Out of harm’s way

When I first became connected to Facebook, one of my younger Facebook friends had, as her Facebook picture, a sign which read: “I hurt myself, so that you can’t”. I do not know whether she was physically harming herself or not, but it seemed to be a defence against perceived hostility from others. A well-known recent case in Britain concerns a young girl called Molly Russell, who became depressed, and then immersed herself in self-harming and suicide chatrooms, and then sadly took her own life at the age of fourteen. These chat rooms have been allowed to flourish as places where people can encourage one another to do harm to themselves. Molly’s death was certainly not the first caused (or even partly caused) by these groups, but significantly, her father is now campaigning for the social media platforms to do more to remove these negative groups.

Why should people want to cut themselves and cause themselves physical pain? I never heard of this practice when I was young, but the idea seems to have spread from somewhere, and is now unfortunately commonplace. At this time, when many young people often do not seem to see a purpose in life, they sometimes seem lost, and unsure of their place in the world.

Bahá’ís understand that the body is the dwelling-place of the soul, and as such, it must be looked after. While the soul is connected to the material world, it needs the physical body as its means of learning. It is the soul which is our true essence, and it is the soul which should be growing towards perfection, towards what we call God. In the Bahá’í understanding, life does have a purpose. It is not just a meaningless maze of random fortune and misfortune. Our purpose on this earth is to make ourselves ready for the next world, which we can barely begin to imagine. Bahá’u’lláh explained that “the world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother.” Much of what we need to learn involves attributes or virtues, such as kindness, tolerance, love for others, honesty, trustworthiness and so on. These all involve looking outwards, which makes us far happier than retreating into ourselves, which often leads to a downward spiral. We each need to recognise our own worth as a person, and have a love for ourselves, as we are, whilst still realising that we need to make progress. Bahá’u’lláh said that one of the first things is “that man should know his own self and recognise that which leadeth unto loftiness or lowliness, glory or abasement.”

People often feel vulnerable when they are growing up. They need a strong sense of self-worth, of purpose, of the difference they can make to the world. (We have recently had the example of the climate campaigner, Greta Thunberg, to show us what a fifteen year old can achieve!) Bahá’ís realised this need quite some time ago. Back in 2000 the world body of the Bahá’í Faith drew this to the attention of the Bahá’ís worldwide: “Among the young ones in the community are those known as junior youth, who fall between the ages of, say, 12 and 15. They represent a special group with special needs as they are somewhat in between childhood and youth when many changes are occurring within them. Creative attention must be devoted to involving them in programmes of activity…” Therefore Bahá’í communities offer junior youth groups for those aged from about 11 to 15, specifically designed to provide a space where they can discuss the issues they are grappling with, discover their identity and develop a sense of service to the community around them.

If someone has a strong sense of their own value as a person, they won’t be brought down by negative comments or bullying. They may well realise that the people making negative comments may simply be jealous, indeed they may be struggling with their own self-image and identity. We all need to realise why we are here, to take the opportunities which life gives us, move forward with confidence in our future and become the best we can possibly be. Then we will be out of harm’s way.