Why We Kill Ourselves

"The first duty of love is to listen" -- Paul Tillich

            As we reflect on the loss of so many of our brothers and sisters to suicide, there is so much to come to grips with.  We mourn the loss of their faces and their hearts.  We grieve the future we had together and we remember the stories and times and memories that will not fade away. But we are left with a question…the infernal question, the damnable question: Why? Why did this happen? Why did they die? Why do we kill ourselves?

            And the answers echo from all over.

            We kill ourselves because we are lonely.  We walk in the streets and pass in the hallways, but nobody stops to ask how we are doing. We hear about parties and rumors of parties that we are not invited to.  We stay late at work hoping you don’t realize there is no work to do because we cannot stand going back to our empty home filled with nothing but darkness; to sit in silence as the noises of the busy world surround us only to mock our loneliness.

            We kill ourselves because we are confused.  We often come from homes and families that barely counted as such.  We lived with parents who didn’t understand…or who simply couldn’t.  We are thrown into life expecting to know the answers but only become more lost and confused as the years add up.  How? How did we become this…this thing that is so foreign from when we started? We look at pictures of our childhood only to see a stranger looking at us from the far reaches of time. We do not see a reason to fight the plagues of life because nothing truly makes sense.

            We kill ourselves because we have lost hope.  What hope can there be in a world that only knows misery? Where do we begin to look for hope, when everybody is running after dreams that never come true? Our possible pasts tattered behind us and we know that we cannot take back the pain we have caused others.  Religion claims a new way but we see only judgment with no redemption.  The future offers…what does the future offer? The light at the end of the tunnel grows dimmer and dimmer until it offers no light at all.

            We kill ourselves because we know the truth of ourselves.  At least this is what we tell ourselves. We know our hearts and we know that we are unloveable.  We see the detest in other people’s eyes.  We hear their judgments in their words and we know that we have been found wanting. We feel their desire for other people and we know we are not enough. 

            We kill ourselves because we know that you will be better off without us.  This insipid chorus runs in our head: we have nothing to offer, nothing to share, nothing of value and nothing good.  You say this isn’t true, but we know…we know.  We have sung this song to ourselves so often that it becomes our anthem.

            We kill ourselves because we don’t know what to do with the pain.  We don’t want to burden you with it, because it should be ours alone.  And ours alone it becomes as time goes by we drift further and further away.  We see you but don’t know why you can’t see us.  We hear you, but don’t know why you can’t hear us.  We hide our pain behind jokes and laughter and we become the clowns and jesters that everybody loves but nobody knows.  Or we simply fade off to places where nobody looks.  That dull ache in our heart that we have ignored for so long comes roaring in and we can no longer look away.  It consumes our thoughts, it devours our dreams and it robs our life.  Every day becomes torture and night becomes our prison.  And…in the end…we kill ourselves because we simply want the pain…to stop. 

***if you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please seek help. The national suicide prevention hotline is 1-800-273-8255.  For military personnel, talk to your chaplain, your chain of command or a personal friend.  You may email me at Robert.c.price@gmail.com***

A Tale of Two Easters

It was the best of times…and the worst of times.

            I had a lot of time to reflect on worship this past week.  Holy Week can be one of the most humbling, awe-inspiring, and most passionate weeks of the year.  Or it can….you know…not be.

            One of the local start up churches was advertising for their Easter Service.  There was no Holy Week (No Maundy Thursday, no Good Friday)…just Easter.  As if we could skip those times and go straight to the joy of the Resurrection.  The service promised “dynamic worship, an uplifting sermon,” and a “cup of coffee”.  The entire advertisement was perfectly geared for the consumeristic, capitalistic, consumption based ministry that encapsulates American Christianity these days. They hoped that ‘you had a wonderful Easter experience.’

            For full disclosure, I did not attend these services.  Maybe they were completely spiritual and maybe they had moments of honest communion with God. I don’t know.  I couldn’t get my mind off the ‘complimentary cup of coffee.’

            I attended most of the Triduum with my Roman Catholic friends.  There was no rock band experience.  There was no entertainment, and there was no complimentary cup of coffee.

   I was raised Catholic and have been cut off from the Church.  But I do not remember in my childhood ever attending these services near the end of Holy Week. The three services were Maundy Thursday, Good Friday (Adoration of the Cross) and the Easter Vigil. While they did not offer free coffee…these masses offered something much more precious…Christ.

            Unfortunately I was called away from Maundy Thursday service and could not fully meditate on Christ’s Last Supper before He was betrayed by Judas.

