Sep 11 | For World Suicide Prevention Day

Several years ago, I joined the TWLOHA street team and did some of the tasks they assigned. The most powerful one they asked us to do was to write a letter to someone who was contemplating or had contemplated suicide. Here’s what I wrote. ‪#‎worldsuicidepreventionday‬

 

Hello,

I don’t know who, where, what, or when you are. I don’t really care about any of those things. But I love you.

You are infinitesimally precious. You are incomprehensibly beloved. A spark from the holiness of all things rests in you. No one can replicate the way that holiness shines forth from your eyes.

Your innate nature as beloved does not depend on anything you have done, said, or experienced. It is not something that can be replicated, earned, or stolen. Your innate nature as beloved begins the moment you do.

As someone who loves you, I’ll be honest and say that I proclaim this because I am a Christian. But I tell you this not because I hope you will become a Christian. Your perception of the universe and how it came to be does not concern me. That is your journey, and I cannot presume to tell you the answer to yourself. However, I can impose upon you the great burden of being loved for no reason other than your own perfect particularity.

If you are a person of faith, know truly that holiness loves you and has a place for you.

If you are not, know truly that I love you, and I want you to be filled with light.

If you are a person of faith, know this: You were created by love, for love.

If you are not, know this: You are here by love, for love.

Harbour no fear of your brokenness. The Sufi mystic Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” The wound may be on your skin, or it may be in a place where no-one can see it. The wound does not make you ugly or unlovable. The wound makes you human – and beautiful.

The Light will not force its way into you. You must first open the door and invite it in. Know that when you do that, it will settle in as though it knew you were home all along.

Know this: A voice of awe speaks in you. Perhaps it is the inner Christ. Perhaps it is merely the bits of carbon that once rested inside a star that now rest in you. It says, “Child: be still and know.”

Do this: When you are in that place where you are sure the Light has left you, please read this again.

 

-Clarity