Self-Appointed Divine Justices

I was disappointed with people during the time when the death of Robin Williams was announced. Along with a lot of my Facebook friends casting grossly unfair aspersions on his character, a popular Christian blogger I haven't followed since called suicide cowardly.

It hit pretty close to home. People were quite literally damning a man none of them actually knew beyond his celebrity status. Even before it came out that he was on heavy medications and suffering from a terrifying incurable disease, otherwise decent people were firm in their unGodly minds that his place in Hell was certain.

Amidst this astonishing throng of ill-conceived judgment, one of my more thoughtful friends posted a link to a beautiful talk by one of my religious leaders: Suicide: Some Things We Know, Some We Do Not, by Elder M. Russell Ballard . To quote in part his speech, which I highly advise everyone to read in full, he states;

“Obviously, we do not know the full circumstances surrounding every suicide. Only the Lord knows all the details, and he it is who will judge our actions here on earth.

When he does judge us, I feel he will take all things into consideration: our genetic and chemical makeup, our mental state, our intellectual capacity, the teachings we have received, the traditions of our fathers, our health, and so forth.”

It's so very fortunate for many people I know that they have not had to experience what it is to be diagnosed with a big word for a disease that they may never be free of. A condition that may eventually strip them of even their most basic faculties and capacities, trapping them effectively inside a broken body, their mind still active but unable to communicate with the world around it. A disease that cripples them so badly that someone has to feed them, bathe them, and wipe their ass like a helpless infant.

Introduce such a trying ordeal to heavy medication - and all psychiatric medication comes with the risks of creating a more unstable and erratic biochemistry - and isn't it easy to understand why even such a recognizably great man could be tempted beyond his ability to resist?

This is not a post about supporting suicide. This is a post about not judging others, and perhaps being a little kinder to them. I think if people would see chronic physical or mental illness for what it's really like - being brutally, endlessly tortured by a vicious attacker you can't defend against and have no hope of escaping - perhaps the response to such would be better in line with these self-righteous people who haven't even had to dream about what it's like to experience consistent lack of comfort and ability.