            I was there for Good Friday.  It has been my practice for the last several years to go through the Stations of the Cross on the Fridays during Lent.  I had missed the previous one and I missed Stations the morning of this service.  While this was not the Stations, this service was focused on the crucifixion of Christ.  The altar had been stripped and the statues of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus that had decorated the church for the past few weeks had been covered up. As we went through the Gospel narrative (dramatized by the priest and several lay leaders), I was brought into the narrat

ive.  The congregation had to respond with the words of the crowd to ‘crucify Jesus’ and I heard my own voice calling for the death of my Savior. It was humbling and I once again saw the horror of my own sin.

            As the Crucifix came forward, they slowly uncovered it to reveal the statue of Jesus nailed to the cross.  As is custom, the Faithful come forward and kiss the cross.  I could not come forward.  I dared not come forward.  I was stunned in my pew as I beheld the image of my Savior.  I cried.  I a grown man in my 40s, cried at a statue of Christ as the depth of my sins came home. I could not come forward because I do not deserve the death of my Savior. I do not deserve the ability to kiss the cross which He died upon.  The Church…and churches have always been clear to me that I do not belong and I should not presume to come into the presence of the living Christ.

            We gathered the next the night for the Easter Vigil.  There were nine readings (!).  Evangelicals who say that Catholics do not read the Bible have clearly not been to a mass.  The Mass is the most Biblical worship service that exists because almost every word came from the Bible. There were no contemporary praise songs, no emotionally manipulating entertainment…just the words of Scripture as we recounted the story of God and His redemption for mankind.

            Yes there was kneeling.  But kneeling in the presence of the King was appropriate. Yes there was standing…in an almost Catholic Aerobic workout scheme…but it flowed because it was all focused on Christ.  The entire service and the entire community focused on the celebration of Jesus Christ.  They celebrated the prophesies…they celebrated the coming of the Messiah and they celebrated the bursting forth from the grave. 

            I was sorry I could not make it to the Easter mass.  I went to preach my own service…which I do not know if it was received well. I do know that we do not have the lights, we don’t have the big band…we don’t have the technology to make the service appealing for the masses.  Heck, we don’t even have complimentary coffee.

            But as I reflect back on the week…I began to realize that maybe this is what we are doing wrong.  Maybe we have our priorities screwed up.  Maybe, instead of offering complimentary coffee…and ‘dynamic’ (whatever that means) worship…maybe…just like this Roman Catholic Parish…maybe we should just offer them Jesus.   

Lent in Exile

“By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat and there we wept when we remembered Zion”

--Psalm 137:1 NRSV

 

            Lent gives us an opportunity to reflect on the darker side of biblical faith.  After all, it is a time of mourning as we prepare for the joyous celebration of the resurrection and new life.  And before we get to the celebration, we must go through the desert and examine the themes of grief, loss, guilt and exile.  This year I find myself particularly drawn to the biblical texts about Exile.

            Exile.

            The Biblical Exile happened when the Babylonians invaded Judah around 586 BC and captured the best and the brightest and brought them to live in Babylon.  They had to live apart from their home.

            Away from their families.

            Away from their friends.

            Away from home.

            It is a particularly cruel punishment because at that time transportation wasn’t easy and more than likely the Israelites who left were never going to be able to come back.  They would never see their families or friends or home again. They would never know what happened to those they cared about. 

            They were forced to live in a foreign land, where they did not speak the language and they did not know the customs.  Anybody who has ever spent time in a culture different than your own knows what it feels like to not fit in.  When you don’t speak the language, when you don’t know the customs and when you don’t understand the culture, there is a loneliness that cannot be explained.  You are outside.  You are other.  You are alien.  The Israelites never overcame that feeling.

            A biblical scholar once said that “Exile is not not having a home.  It is having a home but never being able to get there.” You can imagine home.  You can remember home.  You can almost see home, but you can never get there.  You can see the place where you belong, where you fit, but will never arrive.  Even though the world around you may be filled with wonderful people, places and foods, you are never home.  Even in your happiest moments  you know something is missing.

            Those of us who have spent a lot of time away from home can catch a glimpse into this feeling.  Although for us it may never reach the level of the ancient Israelites, the power of Exile can affect us in ways.

            We go on deployment to new countries with a new crew and we feel the power of Exile from everything we once knew.

            We get a diagnosis of cancer and we can feel the power of Exile stripping from us the power of normality.

