Religious Rants: Suicide

The Bridge at Sunset

Today is October 1, which for the last nine years has been an incredibly difficult day for me. In 2003, my best friend, at the age of 17 was killed in a car accident. It only makes sense then, that I would post about something death related...

It was Winter in Maine when Laura (my sister, I'm just going to start referring to her as Laura from here on out, okay?) and I were chatting on Facebook. She was in Michigan and I was supposed to be studying for Final Exams (Organic Chemistry, to be exact), but decided to slack off a bit....as usual.

"Whoa," she typed. "Sarah Hunter (name change for respect) committed suicide."

I stared at her words, and stared at the name. Sarah was a girl I'd attended youth group with. She'd driven me a couple of times when no one else could. We were friends. And she killed herself.

"What happened?" I typed back as tears stung my eyes.

"I'm not sure, I'm looking into it."

At long last, the dam burst, and I started crying, sobbing. I cried for Sarah, who had always been soft spoken and slow to smile. I cried for me, who only a few months before had been committed to a psych ward of a hospital for "attempted suicide". She was so pretty, and so young. We would sit in her car and chat before and after youth group. And she was dead.

The Mackinac Bridge

In Michigan, there is a lovely place called Mackinac Island. I've been there once and tried a million different kinds of fudge (and got a horrible tummy ache). But to get to the island, you have to cross the Mackinac Bridge.

Just before Christmas, and either just before or after her birthday, Sarah had driven her car to the bridge, walked, and then jumped into the icy water below. To my knowledge her body wasn't found.

"Did you know her?" Laura typed, as I sat on my beaten in couch crying.

"Yes, we went to youth group together."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you knew her."

We chatted for awhile longer while I sat there crying. Eventually I made my way outside and started chain smoking. This could have been me. This could have been me. My mind was reeling. Though I'd been committed for attempted suicide, I maintained that I wasn't trying, I'd just cut myself too deep. But just because I wasn't trying that day didn't mean I hadn't tried before. It also didn't mean that I wasn't considering it on a daily basis.

Months later I was on the Outer Banks of North Carolina when PostSecret shared a voicemail. It was the last phone call a young girl made to her boyfriend before she killed herself. On it, she stated, "I'm so sorry, please know this wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done." Her voice cracked as she spoke, and I listened to the voicemail on repeat, fighting my own urge to cry.

The voice mail removed any doubt in my mind that before Sarah jumped she was looking at the black water, sobbing. I know this because as I walked to the beach my sophomore year of college to drown myself, I was sobbing. She might have screamed on the way down, or maybe she was quiet. She could have jumped feet first, or head first.

But the church we'd gone to told me that suicides go to Hell, and I was supposed to believe that my friend was now burning for eternity for committing this grievous act. Not only had she had a rough life and lost her battle to depression, now she was going to suffer. Forever. Even though she probably cried on her way out of this world.

My faith at that moment became something like a pencil and snapped in half.

I've known God my entire life. I've loved him, prayed to Him almost every night. And yet I was supposed to believe that this Being that I've loved would torture someone who'd already been tortured?

No. No way.

And so like my belief that Harry Potter is demonic, I stopped believing that suicides go to Hell, simply because I need to believe in something that would take compassion on my friends. I need to believe that He would understand why we made these decisions, and that He truly is as epic as the Bible tells me He is.

I think this song pretty much sums up this entire post:

"What about me and all my friends, are we all sinners if we sin? Does it even matter in the end, if we're unhappy?"
~Noah Gunderson

Happy Monday.

Harry Potter is Demonic

Welcome to the magical world

Sorry for the delay on this post, but my sister was a slacker, and the library still didn't have any Harry Potter books (crazy, right?). Nonetheless, here we go.

Holding the DVDs because I don't own the book(s)
Also, I live in a basement. Much like
how Harry lived in a closet...

As a young and impressionable youth, I found my footing in the world though the threshold of a church. I went to youth group every Wednesday, played tambourine in the church band, and attended church camp during the summer months. For a long time, I didn't swear, didn't drink, didn't do drugs, or have sex. Really, I was an all around upstanding kid (aside from that time I locked my friend in the basement...).

