Thoughts about Suicide

Like One Set Loose Among the Dead*

I just hope you're not so sad,

You're gonna go down suicide.

from Tear Stained Letter

by Richard Thompson

Berryman

Cowper

John Berryman experienced four broken homes. When Berryman was a boy, his father, John Allyn Smith, an unemployed banker, who, though still living with the family was going through a divorce with his wife, "very early in the morning, rose with his gun and went outdoors by my window and did what was needed" - killed himself. A devoted altar boy, Berryman lost his faith: "my father's suicide when I was twelve blew out my most bright candle faith." Berryman's mother married another John whose last name was Berryman from whom John Berryman received his last name. That marriage eventually ended in divorce. John Berryman, the poet, was married three times and twice divorced.

Berryman was an intellectual, scholar, academic, and Pulitzer Prize winning poet. He also was idiosyncratic, a depressive, an alcoholic hospitalized numerous times, an adulterer, a difficult person. In 1970 he experienced a religious re-conversion: "I fell back in love with you, Father," and described himself as "Under new management, Your Majesty: Thine." But he continued to struggle with both depression and alcohol abuse. On the morning of January 7, 1972, he jumped to his death in the Mississippi River from a bridge in Minneapolis.

Well, you may be thinking, this is simple: John Berryman was obviously never a true Christian. It is not surprising, then, that he died as his father before him died. 

But let me tell you about another man.

He was also a great poet, a friend of John Newton, an evangelical Christian who led his brother to a profession of evangelical faith when his brother was dying. Though his poetry ranged widely, many of this poet's poems were religious in nature, and quite a few of those are still sung where Christians still sing hymns. He wrote, "There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains...The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day, and there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away." His name was William Cowper. 

Bet let me tell you some other things about him your minister or "worship leader" probably has not told you. Cowper was also was a depressive, spent time in an insane asylum, and attempted suicide four times. He knew what it was like to go to church and get nothing out of it: "Thy saints are comforted I know and love thy house of pray'r; I therefore go where others go, but find no comfort there." Though he continued to hold an evangelical faith and believed others were saved, he became convinced that he was "damned beneath Judas." After a dream that confirmed to him his reprobate condition in 1793, Cowper never attended church or said a prayer (we know about). Though John Newton did not doubt Cowper's salvation, he died in 1800 convinced hell was his destiny. Cowper's story is not the stuff of evangelical experimental testimony.

Now, let me tell you about another person. The title of this Blog post, Thoughts about Suicide, is a double entendre. I have thoughts about suicide I want to share, but I also have thoughts about suicide - or suicidal thoughts as they are called. 

Twice my suicidal thinking has resulted in hospitalization. Once 8 years ago and most recently 5 weeks ago. I have wrestled with whether to write this, and even as I write, am wrestling with whether to publish it. My suicidal thoughts involve not just me but my family. Should my wife and sons and their families who, of course, know about these things, have to deal with their friends and extended families knowing this about me?

Then hardly anyone beyond the immediate family knows this about me. Over the years people have said some nice things about my ministry, not just my preaching and teaching, but even my personal concern for them and pastoral care of them. Will this disillusion and disappoint them? Possibly - probably? Will I lose friends because of this? I could. God forbid that any should question the faith I have preached because of it. I also have friends and relatives who do not hold the historic Christian faith, some having never believed it, some having left it. Again, God forbid that my confession should confirm them in disbelief. Also, I have been living in a new area for less than a year, and people among whom I live know nothing of this. What effect will that have on relationships if new friends and acquaintances read this? I may spend the rest of my life here. Would I be happier if they do not know?

But here is the truth. I have been a depressive most of my life. I remember being depressed and doubting my relationship with God as a child. Why? I don't know. Childhood experiences? Maybe. Biology? Perhaps. Spiritual issues? No doubt. I have recently been told by a professional who deals with medications that my depression seems little helped by medications, though with her recommendation I continue to take some. Certainly my depression has been caused by and accompanied by sins that often are concomitant with depression. Even as I write this, I wonder about my motives and if this is simply an exercise in ego. 

