It Didn't Get Better For Them....

In September of 2011, Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old Buffalo, New York junior high school student committed suicide. He had made a video for "It Gets Better," a project created to provide moral support for bullied gay teens. Just last week, yet another young person, Eric James Borge, who had also made a video for "It Gets Better," committed suicide, too. Perhaps making such a public announcement of their sexuality did not help their lives get better. Perhaps the videos the young men made led to more bullying, not less. Perhaps what alienated young people need is more privacy, more understanding. But this kind of support is not forthcoming from the adults who run "It Gets Better." I was recently reading a book by the late Dutch Catholic priest, Henri Nouwen, called "Turn My Mourning Into Dancing," and he had written about activism, and what a failure it is. (see pages 72-75 of the above book) Here he quotes another Catholic, Thomas Merton:

"Writes Merton, 'He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give to others. He will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his ego-centered ambitions...his doctrinaire prejudices and ideas.'

And Father Nouwen went on to comment about Merton's above statement:

"Here lies the center of Merton's critique of our activism, the second way in which we try to manage others or love with conditions. We end up doing things for others for the sake of doing, for the sake of ourselves. This kind of activism gathers merit badges. It is motivated by guilt, by the feeling of being indebted, by the sense of having to earn righteousness or favor--from God or others. Activism ultimately places our own unmet longings at the center of our efforts. It therefore does not help others in a wholesome way."

Well, Amen to that, Brothers and Sisters! I think of the people who have tried to influence me, only to alienate me further. I am thinking particularly of one law professor I had who tried to mold me into her vision of an ideal Mexican-American woman. Well, that didn't work! I don't want any middle class white women telling me how I should vote, or that I should only date Hispanic men. Besides, my father's family was originally from Spain, and were descended from Marranos (Spanish Jews.) I was raised by my German/Dutch/Swiss mother, so I always wondered what that pushy law professor was talking about with her pro-Mexican agenda. I wish I'd had the guts at the time to tell her to buzz off! I actually learned Spanish in school, by the way. I am not a native speaker, despite my Spanish last name. Anyway, Father Nouwen goes on to write,

"Think about the people who have most influenced you. When I remember them I am always surprised to discover that these are people who did not try to influence me, who did not need my response. Instead they radiated a certain inner freedom. They made me asaware taht they were intouch swith more than themselves. They pointed to a reality greater than themselves from which and in whom their freedom grew. This centeredness, this inner freedom, this spiritual independence had a mysterious contagiousness."

What an insightful thing to write! There was actually a law professor whom I really liked who influenced me tremendously, though he wasn't trying to do so. His name was Jesse Dukeminier. He was a homosexual, and he was more feminine than the aggressive female law professors who strode around the halls purposefully in their Birkenstocks. He wasn't trying to be macho, or cool, or part of the same generation as his students. He wasn't trying to be something he was not. He had a nice life, an art collection, and he was a model for self-acceptance. God (and life itself) had made him what he was, and he accepted it. Every time I was in his presence, I felt somehow relieved. He had that mysterious contagiousness, what can I say? Professor Dukeminier is no longer with us, but I feel that he is still with us in spirit. I hope that all people who are alienated, unhappy, and struggling with their identity can meet more people who model self-acceptance (and acceptance of the way the world is) rather than being urged to try to aggressively (and futilely) change everyone and everything else. I am deeply sorry for young people like Jamey Rodemeyer and Eric James Borge who didn't live long enough to make better lives for themselves. People can go on and on about bigotry, and indeed it exists, but activism can be harmful, too. May these poor young suicides rest in peace of a kind they never found here on earth. Best Wishes, Jen :)