Suicide

Review: Suicide and the Communion of Saints

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment
Cover image of "Suicide and the Communion of Saints" by Rhonda Mawhood Lee

Suicide and the Communion of Saints

Suicide and the Communion of Saints, Rhonda Mawhood Lee. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802884718) 2025.

Summary: A healing approach for those affected by suicide, addressing traditional Christian teaching.

Content warning: This post deals with the topic of death by suicide. If someone close to you has died in this way recently, in the author’s words “today is probably not the day to read this book” or review, but rather to care for yourself and receive the care of others. Likewise, if you are currently facing emotional distress or having thoughts of ending your life, help is available at the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (US) 24/7/365.

The text came this past Saturday. I learned from a friend that a person known to both of us had died by suicide. Suddenly, the topic of this book became very real. The individual was a person of faith in the prime of life. Beyond the shock and sadness of this untimely death, there was the deep grief of an elderly father who was very close to his adult child.

For many Christians, there is an added theological layer to this tragedy. How is one to think about the act of taking one’s life? And how is one to think of the state of their soul? And pastorally, we wonder, how might we most sensitively and helpfully care for the bereaved?

Rhonda Mawhood Lee is a pastor and spiritual director who has wrestled with these questions not only in caring for parishioners but also in her own family. Her mother, after a long struggle with depression, took her life at age 52. As the author delved more deeply into her family history, she discovered a pattern of such deaths.

Thus, Lee writes out of deep personal and pastoral care with both honesty and compassion. First of all, she clearly sets out her own position. While death is never God’s will for us, but rather life in Christ, suicide manifests the fallen reality in which we live, one we stand against by God’s grace. That said, she will not judge whether the person who dies by suicide has sinned. Rather, she commends the power of the resurrected Christ and the mercy of the Father as our common hope for ourselves and the one who has died.

Then, the first part of the book discusses how the church has dealt with self-inflicted death. Before discussing this, she briefly addresses how we speak of suicide. She argues against the phrase “commit suicide” as one that carries judgement in the word “commit.” Rather she suggests people “attempt suicide,”, “made an attempt,” “died by suicide,” or “took his/her life.” From here, she considers the few incidents of suicide in the Bible. She notes that it says little overtly and does not condemn suicide in the stories where it occurs. She observes that the most famous incident, that of Judas, is ambiguous, considering the two differing accounts of his death.

Rather, the problems have arisen out of theological formulations, particular those of Augustine and Aquinas. While Augustine deals with some sensitivity to the case of women choosing suicide over rape, he argues for choosing life. Aquinas is stronger, characterizing suicide as a mortal sin. Lee goes on to explore some of the unintended consequences of this theology such as suicide by proxy and murder/suicide. Then, consistent with her ideas of our fallen context, she explores the incidence of suicide in oppressive situations like slave ships and other exacerbating contexts.

The second part of the book explores the significance of the communion of saints. She speaks of how those in suicidal distress have a kind of constricted vision and that the community may be the ones who accompany them in hope and faith, whether in life or death. She notes how Dorothy Day prayed for those who died by suicide. But there is also the caring community calling out, as Paul did with the Philippian jailer, “Do not harm yourself, for we are with you.” She offers practical help in addressing how we invite people to talk who give hints of suicidal ideation. She also bluntly urges helping suicidal persons to get rid of their guns.

Finally, she explores how we grieve and remember those who have died. She discusses how we talk to children. And she concludes with leaning into our resurrection hope and that those we’ve lost are yet a part of the communion of saints. She recounts asking her parents, both who ultimately died by suicide, to pray for someone she was deeply concerned for as those who understood.

Not all of us may be comfortable with the idea of praying for the dead, or asking their prayers. However, the compassionate, non-judgmental approach she commends reflects both pastoral wisdom and a deep faith in the wideness of God’s mercy and the power of the resurrection to triumph over death. She shows how theology not supported by scripture has proven harmful. And she gives practical counsel for how we may walk in communion with those struggling with suicide. This brief book is filled with pastoral wisdom vital in a time of rising rates of suicide.

_______________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: This Isn’t Going to End Well

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

This Isn’t Going to End Well, Daniel Wallace. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2023.