Why then write? For these reasons, I think:

1. Though I have deliberately barely touched on the connections between depression and sin and deliberately focused only on thoughts about suicide  so that this is not a tell-all confessional, I think there is some value in being honest about, rather than hiding the reality of, one's experience. That is, is it best to be who you are or to be someone else?

2. I hope that this may help some Christians, who have experienced or may yet have experiences when "darkness is my only friend" (Psalm 88:18), know that they are not alone. That feeling that you are "the only one" or "the only one whose case is so bad as yours" is torture. 

What does it feel like to be so depressed you have suicidal thoughts? Well, it feels like, "I can't go on like this," or, "I don't think I can/don't want to go on like this." If the person is really serious, he/she will probably have some kind of plan. One of the thoughts that might (but not necessarily) restrain someone who believes the Bible is, "Hell is worse, and that could be my destiny, and it is forever." 

Then there is the temptation to projected self-pity - to think of oneself as dead, and feeling like Ralphie in Christmas Story who got pleasure from imagining  himself as a blind adult and his family both feeling extremely sorry for him and engaging in self-recriminations because they helped cause his condition. 

There is also another thought - that some problems would be solved and others' lives would be better off if you were not around. 

Then just about all sinful and negative feelings are present or close to hand: isolation, anger, abandonment, resentment, self-pity, and always despair and hopelessness. Moreover, if others are around, the things you say and do may make it difficult for them to help or even to want to.

If that is your experience, your experience will have its unique aspects, but it is not unique to you. I do not have solutions to offer, but sometimes it helps - a little - to know that others understand almost exactly what you feel, because what you probably think is that no one understands.

And, if you receive mercy from God and others in your circumstances, resolve to be a person who shows mercy to others in the future. It is so easy for us to be like the servant who, forgiven the debt of a fortune, grabbed a fellow servant by the throat because he owed him a small debt.

3. I want to say some things to those who may have to put up with people who have suicidal thoughts. You need to know that, much as you might want to help, sometimes neither you nor any other human can. If you've been there, you will not feel it strange that I say also that it is hard not to feel angry with despairing people. And you may well doubt whether the person is serious who tells you he/she does not want to live. You want to say, "Get over yourself," or, "It's late and time for the pity party to be over," or, "There are people who have died who would have loved to live, and look at you." There may be well-meaning Christians who will want to quote Bible verses, offer an extended prayer**, or recommend a book or CD. Others, even professionals, may say what the person needs is some really tough love that allows him/her to be miserable - "to sit with" what has brought him/her to this place.  

The most important thing you can do is to be there. And that may be the one thing the person who needs you may not allow. In addition you may find that you do not want to be around the person in such a condition. Try to remember that the person has given up on him/herself. Your being there says, "But I haven't." The person feels abandoned. Your presence says, "But you're not. I'm here." The person feels, "I can't go on." Your being there may communicate, "Let's do it together."

There are no simple, easy, or guaranteed to work answers. Do what you can. When you have, put it in God's hands. And always remember, if the worst happens, it's not your fault. There are things you can't stop from happening. The person "who goes down suicide" makes a choice. To him/her it may seem the only choice; nevertheless, it is his/her choice.

4. I want someone to tell the medical establishment that it needs to think about the way it responds to people with suicidal thoughts. I may be wrong, but here is what I think: If a person goes to or is taken to a hospital, the hospital will have two priorities: a. Prevent the person from harming him/herself or anyone else. b. Keep the hospital or health professional from getting sued. There will be little concern about what the person is feeling, or why, or how to help. In fact, the patient's needs are at best secondary to the needs of the medical industry. 

In Mississippi there is a 72 hour "hold" put on suicidal patients. That means you will be held against your will for 72 hours. Let me tell you from my most recent experience some things a patient may experience: No legal rights. You can fight the "hold,"  but you will lose, and the judge may commit you to the state hospital. So it's better to go ahead and go to "X Facility." There you may experience an environment that reminds you of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. You may be subjected to such things as: deeply humiliating "procedures," playing a game of hitting balloons with rubber sticks, sitting around a table where you are the healthiest, most sentient, and sanest person. Spending your nights with a baby sitter. Being denied books in your room (I was able to persuade them to let me keep my Prayer Book.). When I finally met the psychiatrist, it was when the "team" met to decide what to do with me. His personality made a dish towel just used to dry the supper dishes seem both interesting and empathetic. When he asked about health conditions, he told me that it is not possible to have together two health conditions that I do have. About the only thing he said was that they would like me to stay a few more days. I declined. 

