Passions of the Soul

Adieu!

We will leave tomorrow morning in order to spend a very few days with my mom, sister and niece in California.

Remember:  Jesus Christ was born into this world in order to reconcile us to God--which every one of us needs and none can do alone.  His motivation in coming, knowing it would mean ridicule and great suffering and death for Him, was simple:  He loved (and loves) us too much to leave us in bondage to our sinful nature, too much to leave us to pay the penalty of eternal punishment.  It's so simple:  Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.  That is reason enough to celebrate!

So--MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Removing the "taboo on suicide"?

Suicide is not an easy subject, but an article about it was headlined in one of our local papers, a couple of days ago.  Many readers of the online edition left comments, mostly slanted on the need to make suicide easier to talk about.  The idea is that someone who is feeling suicidal or having such thoughts needs to feel free of the "taboo" and more readily ask for help.  With that much, I agree.  And, certainly, the survivors of someone who has committed suicide need to be encouraged to seek help in working through the pain, the anger, all the aspects of grief related to the self-inflicted death of the loved one.  Having once been close to someone who was often suicidal, I feel pretty strongly about my response to the article and to the comments.  That is not to say that I am right. 

I might have let the article go by without addressing the topic here, except that I know the holidays are very painful for a lot of people; I believe it's true that more people flock to hospitals and community mental health centers, at this time of year, because negative associations of past holiday seasons send them into a depression.  So...some of my thoughts follow.

In the first place, any "taboo" on suicide, especially when based in religious training or belief, has probably kept a lot of people alive long enough to get the help they needed in order to live reasonably happy and productive lives.  Obviously, it doesn't stop everyone.  But the article did not come close to addressing all the reasons that people make attempts at suicide, which include the usual suspects of severe depression and mental illness, among others; it did not, for example, address the fact that many times, the person is angry at someone who has, or is perceived to have, let him down.  Often, in such cases, revenge is at least a part of the motivation to make an attempt.  Sometimes, the person unintentionally succeeds.

I added my one-and-a-half cents' worth to the comments online, and I offer them here, inadequate tho' they are:

Yes, I hope some who are thinking or feeling suicidal will call someone for help--and if the first person fails, call someone else.

But my concern is that others, especially teens, will think, "Oh, no taboo...so it's okay for me to kill myself" and then do it.  Two points that are not stressed enough, often enough and clearly enough are that (a) there is always hope, even when we can't see through the darkness, and (b) if the person who should help you refuses--or fails through lack of understanding--someone else will help.  Ask.  Ask again.  Talk to a trusted teacher, counselor, clergy person; call a hotline for suicide prevention; if nothing else, call the police, and you will get help.

Finally, if you're thinking of suicide as the ultimate revenge against someone who has let you down, consider:  They will probably get the help they will need to work through [their grief over] your act, and eventually, they will find happiness in life, again.  You, on the other hand, will be dead.  Don't do it.  There are better solutions.

No, I didn't specifically write about having faith in God, trusting Jesus, or any of the things I would probably say to an individual for whom faith might have some meaning.  Suppose someone who is suicidal in the wake of clergy abuse, or abuse at the hands of very religious parents, for example, were to read that; I would have lost that audience.  But if I were talking with someone who was threatening suicide and knew that she or he made a profession of faith in God, I would encourage that; if she or he made no profession, I would--unless I knew a good reason not to--broach the subject and encourage the person to put his or her faith in God, our best and only real hope.  I know some would tell me I'm wrong even to think of not pointing someone to Jesus Christ, and maybe I am.  But if I were talking to someone with whom I had not yet earned the right to speak of Him, I would not push it.  But I would be listening for any direction from the Holy Spirit.

I learned from professionals, many years ago, to take seriously a threat of suicide; even if the one threatening the act doesn't really intend to follow through, she or he may succeed, by accident.  If you are talking to the person on the phone, do not hang up, as long as the other is still there.  Don't say, "I'll call you right back, but I have to call the police (or an ambulance) for you."  Stay with it.  And meanwhile, pray that you will never have to deal with such a horror.

