Letters to the Editor: Idema fails to address complexity of suicide

Idema fails to address complexity of suicide

Henry Idema’s column "We need to stop investing in hate" covered some important topics, but I take issue with his conclusion that “if you try to manage your passions and your hatreds on your own, without the help of God and those you love and who love you, you may fall into despair and hopelessness. Sadly, that's where we are today: 48,000 Americans kill themselves each year."

Last year, my 24-year-old daughter was one of those who died by suicide. We miss her terribly and will always feel her absence. Her death was not because she did not believe in God or that she didn't have people she loved in her life to help her, and it was not because she could not manage her "passions and hatreds." It was because she was mentally ill and struggled with her illness for a decade, despite the support of her family and many mental health interventions.

The vast majority of people who die by suicide have struggled with mental illness, diagnosed or undiagnosed, prior to their death. Mental illness is a medical condition, and not the result of one's relationship with God or how the person feels about religion, race, politics or anything else. Trauma can certainly result from one’s life experiences related to religion, racism, violence and other factors.

Sometimes traumatic experiences can exacerbate or trigger one’s mental illness, though this is not always the case. Yes, despair is part of the equation for people who take their lives. But this despair is typical because the person cannot bear the pain and anguish of their mental illness any longer. Suicide is a complex issue and needs to be addressed in a manner that supports prevention and provides solace for those who have lost a loved one to suicide.

Marsha Manning

West Olive

Israel-Palestine more about land than religion

Henry Idema identifies several areas of human engagement that are apparently most responsible for intercommunal conflict. This includes religion which, he claims, is responsible for conflict because of competing truth claims.

On the surface, this appears to make sense. But only on the surface, as upon further examination most if not all conflicts that appear to be driven by religious fervor, are, in fact, initiated and driven by deeper tribalistic urges that use religion as a cover. The conflict in Israel/Palestine, for instance, has far more to do with competing claims to land than religion. The conflict in Northern Ireland was the same, as is the endemic conflict in Nigeria between Christian and Muslim tribal groups.

Muslims and Christians in many parts of the world live in relative harmony (as our family experienced during the 13 years we lived and worked in the Muslim-majority world) despite competing claims about salvation. In fact, the core teaching of each religion, when taken to heart, leads not to hatred, but to mutual respect and love.

Religion is not the culprit here. It’s merely the cover that is sometimes used to live out our darker urges. John Hubers

Holland

Transparency and accountability

When the Ottawa Impact members took over the majority of the Ottawa Board of Commissioners in January, they promised transparency and accountability. To date, they have delivered neither. They do not respond to emails, text messages or FOIAs in a timely manner and at ridiculous costs.

They hide behind each other directed by Mr. Moss. They have loaded the committees with their people and gotten rid of long-term committee members with experience. They have shown no accountability with excessive additional spending including the dismissal of Mr. Shay with one year’s salary and health insurance for a cost of a quarter million, an assistant for Mr. Gibbs who is unable to do his job, a communications department and director for an increase in expenses to control the message for the board and Gibbs, and expensive new attorneys among others.

If you add up these expenses, it is approaching an extra $1 million of taxpayer’s money. OUR MONEY. Then you have the golden parachute severance agreement for Gibbs that provides one year’s salary as well as health insurance for a year if he is dismissed. Since he does not live in Ottawa County, why should he care? Terrible financial accountability.

In addition, Gibbs, of “get out of my face” fame to a commissioner, is so very proud of his brown bag lunches at commission meetings while he cancels or postpones many of them, according to employees. He evades answering questions and/or blames others. That appears to be his mantra these days. Very frustrating for employees.

When I was fiscal services director at the county, I do not remember this happening. These meetings with prior Administrator Al Vandenberg were a high priority to him and if there were follow-ups to questions asked at brown bags, they were answered quickly. I know because I attended these meetings with him. This is not happening, according to employees. There were meetings with the cities and townships in Ottawa County on a regular basis as well. Are these occurring? Is Gibbs too busy controlling the message that he cannot do this?

When and where is the transparency and accountability coming to Ottawa County, especially from the Ottawa Impact people? More issues later.

Bob Spaman

Hudsonville

The irony of making Ottawa County 'great again'

I am a clinical psychologist, having completed a doctorate from Fuller Theological Seminary. I have lived in Holland since 1985, practiced psychology in West Michigan for 32 years, and been a member of an RCA church and non-denominational Bible church. My wife and I have volunteered our mental health services to missionaries through an interdenominational organization for the past decade.

Over the past four decades, Holland and its surrounding communities have grown increasingly diverse, racially, culturally and religiously. With no Dutch heritage, I appreciated the growing cultural diversity my children received in Holland public schools and later at Hope College. This diversity of experience has helped them to establish successful adult careers in education and in the military.

All of this is to say I am deeply disturbed, and repelled by what is occurring within the OCBC. The abolition of the DEI, the criticism of the Ottawa County Health Department presence at a recent Pride festival in Grand Haven, the censuring of Commissioner Bonnema whose opinions may differ from those of his party and of the Ottawa Impact group and reported attempts to limit and delay releasing information to the public — all reflect the characteristics of an authoritarian approach to decision-making, based in fear and maintained by shaming and blaming those who don’t agree or comply.

At my practice, I have had the privilege of counseling gay/lesbian/transgendered people, some still holding onto their faith, while others abandoning faith after years of being mistreated by the church. I have also been blessed by having friends who are gay. Remarks recently made by Commissioner Miedema as reported by The Sentinel on June 21 suggest the sort of catastrophizing, a worst-case-scenario-type of thinking, that often fuels fear and prejudicial action against the LGBTQ community. If she and others on the board could hear the stories I have heard, they may conclude as I have that those who have been traumatized and suffered the most are those who are part of the LGBTQ community living in a straight, non-accepting Christian world.

One of the cruelest ironies of Christian nationalism, which appear to underlie the motivations of the Ottawa Impact group, is that the more it battles to make Ottawa County “great again,” the more it fails to love all of God’s people through exclusionary tactics, cutting off subsidies to several nonprofit groups of marginalized people and posturing as morality police rather than as reconciling agents in an increasingly diverse place.

Peter Everts

Park Township

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Letters to the Editor: Idema fails to address complexity of suicide