If you say, "Well, it's your own fault; you didn't have to go through any of that," I agree. Still my conclusion for myself (I do not recommend it to others) was: "If you are having suicidal thoughts, do not go to a hospital or tell a medical professional. If you weren't really suicidal before, you may become so by the 'treatment' you receive." I don't know what can be done, but something needs to be done about the way hospitals and medical professionals deal with people who have "suicidal ideation." 

5. Churches and denominations of churches need to realize that attendees, members, and ministers may be, to quote James Taylor, "moving in silent desperation." Some are living in the shadows because they cannot risk transparency. Their experience does not match the Christian experience they hear about in sermons and testimonies, the experience they themselves think they should be having, or the experience it seems everyone else is having. Yes, there are people who go to churches who are chronic whiners, people whose greatest joy is to complain, people who want to talk constantly about their favorite subject - themselves. Even those folks need the ministry of the church, because the church includes all sorts of folks. 

But somehow the church needs to communicate to real sufferers that it's OK to be honest about who you are - your struggles, your sins, your despairing moments - and that the church will not promise to pray for you, then forget you, look down on you, hope you'll find another church. In other words, the church needs to be the church - a fellowship of fellow pilgrims and strugglers. The church should be the first place the despairing person can turn and know he/she will be accepted, even held onto tightly. That person needs the Communion of the Lord and the communion of the saints.

I have a special word about ministers, and that is to say how thankful I am to be in the Reformed Episcopal Church. I have concerns about the theological/liturgical direction of my church, but I have found that my church is pastoral toward pastors. My Bishop and the minister from whom I receive spiritual counsel, know not only about my depression and experiences of suicidal thoughts but also about my sins. Yet I am still a minister of Word and Sacrament and am still welcome at the Lord's Table. My pastoral counselor asked me to watch a YouTube video. It was about an hour and a half long, so I watched in two parts. When we met, he asked me what I thought he wanted me to get out of the video. I said, "When I watched the first half, I thought you wanted me to conclude that I am no Christian at all." He responded, "That never crossed my mind." That is one of the most encouraging things anyone has ever said to me. My Bishop has held me accountable, including giving admonishment and warning, but he has been kind, patient, and supportive throughout. My experience of my church has been that it looks on people as did Jesus,"who had compassion on them" (Matthew 9:36).

I think there is also a place for what today is called "talk therapy." The practice of psychoanalysis is no more (save for a few places), thank God. The emphasis today is, "Where are we now? Where do we go from here? How do we get there?" I think there is value in talking with someone in an unguarded, even earthy, fashion whose goal is to understand and help you practically.

Lately I have got help from a book some of my Reformed friends may disapprove, Night Driving: Thoughts of a Prodigal Soul. My story here is somewhat like the title of that book.  I am better now, else I could not write this. But this is not a "victory in Jesus" story. It is a story of someone God has apparently chosen to hold onto despite himself. Its testimony is only, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."  It is a story in progress not a story with all the loose ends brought together in a satisfying conclusion. In that sense it is like Psalm 88, a Psalm that leaves us uneasy because at the end the Psalmist has it no more together than he did at the beginning. The one hopeful note in the Psalm is...


    But I, O Lord, cry to you;
        in the morning my prayer comes before you.

                                                                   Psalm 88:13

                                 

*Psalm 88:5

** I like this prayer for "Those in Mental Darkness" from The Book of Common Prayer: "O Heavenly Father, we beseech thee to have mercy upon all thy children who are living in mental darkness. Restore them to strength of mind and cheerfulness of spirit, and give them health and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

Celebrating the 70th Birthday of Israel

On the 14th of May Israel will celebrate the 70th Anniversary of its modern creation in 1948. I thought posting something from my old Blog The Christian Curmudgeon would be appropriate. 