            We leave our parents and childhood home, never to return, and go off into the world and you look back and sense the power of Exile.

            As I reflect on my own experience, I have to admit that this is where I live.  My situation is not as bad as others, but exile affects me every day.

            I can see home through pictures and messages and Facebook, but I can’t be there.  This weekend my son lifted his head for the first time and I could not be there.  This weekend is a huge celebration for my family (St. Pat’s is always big in my house) and I will not be there.  I will see the messages and the pictures and make the phone calls, but the physical presence of being home…of being where I belong…is gone.

            This is not to say that I do not have great people or great things out here in Japan…but it’s not home. I live in a (for me) foreign culture where I do not speak the language and where I cannot get the cultural norms right.  Even though I love Japanese food and art and the landscape, I am not home.  I work for a great team, but I am not home.  Even in my best moments, there is a pervasive loneliness and sadness that echoes in my heart: I do not belong here.  I belong at home.

            So as I continue my Lenten journey, I will think about these things.  I will sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep.  Because, I, like the Israelites, live in Exile.

ADMINISTRY

I should be on a plane today, heading home to see my family.  Instead I am stuck here…with a moose as my only companion.

I normally do not like Thanksgiving, but I was hoping to be home for this one.  I have not really been with my family for several months.  I saw my newborn son for only a few days and was looking forward to holding him.  I have missed my wife and curling up into bed with her.

I had planned to eat a huge meal with my family and talk about being stuffed for hours.

I had planned to play with my children and laugh and tell them stories.

I had planned to enjoy debates with my college age student.

I’d like to say that there are important reasons why I am not at home…but it comes down to one word: administration. I am still here because admin was not done properly.  People failed to communicate what needed to be done.  Emails went unanswered and deadlines were missed.

This means:

No meal

No games with my children

No lively debates

No holding my newborn son

No curling up with my wife.

Because of ADMIN.

We often do not take administration seriously.  It is one of those tasks that we will get to if we have time.  Especially if it is tasks for other people.  People ask us questions and we do not answer them.  They send forms and we shuffle them into the stack of the more important paperwork we need to get to.

We do not understand that paperwork is not just paperwork.  This paperwork often represents the hopes and dreams of people.  It represents the livelihood of families and the lifeblood of hard work. We can treat it like a nuisance and an unwanted task. Not sexy or glorifying.  It is something we do in between the times we are doing something else to make us feel important.

My family has not been properly paid in months.

Because of ADMIN.

Because I can’t get people to talk to each other.  To listen to each other.  To understand each other.

Because of this, my family has been struggling for the last few months.  We do not know whether we

will have the money to pay the rent or to feed hungry mouths.

We know there will no gifts under the tree this Christmas and we wonder how we are going to make car payments.

What we consider to be a nuisance, or a pain may very well be another person’s life.

Emails and questions represent hopes and dreams of people.  A request for leave represents the yearning desires and anxious plans.  A request for proper pay may be the difference between making it and being swallowed by financial demands of the world.

Unanswered emails lead to frustrated and angry conversations which lead to hurt feelings and wounds.   

When we are doing administration, it might be tempting for us to do what is easiest for us.  We don’t always take into account the toll our shortcuts have for other people.  Because it was easier for someone in Washington, I will lose two years of life with my family.

Two years is 730 days. 

My son will be two years old when I get home again.

I will miss teaching my daughter how to drive.  I already missed the first one.

My older son will be a teenager.  I may miss teaching him how to shave.

I will miss birthdays, holidays, concerts, vacations, and camping trips and pizza nights.

Because it was easier for someone else.

This is not to say that I am not happy to serve the Navy.  I am happy and proud to be part of the Navy every day.  It does not mean that I am angry or resentful or will not do my best where I am going. I will serve, and I will work hard and I will be glad every day I get to serve with America’s Navy.

But it does help me with my own look at Admin.  How do I do administry? Do I make sure that I am doing my best to address the needs of people who come looking to?  Am I making sure that I answer emails and address problems correctly? Am I looking out for the best for my sailors whose evals I write?

Administration is a ministry and in many ways it is one of the most important ministries.  We must admit that life is largely dictated by forms and paperwork.  Everything from our romantic relationships to our health care is dictated by the work that other people do in filing forms and managing records.  When we do administry, we have the power to affect peoples lives in ways that go beyond our normal ways.

