Last night a student at one of the local schools committed suicide. It’s a horrible thing, obviously, and the students that go to that school that I know are all sort of shaken up by it. Our youth network, which handles church cooperation and bigger events like bringing the movie here posted this on Facebook today:
Please pray for the family of a Latrobe High School student who committed suicide last night. So incredibly sad. And please take all the students you know to go see To Save A Life this weekend – it’s not just a movie – it’s a challenge to keep this kind of thing from happening again. We can and must make a difference – lives depend on it!

I understand the point in all of this. “See,” they are saying, “this is a huge deal and seeing something like the movie can help.” I just look at this and it just hurts my head. Lives do depend on it, of course, but to boil this down to go see this movie and do what it says just seems like another “strategy”. I dont know about you, but short of relief efforts, I am so tired of ministry strategies. I’m tired of programming the life out of things. I’m tired of running to a curriculum or a famous youth leader, or kirk cameron and looking for “how to do things”.

Another thing that bothers me is what message am I sending to a kid by saying, “hey I know a friend of yours just killed himself, but come watch this movie so you can see the depressed kids and help them not kill themselves. You failed the first time, this time you won’t.” I just can’t see how that message helps at all. You would love to see a student body that pulls together and naturally nurtures each other. Why does the church have to step in and make sure that it gets top billing. The response of the church is love, not do this, this and this and it will never happen again. The church, which places itself at a distance to the distress and downtrodden just jumping in and helping to fix things (so everyone will know it is the church, not God) might be more of an insult than offering support to everyone that needs it.

I don’t know, I guess I’m just sort of upset with the whole thing and upset that we take a tragedy like suicide and spin it in to the Christian Marketplace.

Non-O-Biography from Boat Safety Films on Vimeo.

Typically we are defined by what we value and what we do. What we are not and what we fail to do can also deeply impact our identity. Non-O-Biography got me thinking (which I’m sure was not it’s intention), what are some things I hope to do that I haven’t yet. A couple of year’s back I stumbled upon a book called “101 Things to Do Before You Die” and made my own list. In retrospect the list may have been a little ambitious (especially academically). In fact, in the two years since I wrote the list, I have only knocked one thing out. I saw Bela Fleck live in concert.

What do you want to do before you die?