Rev. Furrer preaches on how not to commit suicide. On beating the mid-winter blues. Health and sanity in the midst of darkness and gloom.
“From Hopelessness to Hope”
of year can be depressing for some people. The avalanche of snow over the last
nine days was, perhaps, an anomaly, but even without “snowageddon,” dark skies,
short days, and cold temperatures can be gloomy. Plus, there’s the 2016
presidential election and the resulting changes and reordered priorities in
Washington, which have left religious liberals everywhere seriously disturbed.
Some people I recently spoke to report teetering on the edge of despair. It’s
partly the winter blues and it’s partly, I think, a collective response of the
body politic to the angry, hard-edged political atmosphere—experienced by many
as a body blow to their democratic faith. About a decade ago a church member I
was close to requested that I write and deliver a sermon on the right to die. I
did…in the end. Initially, however, I was reluctant. Until I remembered reading
an article years earlier by the writer and Whole
Earth Catalogue editor Steward Brand. Always pushing the envelope, Brand
was about to publish an essay on “How to Commit Suicide.” But he—just like
me—had had misgivings and decided to ask his
minister, Richard Baker, then-Roshi of the San Francisco Zen Center, what he
thought of the idea. “Don’t publish an article on how to commit suicide,” said
Baker Roshi. “Publish an article on how not to commit suicide.” Hence, this
Let’s be honest: suicide merits our
attention. As an ever-present option, it’s also scary; whenever someone we’ve
known succumbs to suicide, we are reminded of our vulnerability to its apparent
allure. My dad committed suicide two weeks after I graduated from high school,
the summer I turned eighteen. Others I have known and cared for have also
committed suicide, including more than a few congregants over the years. In my
last settled ministry the Chair of the Membership Committee, a deeply loved and
respected church member, took her life alone at home despite the efforts of
many of us who knew she was depressed and did all we could to keep her alive. I
am still grieving years later.
Stewart Brand’s original plan had
been sparked by the Hemlock Society’s efforts to promote death with dignity for
the terminally ill. Now known as Compassion
and Choices,Unitarian
Universalists started many of its chapters across the country, including here
in the Puget Sound area. Compassion and Choices members argue that suicide is acceptable under certain circumstances, such as
incurable disease and old age. The idea is that although life is in general
good, people who face irreversible
suffering should not be forced to continue suffering. Most Unitarian
Universalists would agree with this idea or at least support the rights of
those who do. By in large, liberal religion asserts that a person’s life
belongs only to them, and no other person has the right to force on others
their own conviction that life must be lived. Only the individual involved can
make that decision, and whatever decision that person makes, should be
Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz (once
named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association) goes further,
arguing that suicide is the most basic right of all. If freedom equals
ownership over one’s own life and body, then the right to end that life is the
most basic right of all. If others can force you to live, you do not own
yourself but belong to them.
Indeed, philosophical thinking in
the 19th and 20th centuries led, in some cases, to the point that suicide was
no longer a last resort, or even something that one must justify, but something
that one must justify not doing. Many forms of Existentialist thinking
essentially begin with the premise that life is objec
