dave brisbin | 1.10.16
When a beloved friend and integral member of a community dies, it sends shockwaves through each connected life. But when that friend has taken his own life, the shockwaves compound and merge with deeply human questions and the added remorse and even guilt that frustrates healing both individually and collectively. With Lenny’s Rosenbaum’s death last week, we find ourselves in just such a moment, with just such questions and shock. How could a person like Lenny, who was one of the most intelligent and humorous individuals you could meet, who was a fixture at our gatherings and meetings, always bringing such life to each event have gotten to a point of such hopelessness right under our radar?
When a beloved friend and integral member of a community dies, it sends shockwaves through each connected life. But when that friend has taken his own life, the shockwaves compound and merge with deeply human questions and the added remorse and even guilt that frustrates healing both individually and collectively. With Lenny’s Rosenbaum’s death last week, we find ourselves in just such a moment, with just such questions and shock. How could a person like Lenny, who was one of the most intelligent and humorous individuals you could meet, who was a fixture at our gatherings and meetings, always bringing such life to each event have gotten to a point of such hopelessness right under our radar?
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Is his suicide forgivable by God despite what we may have been taught in our religious circles? How do we move through the grief and pain and perhaps the guilt and remorse as well? The beautiful irony of Lenny’s life is that even though he was the one who has caused our immediate grief, he is also the one who is showing us just how to move through it and beyond it back to a healed whole, back to Jesus’ Kingdom of God.