Israel Is Not Israel

Modern National Israel 

Is Not Old Testament Israel

The older I get the more I know, to use Donald Rumsfield's phraseology, that there are "known unknowns" and there are "unknown unknowns." There are things we do not know, and we know that we don't.  We know we do not know the date of the Second Coming of Christ. We know enough to know we don't know that. 

But there are things we do not know of which we have no awareness at all. With regard to the past, we can give examples of what were "unknown unknowns." Until the new physics came along we did not know that there are particles that behave chaotically - that is non-predictably. But with regard to the future, we cannot give examples simply because we do not know enough to know we don't know. 

One of my known unknowns is what God is going to do with ethnic Israel. Even to try to define "ethnic Israel" is an exercise in frustration. What does "all Israel will be saved" mean? Does Paul teach us that all elect ethnic Jews will be saved or does he teach us that there is yet to be a mass turning of ethnic Jews to Christ? I take a "wait and see" approach to this issue.

But one of my "known knowns" is that, if there is to be a mass turning of the Jews to Christ, it does not require a national homeland for ethnic Jews in the approximate location of ancient Old Testament Israel. Jews can turn to Christ as well in the United States, or Egypt for that matter, as in the modern state of Israel.

The modern state of Israel is geographically strange. It encompasses only part of the territory promised to God's people in the Old Testament. Specifically, while Israel has settled Israelis in the west bank area, Israel does not encompass "Judea" and "Samaria" to say nothing of any east bank territory one may believe that God meant to give the Israelites.

Here is one proposed map of Israel according to the allotments to the tribes:

Allotments to Tribes

Here is a map of the approximate borders of Israel in the time of Solomon, the apex of ethnic/national Israel's territorial control.

Israel in Solomon's Time

But what about the modern state of Israel?

Last summer the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America divested itself of stock in three companies that sell to Israel materials that have military uses. Many evangelicals tried to prevent this action and decried it after it was taken.

Lately with regard to the conflict in Gaza much support for Israel has been expressed. Panelists on Fox's Special Report, especially Charles Krauthammer, strongly support Israel's action. Rush Limbaugh supports of Israel, saying that the Palestinian groups must be defeated and subdued before there can be peace in the area. Israel must impose peace on its defeated foes. I have also seen a number of posts by Christian friends supporting the Israeli incursion. For the purposes of this Blog let me grant that the Israeli action is politically, militarily, and morally necessary. That granted for now, I want to question reasons for the support of Israeli actions. 

It seems to me that some Christians' support of just about anything Israel does assumes that Jewish people have continuously dwelt in and occupied territory in the geographic area that came to be known as Palestine or, if you prefer, Canaan from the days of Joshua or post-Exilic days (take your pick) forward. But that is not the case. Here is a map showing Jewish settlement from 1881 to 1914.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 vaguely committed the British government to the establishment of a Jewish "homeland" in Palestine. However, a geographical grant of territory to Jews did not come about until 1947 when the United Nations partitioned Palestine between the Israelis and the Arabs (or Palestinians). The Jewish state of modern Israel declared its existence in 1948. The Arabs did not like partition or the existence of the state of Israel, so a war ensued.

Here are maps of the U.N. Partition and of the 1948 war:

There is a good chance there would have been no Israeli state, at least not for quite awhile, had it not been for virulent anti-Semitism in Europe and particularly had the Holocaust not occurred. This ratcheted up demands for a "safe homeland" for Jews (how is that working out?). After World War II, when Britain still governed Palestine, the British gave up efforts to control it, partly because of Jewish terrorism against the British (carried out by men such as Menachem Begin, later Prime Minister). At the same time there was growing Jewish pressure in the United States which led to President Trueman's supporting (at least in part because of electoral considerations) the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. From that time forward there has been almost continuous conflict (including 3 wars) about the land between the Jews and the Palestinians. Still the modern state of Israel does not occupy the territory claimed by Old Testament Israel. 

Here is a map of Israeli territory before the 1967 War and today.

