Love and Suffering

“If we love God and love others in Him, we will be glad to let suffering destroy anything in us that God is pleased to let it destroy, because we know that all it destroys in unimportant.  We will prefer to let the accidental trash of life be consumed by suffering in order that His glory may come out clean in everything we do.”  Thomas Merton, No Man in an Island

We as a society do not like to suffer.  A billion dollar industry exists to medicate away our pain, sadness, worries, and discomforts.   We have complex coping skills to dull the pain of life.  We watch television, zone out with computer games, sleep too much, drink too much, stuff ourselves with comfort food – anything that will allow us a temporary escape from that which causes discomfort.   What do we lose by avoiding the path of suffering?  As Merton suggests in the above quote, suffering provides an opportunity to purify our intentions and longings.  In suffering we have the chance to reprioritize – to deep clean the closets of our lives and purge the waste.

I find myself ambivalent in regards to suffering.  There is a comfort in the darkness suffering brings.  In suffering, I can curl up with the accompanying sadness and live in an illusion that I am hiding and cannot be found.  My own darkness finds an affinity with suffering – a dark comfort.  I know this place.  I understand this place.  It is here I believe I am invisible – my shame, my embarrassment, my regrets, my failures tucked away in the crevices of my secret suffering.  In the pain of suffering I am keenly aware of my failings but I hold the illusion that this awareness brings a sense of control.  And with control, I determine who sees it.  It is in this sense, I am drawn to suffering.

And like most of us, I work hard to avoid suffering.  Staying busy, using coping techniques to silence the pings of pain and discomfort for I do not want to feel the hurt.  I do not want to experience the loneliness that my fears and avoidance of intimacy bring me.  I do not want to experience the stomach churning guilt that follows the bad choices I most recently made.  I do not want the burden of shame that comes from not doing what I know I am called to do.  I want to put my game face on, my “I am just fine” face and pretend I have it all together.

And then I read Merton.  I am challenged once again to look at the role of suffering.  Curling up with suffering and the choice to avoid it are both self-centered and self-serving.  Suffering is still about me – woe is me, for I have many troubles.  Or, look at me, I am strong, perfect, and have my life together (as I smile to cloak the large pile of crap behind me.)  Instead of the selfish I can try an entirely new paradigm, suffering as the opportunity to love more deeply, to love more purely. 

In grad school we had a term, AFGE – “Another F****** Growth Experience.”  Studying to be a therapist meant a lot of time in supervision groups that forced us to look at our own defense mechanisms and our own dark corners that hold the potential to hinder our ability to empathize and be a healing presence with another.  Every time something new was uncovered, it hurt.  But it also provided the opportunity to do something about it.  It was now in my awareness, and in this light I had the choice to continue the old pattern or find a new path of freedom.  Brought into the light, that which I had hidden away out of fear it would destroy me and everything in its path suddenly lost its power.

 

In suffering, we have that same opportunity.  If we so choose, we can allow it to expose the dark corners of our soul.  It can break the chains so that we can love more freely.  Hiding and covering my darkness takes a lot of energy – energy that could be spent on loving God and my neighbor.