One day as I was walking in, the pastor's wife got my attention. (I can't remember exactly how the conversation went, so I'm going to use the CREATIVE portion of creative non fiction so you guys get the idea.)

She had soft wavy brown hair and large glasses that completely covered her eyes. "You like to read, right?" she asked.

"I do," I said. "I just heard about these books, Harry Potter, have you read them?"

A worried look crossed her face, and then she said, "I've heard of them, and they're demonic. You shouldn't read them. They have magic in them, and magic comes from the devil."

"Okay," I said, and I took the message home to my sisters. "Don't read Harry Potter, you'll go to Hell!"

So...rather than read the books, years later, my oldest sister took me to the movies, and from there I continued watching (most of) the rest of them (I still actually haven't seen the last one, though twitter and Facebook has already ruined the end for me). In 2011, though I wasn't a huge Harry Potter fan (yea, sure the movies were fun, but sometimes I lost interest) I drove to Orlando, Florida for Leaky Con's LitDay to meet amazing authors, and hear panels about the industry.

The atmosphere was infectious. They were releasing the last Harry Potter movie, those in the audience were going to be the first ones to watch it, before the rest of America even got the chance. Everyone was buzzing with excitement, and lost in the mass of kids and adults dressed like they were ready to attend Hogwarts, I found myself getting excited, too.

Though I'd originally planned to bail out after the authorly panels were over, I found myself in a cushioned seat in a large room as the crowd hushed. Arthur Levine (the man who edited all of the Harry Potter books) entered the room. As he took the podium, cheers erupted, I'm pretty sure some people in the audience cried, and I looked at them like they were crazy (or, possibly, devil worshipers).

"When I met Jo, she looked hungry. As many of you know she was on foodstamps..." and from there he told the tale of meeting a starving author, with kids, with a lot to lose...She'd been rejected by several publishers and agents. No one believed in her story, but she did.

My sister. She is sad, too.

He told the audience about how Harry was hungry; he lived in a closet, was hated by the family he lived with, and he wanted food, and friends, and to belong somewhere. He was hungry for other people, hungry to actually experience life. The wizardry was just an added perk.

As he spoke, I had that Oh my God, moment. The one that tells me I spent x-amount of years missing out on something big because my church, a church I loved whole heartedly, told me those books were devil worshiping. I missed out on reading a great series, on being a part of something that truly moved people, and connected them to each other. Most of all, I missed out on something that got people and kids to read.

By proxy, my sister also missed out because I was a zealous Christian girl, upholding the word of God (nowhere in the Bible does it say don't read Harry Potter). (She is still kind of bitter about this one...)

All Harry wanted to was to be loved. In the end, I think that's what a lot of kids these days want. I know that's what I want. Well, that, and a nice package of mint oreos...

As I've been working on my memoir, I've been becoming increasingly angry with the things the church told me. For the record, I am still a Christian. I still pray on a daily basis, and love God (or my Higher Power for those of you who attend Alanon or AA).

Within the last year, I've become adamantly pro-choice and am becoming more vocal about it by the day. In College, one of my friends jumped from the Mackinaw Bridge, and I stopped believing suicides go to Hell. A boy who helped lead me toward God recently came out in the last few years, and thus, I stopped believing gays go to Hell, because he was the most passionate Christian I have ever met. The church taught me a lot about life, and I'm slowly starting to see that what I was told may have been vastly incorrect. (I'll be taking some of these topics on through this blog, hopefully you'll stick around through the journey.)

After Mr. Levine's speech, I no longer think that Harry Potter is demonic. Though I still didn't stick around to watch the movie with everyone, or attend the dance party, one of my life goals is to read the books, and at long last take part in something that has influenced my generation.

The moral of this post is: don't be afraid to read. Don't be afraid to be a part of something. Books are there to help you find what you're looking for, to test your beliefs (in a safe, non-cocaine type of environment), and take you on adventures the laws of gravity don't allow you to.

And for those of you writing the books, keep writing. Never stop pushing boundaries because your words may someday help save lives.

Happy Monday.