November 4, 2010

I watched a strange, beautiful, provocative and evocative video on CNN today. It was about a forest at the foot of Mount Fuji, where Japanese often go to commit suicide. The pictures and the audio score were haunting.

The videographer followed a Nature Guard deep through the trees, as he talked about his job as an ecologist in that particular forest. He has found over 100 bodies as part of his daily work in the forest, and on this day he and the video crew came across the remains of a corpse. The Guard said it was likely a year or two old, because it was just bones and clothes.

At another point, he found a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates, noting that it was likely left there by family and friends of a suicide victim. He said: You think you die alone but that is not true. Nobody is alone in this world. We have to coexist and take care of each other. That’s how I feel.

Exactly. Suicide is so tempting for people in despair, but the impact is huge. And that’s because we are NOT alone. We have real connections with family, friends, communities … we are never alone. And in our darkest moments, when we feel hard distance between us and anyone else, we are still not alone because we have God watching over us.

I pray today for people in despair, people who are in dark places and thinking dark thoughts. I have been there and by God’s grace can appreciate what the Guard said, because it is so true. We never die alone and we must take care of each other.