suicide
After my friend’s suicide, my theology was in shock
I’ve been offering my tangled knots of questions and memories as prayers.
Liz Tichenor’s life in the wake of her infant’s death
We are called to accompany the bodies we love from birth to death and beyond.
Grieving my daughter’s suicide in a time of wider grief
My years of experience as an undertaker didn’t make it easier.
How deaths of despair reached white communities
Two economists tell the story and suggest reforms.
Suicides in the US are rising. How can the church respond?
Helping people feel connected to one another is the holy work of any community, including congregations.
A liturgy for people affected by suicide
One person told me, “It’s the first time I’ve been in a church for 30 years, since that day.”
A pastor's job isn't to make bad things seem better
If you have to choose between offering false hope and the truth, go with the truth.
Breaking the silence about suicide
“When the church couldn’t talk about suicide or mental illness, it felt like God couldn’t either.”
Pastors need to see 13 Reasons Why
The Netflix series is troubling and difficult to watch. Watch it anyway.
Road: Essays by readers
In response to our request for essays on the subject road, we received many compelling reflections. Here is a selection.
All My Puny Sorrows, by Miriam Toews
This is a book about deep, protracted, unrelenting sadness, and it knows it.
Stay, by Jennifer Michael Hecht
Most moral arguments against suicide are built on premises of faith. But Jennifer Hecht, a poet and first-rate historian of ideas, is intent on providing secular reasons for refraining from it.
Making space for veterans
If soldiers make it home, the war comes with them. Every day, about 18 of them implode in suicide.
Yes, God loves soldiers
On Easter Sunday, Jake Tapper interviewed Rick Warren on ABC’s This Week, asking the influential pastor a series of questions on faith and politics. Of particular interest were his comments on soldiers and war (which did not make it into the aired segment but are available here). At the end of the interview, Warren exclaimed, “God hates war, but loves every soldier.”
As a combat veteran, I was impressed by and grateful for Warren’s statement. The Bible makes clear that war is at best a necessary evil--the idea at the core of the just war tradition. And yes: God loves each and every soldier. But I want to look more closely at the latter thought, especially in light of the suicide epidemic that currently afflicts our nation’s veterans and soldiers.