When I was young, I wanted to suffer for God. I pictured myself being the great and glorious martyr. There's something so romantic about laying down your life. I guess every young person might see themselves that way. But there is nothing glorious about the moment of suffering when you're in the middle of it. You swear it's meaningless. You swear it has nothing to do with goodness or holiness.
The very essence of the desert experience is that you want to get out. A lack of purpose, of meaning - that's what causes us to suffer. When you find a pattern in your suffering, a direction, you can accept it and go with it. The great suffering, the suffering of Jesus, is when that pattern is not given.
Richard Rohr, from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 86
This is so much my own experience it literally took my breath away when I read it. At the various moments of transforming suffering I have lived through, there has always been the sense, "Oh, if only there were some sense in this! If only I were suffering for God, standing nobly in the face of persecution, I could bear it. But this! This degrading, pointless misery... doesn't mean anything, isn't useful for anything - it's just wasted pain, messy, grinding, shameful. Oh, God, why?"
And yet, "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8.28)
All things. Even the shameful, squirming, self-pitying pointless empty pain.
The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.The LORD is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made...The LORD upholds all those who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down...The LORD is righteous in all his ways
and loving toward all he has made.The LORD is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.(Psalm 145:8,9,14,17,18)
I don't know about you, but I really can't think of a time when I've called on the Lord in so much truth as in those times. Or any times when his answer has been so clear.
"It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees." (Psalm 119:71)
It really is true, isn't it?
16 comments:
I have a friend who at first disagreed with the idea that suffering can be used by Grace to refine us. She is not a Christian and found the idea repugnent. As we talked about it, one thought came out of it. That our joys, however remarkable they are while beautiful tend to do less to deepen us towards God and our neighbor. Suffering however awakens some sense of helplessness and our own realization that we do not control everything. This helpless humility found in facing suffering does tons in our relationship to God and our neighbor. Great post!
I don't know. Seven months ago I might have agreed with this. Maybe. But there is some suffering so deep that it seems to incinerate any possibility of growth.
Yes, suffering can hone compassion, resiliency, maybe even faith.
But I can easily look around me and see people in whom suffering has produced brittleness, obliviousness, self-centeredness; some whom it has completely destroyed.
These days I tend to wonder whether an experience of deep and abiding joy may produce more in the way of wisdom and hope and compassion, and whether the insistence on suffering as the path of grace is an attempt on our part to make some existential sense of out things that possess no intrinsic meaning at all.
I have to confess, Gannet Girl, that when I hit the 'Publish' button I imagined you leaving just such a comment!
In one sense, there's nothing I can say. I have never lost a child after the normal process of birth and childhood. I can only imagine, perhaps by extrapolating from three children of my own who died before they came to full term, how it must be.
But I do think that when you speak of those in whom suffering has produced anything but growth, you are saying more about the sufferers than the suffering. Certainly all of the - admittedly limited - suffering I have experienced has led in the end of good, if only to the softening of my heart towards the suffering of the rest of creation!
I don't think for a minute, incidentally, that suffering is essential for growth, or that it is the only usable stimulus. You're quite right in what you say about joy - although in his own comment, Jay makes a valid point about joys. He also has a good post, based on Deuteronomy 8, on his own blog about how we can try and appropriate the credit for joys - and by extension any growth they may cause, I guess - in a way we can't with suffering.
I don't know. All I can say is that as far as I know I have never tried to use my faith to explain inexplicable suffering (my own or anyone else's) to myself, but only to explain why, despite all appearances to the contrary, my own sufferings have in the end turned out to be the soil in which God has grown things for which I am now profoundly grateful.
Do you know Terry Waite's Taken on Trust? A good and honest book, I thought, and one that has quite a lot to say that's relevant to this conversation...
I should've known you'd recognize that I would show up on this one...
I read Jay's post (and marked his blog, which looks great) and I agree with his point, which is why I used the adjectives "deep and abiding." I think that any experience of great depth of joy incorporates as a necessary element the recognition that it comes from the grace of God -- that's simply how I would define it -- meaning that what we count as joy seldom is, at least not to the extent that it could be, since as Jay indicates, we limit it by crediting it to ourselves.