Israel 1967 and Today

A question we must ask is:

Does the Israeli state have a right to the territory allotted to the tribes of Israel by Joshua? If you are a dispensationalist, you do think that, because you believe that the Jews are God's people, that there is a future for Israel distinct from the church, and that the Old Testament land belongs to Israel by divine right. You believe that the human race is divided both as believers and unbelievers and as Jews and Gentiles.  We live in a parenthesis (the Church Age) which will be followed by God's implementation of his original plan for Israel and the fulfillment of his ancient promises to Israel. 

My question to those who are not dispensationalists is, Why do you respond to the actions of the Israelis on dispensationalist assumptions? That is, Why do you respond to the conflicts in Palestine as though you believe a geographical land belongs to ethnic Jews and the modern Jewish state? Or, Why do you instinctively support what the Israeli state does as though it has a special status that trumps every other consideration?

In other words, it seems to me that the right way to view the national claims and geographical aspirations of ethnic Jews is to view them the same as we would any other group of people in the world. It is to view these claims and aspirations as we would if (as is the case) ethnic Jews do not have a Biblical claim to land in the Middle East. The modern state of Israel is no different from any other nation as to its rights and obligations. 

The state of Israel does exist. We may question whether it was wise to establish a state for ethnic Jews in Palestine. But we may not question the fact of its existence. As a state it has no less but also no more rights than any other state. We have no reason to condemn Israel's actions when they fall within the rights we recognize for ourselves or any other nation. But we also have no reason to support Israel as though it were a special case.

I find the situation with Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jews, and Palestinians politically, militarily, and morally vexing. I have trouble sorting out the right and the wrong, the wise and the foolish, the workable and the unworkable. I do not know what a just, wise, and workable solution looks like. What I do know is that there no Biblical reason to look at these questions as though the modern state of Israel is a special case.

Modern Israel is just another country that is in the world and whose existence is recognized by the United Nations. No less. No more.

When Abraham walked the land of Palestine and God told him that every place his foot fell would belong to his descendants, God was giving Abraham and his descendants a sign of and down payment on the much bigger promise to give him the whole world (Romans 4:13). And who are Abraham's descendants who have inherited this promise? He is "the father of all who believe without being circumcised... and...the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised" (Romans 4: 11,12). The promise of the world will be gained, not by armies, rifles, artillery shells, and missiles, but now by the gospel and in the end by coming again of the Lord.  

Laws, Politics, and Sausages

Purity, Absolutism, and Politics

And so it begins...

In 1869 the Daily Cleveland Herald quoted lawyer John Godfrey Saxe as saying, "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made." (A variation of this quotation is often attributed to the Iron Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck, but the first attribution to him did not occur the 1930s.)

I like sausages. I like hot dogs, especially Bratwurst.

Hot dogs in process

In Pittsburgh we got introduced to Polish Kielbasa, and love it. We don't eat a whole lot of sausages, but we don't listen to the scoldings of the health monitors whose general rule is, "If you like it, don't eat it." Sausages and bacon are two of the comforting mercies in this life.

But it is true that the less you know or the less you

The real thing in Wiesbaden

think about how sausages are made, the more likely you are to enjoy them. Sausages are made of meat "parts" - all sorts of animal parts, which can be from pigs, cows, and turkeys - plus flavoring spices and fillers such as bread crumbs. Though there are artificial encasements now, traditional sausages are encased in pig intestines. The hot dog form of sausage got its name from its association with dogs. Some say it is because German immigrants brought both the sausage meat product and the "sausage (or wiener looking) dog" (the daschund). Others suggest it was because of the not unfounded suspicion that some hot dogs included dog meat. 

In any case, while it might be different for farmers and workers at meat processing plants, for most of us the less we know about the making of sausages the more likely we are to enjoy them. Just eat them; don't think about them. 

Mr. Saxe was making the same point about the making of laws - or, the legislative process - in 1869. What is true of the legislative process by which laws are produced is true of the political process in general. The more we know about these processes the less likely we are to feel positive about the outcome. The recent Omnibus spending bill adopted by Congress and signed by the President is an example of the problem we have respecting the product when we know about the process.

