So yesterday, March 11, 2009, a 30-something man dove into the frigid, roiling waters of the Niagara River in an apparent suicide attempt and survived the 180-foot plunge. He even had enough left to try to fight off his would-be rescuers at the base of the falls. Yowsa.
On my church's Facebook page I put forth the following question: If you were the first person this man saw when he woke up in ICU, what would you say to him?
In terms of faith, life, God, death, sanity, insanity...what could it possibly mean when someone survives a self-removal attempt of such total, over-the-top lethality?!? It stretches the perceived boundaries of both physics and metaphysics!
Come on. I have my thoughts. But I want to hear yours first...
God is not done with this young man yet. I hope he has the capacity to see this, or at least the right people and influences in his life to help him see it.
ReplyDeleteI know the first word to come out my mouth would be, "Dude?!" in a tone of amazement, disbelief, panic, awe, fear and a tinge of anger all mixed up in one. And then once my Amygdala calmed down I think I would end up laughing and saying, "Man, you ain't done yet!" But then I wasn't there and so I can only posit as I sit and my body is calm and my eyes not being a witness to what had to be a miracle unfolding.
ReplyDeleteIt's Claudette, having sign-in trouble again.
ReplyDeleteThis man's survival- whether you consider it a miracle or otherwise- is a good reminder of both our lack of control over what happens to us and our obligation to deal with it. The fact that he wasn't killed by the Falls shows that even the most predictable things (gravity makes things drop, winter makes water cold, etc.) do not always result in what we expect them to. Not to get metaphorical, but it's kind of like life, isn't it? I think that after this incident, it shouldbe obvious to that man (and to the rest of us) that there are some things you can't run away from. Even the most predictable forces of nature cannot be depended on to take away our problems- we have to learn to solve them. When he gets out of the hospital, he's going to have all of the problems he had before- and some new ones, too. Whether he survived because of divine intervention, fate, human determination, or anything else you can think of, what is important is that we remember the moral of the story. A story of attempted suicide is usually not very inspiring, but it can be enlightening.
Great thought, Claudette.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that, straight out of the scriptural blocks, our creation myth in Genesis asserts that paradise was present and accounted for here on earth before things went south... then all of scripture from Genesis 4 through Revelation 22 deals with our attempts to return to some idyllic existence just out of view(cue Joni Mitchell: "We are stardust. We are gold dust. We are billion-year-old carbon, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden...")
My only problem with this thought -- and with religion in general -- is this idea that we have to "get ourselves back" -- reverse course in some way to regain something we have lost.
Christ says that one who puts a hand to the plow but looks back is not fit for service to God. We are built to move forward in time. That's where reality forms. That's where change and growth may occur. It is constructive to apply the examined experiences of the past to inform how we plow the row before us, but, in the moment, it is the present we stand in and the future we till. As such, redemption is not a destination but a condition and mindset.
Surviving a trip over Niagara Falls suggests to me that there is more power and possibility churning in this man's life than he had realized. Just for kicks, suppose we said to him:
"Welcome to paradise, mister. I trust you'll find everything as you left it. Now let's see what you'll do differently..."
I know I'm late to the table.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to sound negative or like a jerk here but these are my honest opinions.
I feel sorry that he still alive. I have never been able to wrap my head around actually ending my life. I like waking up in the morning and coming to work and seeing my friends and family. I know I have a strong support system around me. It's unfortunate that there are those that aren't surrounded by the love or the faith that's around me. This man was so desperate or so sad or just lost all faith (if there was any to begin with) that the only way to make things better was to end it all. I'm sure he thought (as I would) that jumping off of the falls is a sure way to "make it all better".
It is my personal belief, while some may view it as sick or just plain wrong, that if someone makes that life choice (that sounds funny) then who am I to try to tell them that they were wrong, or that everything will be all right if they just try to live again.
Though, maybe he truly didn't want to die and someone forgave him or decided that they'd catch him. If this is the case, this is the definition of miraculous.
I can't imagine doing a rescue for someone who fell from the Niagara Falls. I've been to a rescue for a drunk teen who fell 100 feet from a waterfall in the woods and was in rough shape. I would be in absolute shock after hearing dispatch say the "XX year old male, fallen from the top of the falls, unconscious but breathing".
Good comments, Jim.
ReplyDeleteWho I am to try to move an individual away from committing suicide is a pastor who has had to deal with the aftermath. Suicide does not eliminate pain - it transfers it to those left behind: Children/grandchildren left to wonder why they weren't worth watching grow up; spouses, parents, siblings and friends left to obsess about what they missed or what they could have done differently. Beyond that, there is the heavily documented "contagion effect." One of the major risk factors for suicide is a family or peer group history of suicide. This is not an option you want introduced into your family tree, as implications and complications extend for generations.
My comment above regarding "welcome to paradise" wasn't meant literally. I'd never really do that! What I meant is I think it would usually be good to try to help an individual reframe the existence they attempted to exit prematurely. Any ministry to a suicidal individual must stand firmly in the reality of their situation, but probably shouldn't adopt wholesale their perception of same.
As Bruce Cockburn so cogently sings: "You've got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight." Depression -- whether it is clinical, occasional or situational -- sucks. We can't let that life-sucking darkness win without the fight of our lives. It seems to me that with this individual who apparently was done with fighting, life somehow decided to fight for him.
I completely understand what your saying and I can be empathetic. I'm really not a jerk. A friend of mine committed suicide 3 years ago. He and I were extremely close at one point. We were like brothers for the longest time. I've had to deal with the pain of thinking that he wasn't here, watching his parents deal with this was unbearable, and another one of my best friends who was first on the scene and had to perform CPR. After 2 years I ran into his mom at Wegmans. She had to run away crying because, quote, "You look just like (insert name here)." That was really tough.
ReplyDeleteI'm telling you this because I don't want to portray myself as not understanding the pain that is transferred to others or that I don't value human life. It was very hard to cope with what he had done and even tougher was the reason he had done it, which I found out a short week later.
Yup. How much you value human life is obvious in your degree of commitment as a firefighter, Jim. One more in a long series of reasons for me to be really proud of you.
ReplyDeleteYou've seen the wreckage of suicide first hand. Usually a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Not good. But for many, suicidal impulses are a regular companion. Often people chronically plagued by these thoughts and desires will slip through our fingers. None of us can be on duty protecting another human being 24/7. It just isn't possible.
I,too, really feel for those who carry such a burden.