Summary: The story of William Nealy, as told by his brother-in-law, a cartoonist, guru of adventure sports, and emulated by the author, all the while harboring a secret within that finally killed him.

The First Time I saw him he was standing on the roof of our house, wearing frayed and faded cutoffs and nothing else, eyeing the swimming pool about twenty-five feet below. William. Last name unknown, unnecessary. Already–in my mind, at least–he had achieved the single name status of a rock star, and I had yet to even meet him. I’d only heard about him from Holly, my sister, who was older than me by six years. My sister’s boyfriend was on the roof.

This Isn’t Going to End Well, p. 3

William was William Nealy, the author’s brother-in-law. For years, Daniel Wallace would admire him. He could fix anything. He was fearless, whether diving off a roof, white waterrafting, kayaking, or mountain biking. He was also an underground cartoonist. Several of his books on whitewater rafting, kayaking, and mountain biking are legendary. His maps of rivers, cartoon-like, are incredibly detailed and accurate, and as we learn, how he began to make money on his art. He’d lived near death since age 9 when he saw it up close when twins he was on a scouting trip with were buried under an overhang. Some thought it changed him.

Wallace wanted to be him–cartoonist, writer. He was a kind of big brother. They’d go to movies, William sneaking in beer. He fixed Wallace’s waterbed. There were drugs as well. And Wallace did follow him as a writer, even though they grew apart after Wallace married.

And there was Holly. They saw others but William and Holly just kept coming back to each other. Then at twenty-one, Holly was diagnosed with a debilitating and progressive form of rheumatoid arthritis. William cared for her for the next twenty five years, making life possible for her while he did most of the work on their small farm, a retreat, really, in the woods. Then one day he went up to their houseboat, then into the woods behind the marina office, and shot himself. Several years later, Holly finally succumbed to the disease that had afflicted her all her adult life.

William’s death seemed inexplicable. He seemed the most alive person Wallace had ever known. He had everything going for him. Only after Holly’s death did Wallace discover the secret burden William carried for decades as he cleaned out there house and went through William’s journals, coming to terms with the mix of emotions around William’s life, manner of death, and their friendship.

Nealy was something of a cult figure. This work is an intimate glimpse into the man behind the cult figure. It also gives us a glimpse into the complicated feelings that follow suicide, and the reality that what we see on the outside may not reflect what the person we think we know struggles with within.

For anyone struggling with thoughts of suicide or who is concerned for someone or needs emotional support, the 9-8-8 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is open 24/7. The call is free and confidential.

Or, text HOME to 741741 from anywhere in the United States, anytime. Crisis Text Line is here for any crisis. A live, trained Crisis Counselor receives the text and responds, all from a secure online platform.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program.

Review: Grieving a Suicide

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Grieving a Suicide

Grieving a Suicide (Second Edition), Albert Y. Hsu. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2017.

Summary: A narrative of how the author learned to deal with the trauma of his father’s suicide, the questions it raised, and the movement through grief toward healing.

Albert Hsu is a survivor, and part of a large group of similar survivors. Following a stroke, his father descended into depression as he coped with rehabilitation. One night, he went into his own bedroom and took his life. Hsu is part of a group that extends to many of us who have lost someone we love, a friend, a family member, a work colleague, when they chose to take their lives. He writes,

“In most literature on the topic, “suicide survivor” refers to a loved one left behind by a
suicide—husband, wife, parent, child, roommate, coworker, another family member, friend—not a person who has survived a suicide attempt. It is no coincidence that the term survivor is commonly applied to those who have experienced a horrible catastrophe of earth-shattering proportions. We speak of Holocaust survivors or of survivors of genocide, terrorism, or war. So it is with those of us who survive a suicide. According to the American Psychiatric Association, ‘the level of stress resulting from the suicide of a loved one is ranked as catastrophic—equivalent to that of a concentration camp experience.’

. . .

Such is the case for survivors of suicide. We have experienced a trauma on par psychologically with the experience of soldiers in combat. In the aftermath, we simply don’t know if we can endure the pain and anguish. Because death has struck so close to home, life itself seems uncertain. We don’t know if we can go on from day to day. We wonder if we will be consumed by the same despair that claimed our loved one. At the very least, we know that our life will never be the same. If we go on living, we will do so as people who see the world very differently” (p. 10).

