Sunday Morning Suicide
By Hal Haralson
The sign over my door read "Director of Personnel and Public Relations." At age 27, this was my first job after ten years in the ministry.
My secretary buzzed me and indicated that Don Anderson was on the phone. Don Anderson was a long-time friend who was pastor of Manor Baptist Church in San Antonio.
"Hal, I`m going to be out of town on May 13 and I`d like you to preach for me."
"Don, I left the ministry about a year ago and had my ordination revoked. I don`t do that anymore."
"I`d still like to have you speak on Sunday morning. Why don`t you come on and do something."
I reluctantly agreed and began to regret it as soon as I got off the phone.
As the date approached, I was determined not to "preach." I had several sermons I could have preached standing on my head with no preparation involved, but I didn`t want to do that.
I really wasn`t sure what I was going to do until the service was turned over to me on Sunday morning.
I had felt more and more like it was time for me to open up and talk about my experience of leaving the ministry. That`s what I did.
I told the people in the congregation about the struggle that was involved in the decision to leave the ministry. My fear of what others would say. My fear that I would be considered a failure. The long years of preparation for this vocation wasted.
What would I do to make a living for my family? Judy had married me because she felt God calling her to be a minister`s wife. How would my decision affect her?
For two years, I had wrestled with these questions. I had told no one of my dilemma. The worst dilemma of all was "God`s call" to preach. I was sure, at age 16, that was my call. I had heard that there is something special about this call. College and seminary preparation had reinforced that feeling. Could God`s call change?
This struggle led to deep depression. The doctor told Judy, who was 6 months pregnant, to take our four-year old daughter and go home to Littlefield, Texas. She didn`t need to face Christmas with a depressed husband who lay in bed day after day.
December 16, 1963. Monday morning. No one in the house but me.
I turned on all the gas jets in the bedroom and went to bed. There was a fire and an explosion resulting in my commitment to the San Antonio State Hospital for three months. There were thirteen shock treatments.
The turning point after the State Hospital came when Ed Bush, an Episcopal priest who was a member of the prayer group Judy and I were in, came to my house one day and said, "Hal, I have two things to say to you. One, be of good cheer. Two, everything is going to be all right."
It was as if God said through Ed Bush, "I have been here all along."
The decision was made. God could not want this for me.
I left the hospital five days before Brad was born. I wrote the church at Loraine, Texas, where I had been ordained and asked them to revoke my ordination. They wrote back, "We don`t know
what to do, we`ve never done that."
My response, "You`re Baptist. Vote on it!"
Back to San Antonio and the search for a job. After two months of rejections, Bobby Myers, my friend at Trinity Baptist Church, told Lloyd Flood, the Director of Montgomery Wards
District Operation, about me.
I was employed.
As I spoke that day at Manor Baptist Church, I noticed a man on the third row to my right crying. He cried all the way through the service. He got up and left before I had an opportunity to speak to him.
That afternoon, the phone rang and the voice on the other end of the line identified himself as "the man who cried during the service this morning. I`ve got to talk to you."
We met at Earl Ables, a well-known restaurant in San Antonio, at 3:00 p.m.
Over coffee, Eric Wilson (not his real name) spilled out his story.
"I`ve been an ordained Baptist minister for 10 years. I have been overwhelmingly depressed for the last several months` and yesterday I went downtown and loosened a window on the 20th floor of a building, intending to commit suicide Sunday morning.
"I told my wife I was going to the grocery store and left. As I drove toward the downtown building, I saw a sign that said, "Manor Baptist Church." Something inside me said I should go to the worship service.
"I had no idea what I would hear. I had never seen this church before. My struggle over whether to leave the ministry had taken all the strength there was in me. Suicide seemed the only way out. I had been overwhelmed by guilt since I was a college student because of a one-time homosexual experience.
"No one knew but me, my partner, and God. I prayed and struggled but felt no forgiveness. There was no response from God saying, "I understand; I know your pain; I am with you.
"Then, this morning, as I listened to you, I was overwhelmed. It was as if God said to me, "I`ve been here all along."
Eric and I met again at other times. I saw him over the years at various meetings. He became a Chaplain and retired last year, 30 years after his planned Sunday morning suicide.
I was beginning to see that by sharing our experiences of life, our pain, our fears, and our victories, we voice God`s message to others. Painful and traumatic experiences that are our "valley of the shadow of death" become our gift to those who have been prepared in God`s providence, to listen. This becomes our ministry.
Through sharing our experience of pain, God can say to someone, "I`ve been here all along."
