Could isolation be the single most crushing circumstance for us to bear up to as we go through this world? The recent suicide of a young man whom my oldest son went to high school with began my reflection on this possibility. These are some factors which I see where I live that make me believe may be so.
I live in a small town in rural southern Arkansas which on the surface seems to be doing all right, if not a little shop worn and stagnant. We point to our two small colleges, our proximity to a Corp of Engineers lake and two nearby rivers, our timber industry, and our family values evidenced by the numerous Protestant churches in the area as evidence of this being so. It seems we are less willing to discuss our being located in an economically dying part of Arkansas meaning many of our young move away, or that our little community still has “west end” a polite term for our racially segregated black segment of town, or how our churches are also racially segregated and ideologically separated. We don't like to admit that in spite of all these churches we have a high teen pregnancy rate, an abundance of sexually transmitted diseases and a high divorce rate. We also overlook that while our affluent areas are prospering, our middle and low income areas are loosing ground. This dichotomy between our perceptions of the positive and glossing-over our challenges, seems to me to play a large role in creating our isolation from one another.
We are a typical southern community in that we teach our young to “protect the family name” even if that means covering up problems, sucking it up and going on with life without complaining or asking for help. Its also means to be polite, to not speak of troubles or differences of opinion in public and to just let these differences fester in our isolated bastions of like-mined people. When a town is lightly populated and in a rural area, those isolated bastions tend to stand out like trees on a prairie for those willing to look. I wonder if it is our young people doing the looking, and deciding they don’t like what they see and making a statement of their distaste by their behavior and choices. I wonder if they begin to perceive just how isolated we are from our values, our religion, how isolated we are from those who just happen to have different ideas on salvation or politics or whatever from us; and just how isolated we are from the dysfunction in our own families.
A lifetime ago it now seems my wife and I worked on a volunteer basis as the youth group leaders in a couple of towns where we once lived. At that time we attended the United Methodist Church, which provided some sound training and discussion about teenage issues. Suicide was especially emphasized since there was literally a rash of them just up the road in another small town, and sadly four people whom I grew up with have committed suicide over the years. so I know a bit about the topic. I also understand that one should not generalize about the reasons and specifics of one young man’s suicide. However, it seems to me that my hometown has had more suicides over the years than say, people becoming scientists; while I’m confident that still many more have gone on to become preachers. I’m not really sure what that means other than somehow in spite of all the churches and all the preaching, we manage to overlook these isolated and desperate individuals hurting enough to commit suicide, while not actually inspiring many to live here. It makes me wonder if we have a more deeply ingrained problem than we are willing to admit and maybe that it’s time to talk.