Hsu’s unfolds the survivor experience in three parts. The first is the particular experience of grief one goes through when suicide strikes. With many examples from his own experience and those of other survivors, he traces a journey from shock, through turmoil, lament, relinquishment, to remembrance. In shock there is the numbness that may only be able to say “I don’t think I can handle anything right now. I need you to take care of some things for me.” Turmoil is going through a jumble of emotions from grief to abandonment, from failure to guilt, anger, and fear, and even a temptation to self-destructiveness, and a distraction that cannot focus. Lament gives voice to the grief, including acknowledging the reality of the suicide. What I most appreciated is the idea that to lament is to express one’s love for one you have lost. Relinquishment involves facing death as friend, enemy, intruder, and yet that death does not have the final word for those who believe. The chapter on remembrance was perhaps one of the most beautiful in the book as Hsu begins with how his pastor spoke about his father at the funeral, how he began to discover aspects of his father’s life he never knew, and how he created ways to remember his father, not to keep him alive, which he was not, but to honor him, and to give thanks to God for his life.

The second part of the book explores three hard questions survivors struggle with. The first is “why did this happen?” Hsu not only explores the factors that contribute to suicide but also the underlying reason we ask this question, which is because we wonder what we might have done differently. The second question is, “is suicide the unforgiveable sin?” Hsu would propose that this does not put a person beyond God’s forgiveness and the hope of eternal life. The third is, “where is God when it hurts?” Here Hsu talks about the biblical portrayal of a God who enters deeply into suffering, ultimately in Christ, who, as hard as it is to believe or feel, is with us and suffers with us.

The final part of the book explores life after suicide. He explores the spirituality of grief, as we struggle to find purpose in suffering, move from despair to hope, and the experience of healing, but never closure. He writes most helpfully about the healing community, and what is helpful and unhelpful to say and do. Here he also addresses what the church can do in growing in suicide awareness and prevention. Finally, he concludes with some of the lessons of suicide for his own life.

This is a profoundly thoughtful, personal, and gentle book. One senses as one reads that Hsu knows other survivors, people in pain, are reading this book. He gives them permission to put it down if it is just too hard. He carefully names the places of pain, those he faced in his own life. He helps survivors know that what they are feeling and what they are asking are entirely appropriate to the trauma they have faced. He does something more. Having allowed people to openly own the pain they are experiencing, he shares, not tritely but honestly out of his own experience, the journey to hope, and even the hope that one day, they like him may become wounded healers for others.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Preventing Suicide

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Preventing SuicidePreventing Suicide, Karen Mason. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014.

Summary: This handbook is written for pastors and other religious counselors, who the author contends can play an important role in preventing suicide. It focuses on how both theology and psychology can contribute to helping those at risk to harm themselves.

Pastors, chaplains, and religious workers are often in a position to recognize those at risk of attempting suicide. Yet often these individuals lack the training to know how to respond, and often are not integrated (sometimes because of privacy practices) into helping those considering taking their lives. Karen Mason contends that both the theological and community resources of a religious community afford important resources in caring for the suicidal. This handbook is written to help remedy that gap.

She begins by considering possible attitudes toward suicide and how these might affect our response, as well as the ways both the church and the psychological profession can work in partnership. Then she turns to some factual material. In chapter one, she focuses on incidence rates, indicating that 45-54 year olds have the highest rate of suicide deaths and that men commit suicide four times as often as women even though more women than men attempt suicide. She also considers other factors that confer risk as well as protective factors, which include family support and church attendance. She turns to shattering common myths about suicide including that real Christians don’t experience suicidal thoughts, prayer is all that Christians need, people are suicidal just to get attention, people who kill themselves are just being selfish, angry or vengeful, the depressed should just “buck up”, talking about suicide may give the person the idea to complete suicide, and most important that if someone wants to kill themselves, there is nothing we can do.

She considers theology, and theories of suicide. She explores various understanding of suicide and sin. Is it or not and is it forgivable or not? How should such beliefs shape pastoral care? She reviews the leading historical and current psychological theories of suicide.