But this is usually not very exciting or glamorous or noteworthy.  Often times it comes down to mundane tasks such as making sure our expectations are clearly communicated, making sure we answer those emails and ensuring that everything we are responsible for is done in a timely, efficient manner. It’s more George Marshall than Dwight Eisenhower,  more Marshall Matthews than Emimen, more Pepper Potts than Iron Man.  But sometimes we need to put aside our pride to ensure justice for everyone.

Because when you communicate your expectations and outline the process clearly, more families have time together.

When you answer emails, you create a collaborative working environment that leads to a peaceful exchange of ideas.

When you do the paperwork properly, goals are met, dreams are fulfilled, and the world becomes a slightly better place.

 It is time that administration becomes more than that…it becomes a ministry…administry. 

Where is God?

“Where is merciful God, where is He?”

This question was asked by a man in a concentration camp as he watched two men and a young boy being hung for stealing food. It is perhaps the defining question that echoes not only from the camps, but also haunts our own lives as well.

Elie Weisel describes the scene in his book Night.

“Then came the march past the victims.  The two men were no longer alive.  Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish.  But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing… And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writing before our eyes.  And we were forced to look at him in close range.  He was still alive when I passed him.  His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished. 

“Behind me, I heard the same man asking: ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’

And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where is he? This where—hanging here from this gallows…’”

No sadder words have been written, and no truer question has ever been asked.  “Where is merciful God, where is he?”

I listen to people’s pain for a living.  It’s what I do.  I may not be good at it and the Navy may not consider me necessary, but it’s what I do. 

The scenario’s change on a daily basis, “I don’t love my wife any more,” or “My husband is cheating on me…” or “when I was young my father put his hands on me…”  “I’m tired of hurting, Chaps….I’m tired of pain…”

Behind it all, whether they know it or not, they are all asking the same question, “For God’s sake, where is God?”

Now, this is not to compare my life, or any of our lives to the horror of the Holocaust.  There are no words to describe my horror at the events of the camps or to describe my awe in those that survived.  But there is a sense in which we all ask that same question when we think of the pain in our own lives.  Where is God in the midst of all the things we go through:

Broken marriages

Financial Crisis

Cancer

Estranged relationships

Parkinson’s Disease

The death of a beloved child

In my own life, I ask where “God” is in the midst of my estrangement.  I am in virtual exile from my church and my Christian Community. The people I work with on the ship neither understand what I do nor find any value in my position.  I am alone on the other side of the world wondering if this sacrifice is worth it.  More often that not, I feel alone and wonder what I have done to be ostracized.   There are times when I wonder if God is completely done with me, casting me out and abandoning me to the forces of oblivion.

“For God’s sake, where is he?”

As I encounter people on a daily basis, I wonder if God is aware of all that we are going through. 

This is nothing compared to the other horrors of the world.  A mother kills her daughter so that she can stay with her boyfriend.  A man shoots up a church in the name of racial cleansing.  And all day I am surrounded by people who laugh at other’s misery, who take bets on whether someone will kill themselves and who consistently advocate for violent and destructive answers to problems and who belittle and bereate and dehumanize people to accomplish their own goals of self-agrandizement.

“Where is he?”

Wiesel closes that section of his book with the following comment, “that night, the soup tasted of corpses.”

In that sentence, he perfectly captures the desertion of joy, the abandonment of hope, and the futility of life.   There can be no satisfaction in life while the cries of the wounded echo throughout our world.

“For God’s sake, where is he?”

As fate would have it, at the same prison camp that Wiesel wound up was a young theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was also asking the very same question, but from a different vantage point.  He writes, “The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34). The God who let us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually.  Before God and with God we live without God.  God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross.  He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us…The Bible directs man to God’s powerlessness and suffering.  Only the suffering God can help.” (Letters and Papers from Prison). 

Only the suffering God can help.  God suffers.  He not only suffers for us, he suffers with us. God is not absent nor has he abandoned us to our fate with no more concern than we have for pizza boxes.  Jurgen Moltmann builds on this and states that the only help we have is the crucified God.  God knows our suffering because he Himself suffered and continues to suffer and will continue to suffer until his kingdom comes in full.

I come from a tradition that has a hard time the crucifix, or at least the corpus on the crucifix.  For a long time, I did too.  After all, Jesus has been resurrected, he is off the cross and no longer suffers the pain of death.  But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I begin to see the crucifix as a reminder that God still suffers.  He suffers on our behalf and he suffers with us and at times he suffers through us.  Perhaps this part of being crucified to the world through the cross of Christ (Galatians 6:14). 

