to be touched - One
of the causes of Suicide
 Few
things can so devastate us as the suicide of a loved one. There's
the horrific shock of losing a loved one so suddenly which, just of
itself, can bring us to our knees; but, with suicide, there are other
soul-wrenching feelings too, confusion, guilt, second-guessing,
religious anxiety. Where did we fail this person? What might we still
have done? What is this person's state with God?
What needs to be said about this?
First, that suicide is a disease and generally the most misunderstood
of all sicknesses. It takes a person out of life against his or her
will, the emotional equivalent of cancer, a stroke, or a heart
attack. Second, we, those left behind, need not spend undue energy second-guessing
as to how we might have failed that person, what we should have
noticed, and what we might have done to prevent the suicide. Suicide
is an illness and, as with any sickness, we can love someone and
still not be able to save that person from death. God loved this
person too and, like us, could not, this side of eternity, do
anything either. Finally, we shouldn't worry too much about how God
meets this person on the other side. God's love, unlike ours, can go
through locked doors and touch what will not allow itself to be
touched by us.... Read
More
|
|
Our Misconceptions about Suicide
Sometimes things need to be said,
and said, and said, until they don't need to be said any more.
Margaret Atwood wrote that and its truth is the reason why, each
year, I write a column on suicide. We still have too many
misconceptions about suicide.
First, that suicide is an act of
despair. Too common still is the belief that suicide is the ultimate
act of despair - culpable and unforgivable. To commit suicide, it is
too commonly believed, puts one under the judgement once pronounced
on Judas Iscariot: Better to not have been born. Until recently,
victims of suicide were often not even buried in church
cemeteries. Read
More:
|
|
Understanding Suicide
Every year I write a column on
suicide and each of those columns usually prompts a flood of mostly
grateful letters. The gratitude comes from the fact that those
columns suggest that, in most cases, suicide claims its victims in
the same way as does a heart attack, a stroke, cancer, or an
accident. There is no freedom not to die. Suicide victims are, like
victims of sickness and accidents, not responsible for their own
deaths and suicide should not be a matter of secrecy, shame, moral
judgment, and second-guessing.
Since Styron is sharing,
first-hand, the experience of suicidal depression, allow me to quote
him extensively:
"The pain of severe
depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it,
and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be
borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered
until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain. ...
and for the tragic legion who are compelled to destroy themselves
there should be no more reproof attached than to the victims of
terminal cancer. ... Read
More
|
|
Our Misunderstanding about Suicide
Each year I write an article on
suicide because so many people have to live with the pain of losing a
loved one in this way. When someone close to us falls victim to
suicide we live with a pain that includes a lot of confusion
("Why?"), guilt ("What might we still have done? Why
didn't we notice sooner?"), misunderstanding ("This is the
ultimate form of despair") and, if we are believers,
considerable religious anxiety as well ("How does God treat such
a person? What's to be his or her eternal destiny?") Read
More
|
|
The Descent Into Hell
Several years ago, a young woman I
knew attempted suicide. She was 23 years old and away from home. Her
frightened, concerned family rushed to her side. They brought her
home, got her the best medical and psychiatric attention available,
and, most importantly, rallied around her, trying in every way to
bring her out of suicidal depression.
They weren't successful. Two months
later, she killed herself. She had descended into a place into which
no human love, medicine, or psychiatry could penetrate, a private
hell beyond human reach.
What hope do we have in situation
like this? Read
More
|
|
Ultimate Consolation
Christ
descended into hell. What is meant by that?
And we see this most clearly in
Jesus' death: When we look at the way that Jesus died, we see that in
his death he "descended into hell", that he went into a
place and space of utter alienation and complete darkness where he
was, outside of everything except raw faith, completely cut off from
community, life, and God. There, in that place where he was so
utterly alienated and alone, he was able to breath out the spirit of
God and of life.
What does that mean for us? Let me
try to explain by using a series of image: Read
More
Several years ago, some family
friends of mine had a 19 year-old daughter who became severely
depressed and attempted suicide. They rallied round her, took her to
the best doctors and psychiatrists, and tried every possible way of
having their love break through the shell of her sickness and
alienation. It didn't work. Eventually she killed herself. All the
love in the world and all the best medicine and psychiatry could not
any more penetrate inside her private hell. Her family could not
"descend into hell" and open up for her the gates of life
and community. They were helpless before her darkness, her hell.
But Christ can descent into that,
and into every hell that can be created. That's what the descent into
hell means. There is no hell that Christ cannot penetrate, no locked
door he cannot go through. When this young woman woke up on the other
side of this life, I am certain that she found Christ standing in the
middle of her huddled fear and loneliness breathing out the spirit of
community and joy and saying: "Do not be afraid. Peace with you!"
Sometimes you don't have to open
the door! Read
More
|
|