Chapter 5 covers the material often given in “gatekeeper” training. It provides specific guidance for spotting warning signs, assessing for suicidal thinking (yes, it is appropriate and even helpful to ask someone if they have thoughts of suicide), assessing where a person is on a suicide continuum, assigning risk level, taking action appropriate to the risk level and how to provide pastoral care as part of a care team. The next chapter turns to helping those who survive suicide attempts. This is followed by talking about care for care-givers, including self care.

The last two chapters focus on dealing with what the rest of the book has sought to prevent–the aftermath of a death by suicide, dealing with caring for survivors and for the wider community. This last deals with a reality not often considered–contagion and suicide clusters. The conclusion then sums up the ways religious workers can play an important role in suicide prevention.

Each chapter concludes with a list of print and online resources related to the topic and questions helping pastoral caregivers to reflect on their attitudes and approaches to suicide.

This is an important resource that breaks the conspiracy of silence and shame with compassionate and clear steps pastoral caregivers can take to prevent suicide. Sample dialogues even give language for caregivers as they engage with those considering suicide. Furthermore, it shows how religious communities can play an important role in preventing suicide and helping people find hope.

I’ve been part of memorial services for students who have died during their collegiate years, including some who died by taking their own lives. I can tell you that one such death is too many. And if this book helps save even one such life (and I hope it will save more) it will be worth it.

On the Passing of Robin Williams

/ rtrube54 / 5 Comments

Like many of you, I realized that we had lost Robin Williams when posts started appearing on my Facebook newsfeed. At first I found myself in disbelief and started checking the sources of these posts and found some that were reputable. And then I was surprised by the profound sadness I felt at the loss of this great artist who both inspired us to seize the day and made us laugh at the follies of our human condition beginning with the comedy Mork and Mindy through Good Morning Vietnam and so many later works that I want to go back and watch. I remembered interviews on The Tonight Show where humor both witty and barbed would just seem to flow out of him. I grieved that there would be no more of any of these and that the life of the person who brought us these sparkling gems had been snuffed out.

"Robin Williams 2011a (2)" by Eva Rinaldi → Flickr: Robin Williams - →This file has been extracted from another image: File:Robin Williams 2011a.jpg.. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robin_Williams_2011a_(2).jpg#mediaviewer/File:Robin_Williams_2011a_(2).jpg

“Robin Williams 2011a (2)” by Eva Rinaldi → Flickr: Robin Williams – →This file has been extracted from another image: File:Robin Williams 2011a.jpg.. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robin_Williams_2011a_(2).jpg#mediaviewer/File:Robin_Williams_2011a_(2).jpg

I’ve been reflecting on this tension in which so many artists walk between genius and depression. Is it a special sensitivity to the world in all its wonder and pain that somehow enables a person to brilliantly capture both, in a movie, a painting, a comedy routine, a musical work? In Williams case, his depression has been connected to cocaine use. One wonders if the pain experienced in life for someone like Williams led to efforts to escape that pain, if for a while. Having a more even-keeled (and perhaps less creative!) personality, I cannot judge but I do grieve that in the darkness, Williams turned to the finality of death.

Do we understand how real and profound clinical depression can be and how helpless someone can feel in the throes of it? I don’t, except from the descriptions of others who have experienced this that has led me to recognize that this is not something you just “get over”. Nor is it something to be ashamed of. What depression is is a condition for which there is help and support–there are medical and emotional support communities available.

Williams death should encourage us to be alert for those who may be considering suicide. If people talk about taking their life or that the world would be better without them, we should take it seriously. Asking a person about whether they have considered taking their lives and what steps they’ve taken won’t make them do it. It will say that you “get it” and are interested enough to care. Asking them to agree not to act on those thoughts until you can go with them to get help may give them something to hang onto. And going with them to get that help says there is one person who doesn’t think this is shameful, there is one person who thinks there is still life worth living and who believes that when they can’t believe it themselves. I’ve gone through training to recognize both warning signs and how to respond to these with other ministry professionals on the campus where I work. The folks who provide this training have put some very helpful material at this website. It includes information about local and national resources to help.

One is too many, whether that is Robin Williams, a family member, or a fellow student or work colleague. Rest in peace, Robin Williams.