What is true about the making of laws is at least as true about the practice of politics. The trouble many of us have about politics is that we tend to be romantics, idealists, purists, and absolutists. 

When it comes to love, men in general are more likely to be scoundrels than women but are nevertheless the more inclined to be romantics about love, courtship, and marriage. Men want the love affair of the ages; women want someone who will come home after work, provide the money to feed the babies, and take out the garbage. Women are less devastated and more quick to recover from a "love affair gone bad," while men are more likely to become depressed, listen to country music, and take longer to get back on their feet.

All of us, however, want to be romantics about things such as the founding of our country. We speak of the Founders as though they were the perfect patriots who were committed to freedom above all else and who worked in harmony to produce a nearly perfect Constitutional union. The reality is something less. The Constitution is the product of political conflict and compromise. 

Christians are often idealists. They think of the "New Testament Church" as the time when Christianity was nearly perfect. They tend not to take into account,  the almost lost gospel of the Galatian church, or the sin and chaos of Corinthian church, or even the realities of a relatively healthy churches such as Philippi or Thessalonica. They express the longing to  get back to the New Testament church life. (Note: the Reformers also wanted to get back to the church of New Testament age but were realists. They wanted to reform the church's worship, doctrine, government and life according to the teaching of the Apostles preserved in the Apostolic writings, not return to the flawed church life of New Testament church). Idealism is followed by disillusionment for church leaders who go to conventions, assemblies, or other church gatherings, however named, expecting to experience and observe, the never-existent New Testament churches of their idealist conception. The truth is the church is and always has been more or less a mess. 

As with the church, so with the country. Many want to think that there is a basic unity of American citizenship - what the American people "really want." If we could just get to what almost all Americans want and believe, unfiltered by the media, uncorrupted by the Washington "swamp," unhindered by the corrupt "establishment," all would be well. The reality is different. 

We are a country of people with different ideals. For instance, some Americans believe in a version of  "American dream" that means all of us can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and achieve success; others believe only the help of the government can level the playing field and give us all a chance to participate in the "American dream." Some think Social Security and Medicare are great blessings, offering older Americans a modicum of financial security to help them at least to "get by" in their, not golden, but rusting years. Some think that Medicaid provides a "health care safety net" for the poor and their children, while others think Medicaid produces a class of people who will never be motivated to care for themselves and will always be dependent on government (i.e. taxpayers) to stay alive. There is always a tension between the ideas and ideals of Americans. We have to talk, sometimes to fight, and always to live with the less than perfect when ideals are different.

Then, especially in politics, some are purists and absolutists. Not too long ago, I said of a Mississippi candidate for the United States Senate, Chris McDaniel, that he is a purist and absolutist in politics. He flattered me in two ways: 1) He took my description as accurate, a description he wore as a badge of honor. I was a nobody whose description of  prominent Mississippi politician was taken seriously by him. 2) He responded to me as a representative of the Mississippi Republican "establishment." (Here is the extent of my MS establishment credentials: I once heard Tate Reeves, when he was MS State treasurer, speak on the matter of "advance paid tuition" for college and introduced myself to him afterward. I once heard then Governor Haley Barbour speak at a Lincoln Day Dinner in Winston Country, met him, and with all others in attendance received from him the pin of the MS National Guard. I once saw him at Christmastime coming down from the balcony at First Presbyterian in Jackson. I once had some dealings of a personal, not political, nature with his chief of staff.  I once gave the invocation at a Winston County gathering at which Roger Wicker and Greg Harper were introduced. Do any of these people today know who I am? Of course not. Do I have any influence in the Mississippi Republican Party? Not one bit. I have challenged "the McDaniel people" to ask of anyone they know whom they consider to be an  establishment member: "Who is Bill Smith?" They will receive a blank look as though the person were suffering from memory robbing dementia.

The kind of "establishment Republican" I am is the the kind who does not believe that Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell are the embodiments of Republican establishment evil. I rather believe they are the kind of "sausage making Republican grown up establishment politicians" who make it possible for legislation such as the "Trump tax cuts" to be enacted. In other words, in my view men such as these are "Reagan Republicans" - the kind of Congressional Republicans with whom Reagan not only could have but would have been happy to work.

