Join this discussion with David. He brings to the spirituality table wisdom and experience as a husband, father, veteran, police officer, clergyman, author and poet. He has experienced success as well as loss and grief in his life as he has struggled with his wife's cancer, a child's suicide, loved ones with addictions, and now the death of his beloved wife of 40 years.
Kathleen Taylor has been a hospice counselor for many years. People ask her how she can sit everyday at the bedside of dying patients without getting burned out or depressed. In the following video, she tells us why she loves her job and what she has learned from those who are dying. She says the number one regret she hears is "I wish I had the courage to live my life and not the life others expected me to live."
Listen also for another learning: when people are close to death they shed their falseness -- that is, they no longer tolerate or speak "bullshit."
So, the question I have for you is this: Do we simply die or do we, through dying, find ourselves?
The above 4-minute video was John D. Schramm's first attempt to talk about the taboo subject of suicide. It is a beautiful testimony to choosing life and, at the same time, a call to break the silence -- the taboo of talking about suicide.
Over half a million people have seen John's video and it's been translated into 39 languages. He wanted to "start a
conversation worth having about an idea worth spreading."
The following is what John learned:
Breaking the silence is not an event, but a process.
Through hundreds of emails and thousands of comments on various websites, it is
clear that attempt survivors don't just break the silence one time, but over
and over and over again. Or they don't, and live in the silence after once
having a bad experience with sharing their secret with another.
Tough questions don't have easy answers. John was a layperson
with no training in the healing arts. He attempted to start a conversation, but
then just listened as others were inspired to share their journey. Then John pointed them to resources that he knew.
Conversations are a crucial, but slow path to change. In John's life, he's witnessed the self-inflicted deaths of several people he's loved and known. While he wanted their closest friends and family members to
share their stories too, he found he was powerless to cause that. Instead, he simply remained open
to the conversation, replied to each email or invitation to chat, and urged
strugglers to find or build the network of committed listeners and further their own conversations.
This conversation, thankfully, has begun. The challenge now is to continue it and expose the taboo to conversation and openness. When that happens, suicide is no longer a taboo.
In the fall of 2010, my son took his life. Suicide is not new to either my professional or family experience, but the effect on me was devastating and involved a good two years of grief-sharing and processing.
Almost immediately after his death I posted a number of blogs on this site (October-November, 2010). It was my attempt to heal heal my own grief and help others through my experience. You may find them helpful.
"Perhaps no other life-threatening condition on the
planet can be so positively impacted by honest, forthright and intimate
conversations with friends, loved-ones, clients and colleagues. As we do this,
we demystify suicide. We render it approachable by creating a net of
understanding so strong and a willingness to intervene imbued with such
resolve, that people can no longer fall through the cracks."
When we break the silence, we take action to prevent the next loss. By sharing our thoughts and feelings we make ourselves vulnerable, but it is that vulnerability, that openness, that enables our own healing.
Timber Hawkeye gives us two things that will change our lives. He calls it "religion-less" but I find it to be very much a part of my journey. The two concepts that will change the world are: 1. BE GRATEFUL and 2. BE QUIET. Or, as he tongue-in-cheek reminds us, "sit happens."
While Timber is a Buddhist, I have found other parts of Buddhist spirituality to greatly contribute to my own Christian journey. Enjoy the video. And then let's try and practice what we have just learned.
Yes, in a gentle way we can change the world.
Embrace the journey!
p.s. Please click on the "Join this Site" tab on the right side of this page to get notified when there is a new post -- which, by the way, will be more frequent in April as I, too, be a bit more grateful and a bit more quiet in my life.