One update and one new prayer request

The word from friend Jeannine is that Ken (for whom I have previously posted prayer requests) will begin his radiation treatments in January.  He hopes to continue working, during that time, and would therefore like to have his appointments scheduled on his lunch hour.  Jeannine would drive him as often as possible, so that he could eat lunch either going or coming, and miss a minimum of work.  They will appreciate prayers for him, for healing, either outright or through the treatment, so that the radiation will work as desired and with as few side effects as possible.

Ken and Jeannine have also just become grandparents, again, but 17 weeks earlier than anticipated.  Little Abigail (Abby) weighed a whopping 1 lb. 6 oz., at birth, and measured 11-1/4" long.  That's just tiny.  And, of course, having arrived so early, her lungs are not developed.  She has a feeding tube and is in neo-natal care.  The doctors do not expect her to go home until late March or early April, which is about when she was due.  She is currently in the care of Salt Lake City University Hospital, where the neo-natal care equipment is better than where she was delivered.  That means at least an hour's drive, each way, from where her mom and dad, Mark and Tami, live.  Jeannine has been there, helping out, since near the end of November, and will stay until the day after Christmas.  This means, of course, that Ken is having to get along without her, at home in California.

One praise in all of this is that Jeannine had retired from work just the week before Thanksgiving.  She would not have been able to be in SLC, when she was/is so badly needed to help with driving Tami (in the first two weeks), with cooking, and with care of 4-year-old Joshua.  The timing has to have been a God thing.

Clearly, this family is in need of continuing prayer support.  If you can provide some of that, thank you, and God bless you.

Sara of Columbia

I received a new batch of child packets, today.  Usually, I find a photo of at least one child, in the batch, who grabs my heart.  This 5-year-old girl is the latest.

I received four other packets, as well.  These are for children who have been registered in Compassion-assisted projects in any of 24 developing countries around the world.  The other four children for whom I received packets are from India, Dominican Republic, Bolivia and Ethiopia.  The last two are boys.  All are, of course, available for sponsorship and are cosigned to me for a few weeks in the hope that I will find sponsors for them.

I hate sending back packets.  It means I didn't find sponsors for those children.  I know that it also means the children will be put back into circulation and available for sponsorship through other advocates or, perhaps, at concert or speaking events.  But I always feel as though I have let them down.  In four and a half years, I haven't gotten over that, yet.

So if you want to sponsor Sara, send me an e-mail very soon.  If you would like to sponsor a child from any of the other countries I mentioned above, send me an e-mail.  If you want to choose a child online, go here.  It could be the best Christmas gift you could give to yourself, your child or grandchild.

Christmas isn't about another cute baby

Anyone with good sense knows the day after Thanksgiving is a good day to stay home, as way too many people even line up outside their stores-of-choice on Thanksgiving night, in order to start shopping very early.  The stores and roadways now are full of people who are shopping for gifts--to wrap and ship, or just wrap and hang onto until the big day.  Schools have their Christmas programs--I'm sorry; make that holiday programs, and Sunday schools have theirs.  Choirs prepare to sing Handel's Messiah (one of my all-time favorite pieces of music to hear or to sing), a Christmas musical, or other holiday concerts.  Preparation means many hours spent in rehearsals.  Parties are held, gifts are exchanged at social events and in the office.  Too many people spend more than they can afford on gifts neither they nor their intended recipients like, want or need.  And then there's the travel over the highways and through the traffic jams to get to Grandma's house.  By the time Christmas has the good grace to roll around, most people are totally wiped out.