What does a Republican purist-absolutist Republican believe? One example is he is a "Second-Amendment purist and absolutist." What does that mean? Does he believes in the right of the ordinary American citizen to own any kind of firearm whatsoever? Since 1934 the government has regulated and controlled firearms, in particular what we call "machine guns." Should machine guns be legal for personal possession? What about combat jets or personal missile systems? What about nuclear arms? It is impossible to be a Second Amendment purist-absolutist.

The real issue having to do with the Second Amendment is not with whether individual citizens shall have the authority to own, possess, and use, firearms (of whatever sort) but with whether their possession and use is for the purposes of recreation, hobby, hunting, and, if necessary, self-defense. Or, are guns necessary for possible resistance to the government? Do you own the gun to stop the intruder into your home or to stop what you see as  government intrusion into your life? 

If it is the latter, then we have a problem. I am a southerner. While I think slavery as practiced in the south was evil and believe the south should have found way to "phase it out" (that is, I would not have been a typical abolitionist), I would have favored the resistance of the south against the imposition of the will of the north in the 1860s which forced states that voluntarily entered the Union to remain against their wills. There was a war, and what should have been settled by political process was settled by military conquest. 

But, we have tried resistance to government by force of arms, and it did not work. Superior resources of population, materiel, and money made it clear that not even eleven confederated states can successfully resist the imposition the will of the majority. However many or what kinds of guns you and your neighbors own, you cannot succeed in resisting the force of the government. 

Or, take absolutism. "I am an absolutist when it comes to the budget of the U.S. It must be balanced, and expenditures must be slashed." OK, are you still an absolutist when a Camille or Katrina devastates your state? Are you an absolutist about the needs of the military? Would you deprive the military of the resources it requires when this country or its vital interests are threatened by foreign powers, whether a government or terrorist organization? If you think Social Security is unconstitutional would you abolish it or would you, as did Ronald Reagan, commit to its preservation?

But let's take another form or purism and absolutism. Chris McDaniel has recently attacked his Republican opponent Cindy Hyde-Smith: "he accused Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith of being 'a life-long Democrat' and accused the lifetime National Rifle Association member with an A rating of having pushed for gun control." By purist and absolutist standards, is any of that true? No. Cindy Hyde-Smith was a Democrat, as were many Republicans in MS till 2010. At that point she changed parties and was elected statewide as the state's Commissioner of Agriculture for two consecutive terms as a Republican. Is Ms. Smith-Hyde in favor of gun control? Only if favoring gun control means checking into if there were any ways she as Commissioner of Agriculture could prevent the carrying of handguns at the MS State Fair. Does anyone really want to attend the Fair, children or grandchildren in tow, knowing there are teenage gang members who are carrying handguns in their waistbands which a teenager might use if provoked to anger or if he wanted to rob you? What about if a "shooting war" broke out among rival gangs? 

Justice Antonin Scalia is universally recognized as a conservative judge, an originalist in philosophy. He wrote the majority opinion that overturned the District of Columbia's ban on the possession of handguns. But he also wrote that the right to possession of firearms guaranteed by the Second Amendment is not absolute:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment , nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

I am not recommending cynicism, skepticism, or indifferentism. There is nothing wrong with a certain "romantic patriotism." I have experienced it many times, especially when I participated in the Desert Storm victory celebration in our nation's capital. It is good to have ideals in which we believe. It is healthy to want Constitutional purity by the three branches of government, especially the courts, if by that you mean honest interpretation of the Constitution that takes into account over 200 years of interpretation and practice. It is a good thing to be a Barry Goldwater absolutist - who desperately wanted to vote for the 1964 Civil Rights law, but could not get past his conscience that it was unconstitutional, and who, once the law was passed and upheld by the courts, accepted it and believed it ought to be obeyed. 

Politics becomes impossible when we fail accept the reality that its practice is like making sausages.

Please give me a not dog - with mustard, onions, and pickle relish - but don't ruin my enjoyment by reminding me how the dog was made.