Most people already know the sad news about why the Finnish government ordered a day of nationwide mourning today.
Click here to see associated press article
Today I was at a house meeting where several people were talking about how to work through the grieving process. While he was talking, one Lutheran minister mentioned that one in four deaths of males in his congregation here in Finland were due to suicide. He suggested that for many reasons we need to do better at sharing with each other, even sad thoughts and emotions, and generally we need to be more concerned about and connected with each other.
We need to raise and practice the courage to act (example) when we encounter the idiots who seem to be able to do such things. For that we first need to consider whether the position of “Let’s not care at all about what the others are doing” is the best we can do.
How many people have you heard say in a state of annoyance and frenzy, “Don’t worry about them. Just worry about yourself!”?
Hopefully we can realize that it IS so important to reach out and worry about others and be an influence for good in other’s lives. It makes me wonder if the young man was ignored by his classmates or what could have been different in his life to make it a positive one. I had a classmate commit suicide and have always wondered what I could have done to have helped him out.
It’s terrible to hear about this tragedy. Hopefully we can learn from it and personally change some of the ways we treat people.
I’m behind in my blog reading. I echo what the previous to commenters said, and I’ll add – this – compassion. After the shootings at Va Tech the word compassion came up for me, a lot. We need to be more compassionate with people, with ourselves, and those who are different than us.
I must have been misunderstood: I am against NOT WORRYING. I argue for caring more, for re-considering the current ignorance and fear of acting.
Carolina Islas shared some wisdom with me about this in one of my conversations with her. She said that we should automatically have some respect for every person, if for no other reason, then simply because to be human is a difficult and challenging thing quite frequently – and we can respect and honor each person for that reason alone. I liked that thought.
In a quote on the bottom a friend’s email – I also saw this quote that I really liked: “Trials and tribulations tend to squeeze the artificiality out of us, leaving the essence of what we really are and clarifying what we really yearn for.” Neal A. Maxwell