When we are going through terrible times in our lives, we can perhaps join our voices with Wiesel, “Where is merciful God?” “He is there” and we can point to the cross, we can point to the wounds of our own lives. 

Chaplain Soup

Christianity often fails not because of intellectual assertions, but because of the actions of their believers.” –Unknown

                Today I am writing out of pain.  I know this and want to be upfront about this.  Maybe my view has become distorted…it often is.  Maybe my mind is overly pessimistic…it often is.  Maybe my experience is not normative…it often isn’t.  But I am writing this as an expression of my pain and as a reminder to myself not to act in similar ways. 

                I get that nobody is perfect and that we all have bad days.  I understand that we all make mistakes and we don’t always measure up to the standards we embrace.

                But as I stood there trying to meet the fourth Chaplain in an area and was greeted by a gruff, “Who are you?”  When I explained that I was here on a ship, I got a “well, we are in a meeting.”  There was no ‘hi’ or ‘hello’ or even “can I help you?”  A minor thing, perhaps…but it’s those minor things that can often matter the most.

                See, because this was on top of meeting other chaplains who didn’t ask my name, but proceeded to tell me and each other what great chaplains they were.

                This was on top of a solid year and a half of being belittled, demeaned, and cut out by another chaplain.

                This was on top of watching Chaplains fight and bicker over whose ‘people’ they have and who they were allowed to talk to.

                This was on top of watching pastors undermine other churches in town and steal their members.

                This was on top of watching pastors scream and yell at each other over who was in charge.

                This was on top of being neglected and ignored by my church leaders as I repeatedly asked for help in waters that were too strong for me.

                Maybe this has been my experience alone.  Maybe others find nothing but acceptance from the church and from church leaders.  So maybe I write from the outside looking in. 

                At times, it has been a long tough haul.  It leads to a great deal of emotions and a great deal of questions:

                Maybe I’m not a good chaplain.

                Maybe I’m not a good Christian.

                Maybe I’m not a good person. 

                Maybe I deserve to be ignored.  Maybe I deserved to be overlooked.  Maybe I’m not worth your time. 

                But I serve a God who accepts me.  Today, I think about the words that Paul Tillich said, when he wrote: “Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted.”

                Pastors, chaplains, and church leaders may not accept me.  But God sure does.

Once Upon a Sand Creek

Nov 29, 1864 probably doesn’t mean much to most of us.  But it should.

The name John Chivington probably doesn’t mean much to most of us.  But it should.  Especially to the Church.

On Nov 29, 1864, in modern Kiowa County, Colorado, approximately 150 Cheyenne, mainly women and children were slaughtered near their homes by the United States Calvary led by Col. John Chivington.  Chivington had claimed there were upwards of 500 Warriors in the village, but no evidence collaborated this.  Instead, 700 men ran down a village that was little equipped to defend itself.  After the ‘battle’, Chivington’s men returned to the scene to collect trophies of scalps and other body parts, including genitals.

Col John Chivington was known as a cold and brutal man, who employed violence to achieve his ends.  He was known for an accidental attack on a Confederate Supply Train during the Civil War, whereupon he threatened to kill his prisoners. 

But what makes Chivington noteworthy, and infamous, is that he was a Methodist Preacher.  He was a Christian.

Chivington had been appointed as a preacher by the Methodist General Convention and sent to Colorado. He was known as a ‘hell and brimstone’ preacher, one who preached the anger and wrath of God.  He preached against the existence of the Native Americans and urged his congregation members to exterminate them.  When the Civil War broke out, he applied for a commission.  When offered a commission as a Chaplain, he refused, insisting that he was going to be a warrior.  He served and was never punished for the events at Sand Creek.

Today, Chivington should remind us in the Christian Church about the dangers of extremism, of fundamentalism and of hatred wherever it shall be found.  This should be a reminder that we are not called to hate, not called to violence, but to love and to peace.  The Church needed to have helped the Cheyenne and all Natives.  A little less than a hundred years later, Dietrich Bonhoeffer would remind us that the Church has a duty, “not to simply bandage the wounds of victims of the wheels of injustice, [but] we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”

Sand Creek should remind us of our failures of the church in the past to even bandage the wounds.  The Cheyenne, the Sioux, the Navajo, indeed all Natives and all slaves, needed us. 

We should mourn the 29^th of November as a day when a man of peace became a man of violence.  And we should renew our commitment to serve others, to love others and to be that instrument of justice and peace that God has called us to be.