So here I am, on December 9, to offer a few suggestions:

• Spend less money on fewer people.
• Drink less, not more, if you drink; if you don't drink, don't start.
• Ditto for smoking.
• Don't think you have to go to every party or even give one.
• Turn down the volume--on everything:  the tv, the radio, the iPod or MP3, the boombox (especially those on wheels!), your voice, the voices in your head...everything (thank you, Andy Rooney!)
• Give more of your money and/or time for those who have nothing, or very little.
• Teach your kids about children in extreme poverty in developing nations of the world, and then teach them to give and to share.
• Consider sponsoring one of those children in poverty as a family Christmas gift, a gift to a son or daughter (grown or growing) or to a grandchild.  Help young children or teens learn what real poverty is like.

And finally, remember that the Christ child is/was not just another cute little baby.  He was God come to earth in the most humble human form He could have chosen, in order to reconcile broken people (that's all of us) to Himself.  He returned to His Father to intercede for us and to prepare a place for us.  Love, grace, mercy, peace and joy came to us in Him.  Have some; it's free.  And have a wonderful Christmas!

Class of '67

I'm a solid week and a half behind in writing this post, but it's high time I did.  I wish I'd been able to write it as soon as we returned from my 40-year college class reunion; why I wasn't able at that time is another story.

This was the first class reunion I had attended, and I'm so glad Bruce went with me.  It really was more than a class reunion, for me, though; I also reunited, reconnected with Jerry and Nadine, and Warren and Jan, who were my peers in our youth group before they ever paired off; and with Norm and Judy, who were the adult leaders of our group, in the church in which I grew up.  I should say they were very young adult leaders, being college students, still, when they began working with us.  Anyway, it had been roughly 35 years since I'd seen any of them.

I left college without graduating for the same reason many young women quit school:  to get married.  My then-husband and I moved away, but we were still in the loop, to some extent, for maybe 10 years.  Several years after that, tho', we divorced; that was the one of the first of the twists and turns in my life, to the point that I was out of touch with almost everyone.

During the reunion weekend, the reconnecting with old friends seemed to be filling up a hole in my soul.  Even several people that I had known, but not known well, in college, contributed to that sense of being filled.  I had kind of known the hole was there, but I had no idea how deep it went or how important it was--how important those people were to me.  The opportunity to sit and visit, to play catch-up with each other's lives, and just to have great fun during the reunion luncheon, could qualify for a part in one of those commercials--you know, "Travel to and from the class reunion:  $150.  Hotel room for two:  $100+/night.  Seeing old friends:  priceless."  And the cherry on top was that my husband enjoyed it as much as I did.  I've started a photo album (look in the right Side Bar), but I have more pictures to add and editing to do.*

It wasn't quite all fun, however.  As I mentioned in a post below, one of my friends is now in a wheelchair.  I learned from her that 25% of patients with spinal-cord injuries live with a constant, intense, burning pain that nothing even helps.  She is in the 25% group.  The grief I felt for her and her husband after their accident, years back, all came up again.  I just wanted to be able to put my arms around both of them and make it all better, and I don't have the power to do that.  Oh, how I wish I did.

But the luncheon was fun.  We discovered a couple of stand-up comedians in the group; I'm not sure what they do for a living, but Eddie and Clyde ought to hire an agent and take it on the road.  Everyone was congenial and ready to reminisce.  It did come as a bit of a shock, tho', that both the school song and mascot have been changed!  I shouldn't have been surprised; the college moved from Pasadena to San Diego in 1973, and that really did call for a change in the song.  Face it--locating in San Diego, on Point Loma, is a bit of a change from being "Nestled in the High Sierras!"  (I'm not sure Pasadena's exactly nestled in the High Sierras, but we did have some nice mountains to look at, when it wasn't too smoggy.)  Somewhere along the way, someone must have said, "You know, we're at the ocean.  We really ought to have a different mascot."  So the college is now represented by sea lions, rather than Charlie Crusader.  I wonder how that works on the basketball court....

I let 40 years go by before attending a class reunion; now, I can't wait for the next one.  Five years! Listen, at our age, a lot can change in that time.  Sigh.

UPDATE:  I have completed the Photo Album for PLNU Class of '67 Reunion.