On the subject of suffering producing more damage than growth, I don't think I am talking about myself, at least not long term. Maybe for the interim; hard to assess oneself. But my observations are that it can hardly be counted upon to produce any particular type of result. I think that we tend to suffer with as much generosity or resistance, as much perception or idiocy, as we do anything else. We seem to stay in character. That said, you may be on to something when you say it's more about the sufferers than the suffering.
I am very, very sorry about your own shattering losses.
A wonderful post and very, very thoughtful commentary from all.
I have only one (small) thought to add. Joy is uplifting only as much as we are lifted up out of an ordinary that is laced with suffering. It is joy because we see, despite the suffering, that there is glory all around us. Suffering makes joy possible, in a way.
Barbara, I wonder if you're right? In the end, we are told, God will wipe away every tear, and there will be and end to suffering. Yet maybe here, joy unalloyed with suffering isn't possible, or even appropriate. How could I live in untroubled joy, when so many suffer elsewhere?
Gannet Girl, the loss of those three tiny babies was many many years ago - my daughter Maya, who was the last of those pregnancies, and who survived of course, narrowly but triumphantly, is 37 this September. I still grieve, of course, but there have been so many other things, and people - especially Maya! - that have allowed some kind of healing to take place that I don't fully understand.
My prayers, truly, are with all three of you who have commented so powerfully and usefully, and who have said so much that my own original little post didn't! Thank you all...
Could it be that suffering is only fruitful when we cooperate with grace to make it meaningful. I am reminded of the scripture that says something to the effect of God works all things for our good. I do not believe most of our suffering in life is caused by the hand of God. I do believe however that God is able to transform that suffering into something else. But let it be said, it may not be easy. This cooperation with grace in suffering can be a refining fire, and can be very painful.
Thank you for this wonderful post and all the thought-provoking comments!
I agree with you point entirely. Suffering can hone us and open our hearts. But I would slightly adjust the terminology. I would say pain and distress are the greatest teachers we have. These things are often brought about by the Divine hand and we have little ability to control them. But suffering is our choice, and that we can control. I have lived with a debilitating illness for 15 years. I have experienced the emotional pain of being unable to change my baby's diaper and care for my family and physical pain that kept me from opening a door. We can not deny the pain and difficulty in the world but we can choose whether or not we suffer over it. I am truly grateful for every moment of my illness. I was like a jagged stone sowing discord and judgment in the world. Now I am transformed. I am softened. I have learned to love, however imperfectly, in a way I never even knew was possible. I am happy. God is infinitely kind. He blesses us with our pain that we may become whole.
Is it good to be afflicted and does it necessarily bring grace and closeness to God? Sometimes it does and sometimes it just brings spiraling and escalating destruction and alienation. Much depends on the amount of suffering, the kind of suffering, and the source of suffering. I have spent much time reflecting on these questions and their relation to various kinds of suffering in my life: the death of two of my four children (one prenatally and one as a toddler in an accident caused by a careless driver) and a childhood and young adulthood marked by severe abuse. I have found much joy and healing, through grace and tremendous hard work, but it has never been helped and often hurt by blanket statements about the blessings of suffering--especially the second kind directly caused by deeply sinful, destructive behavior and complacency by onlookers.
Death is a natural source of suffering and when it comes naturally, even if prematurely, it can be seen somehow as God's will. There are also kinds of suffering that are lifegiving--my own experience of very difficult pregnancies and labors is in this realm, as is constructive work for justice which is often penalized, as Jesus' was, by the structures of the world. These can both be agonizing experiences but can also be amenable to finding grace in and thriving as well as survive....However, murder, abuse, war and other forms of evil cause massive suffering that is directly against God's will and rarely bring about grace, rather they usually perpetuate evil in long standing, destructive cycles. Sharing one's *own* growth from suffering of either variety is always valid--speaking one's own truth, based on personal experience--and may bring hope and inspiration. However, insisting that such evil *necessarily* brings grace and spiritual growth--and that if it doesn't it is the fault of the sufferer (this is sometimes explicitly stated, sometimes implied) is very dangerous. It may relieve the pain of squarely facing the immensity of the world's evil and robustly fighting against it with Christ....The price, however, is that this "solution" shows no reverence or compassion, and is theologically impoverished in attributing freely chosen evil to God rather than those who carry it out and the evil spirit who inspires it. It is also often spiritually abusive, and can vastly magnify the anguish of the victim by placing God against her with the torturer or rapist rather than suffering in and with her and working through her and allies for justice and healing. How much more she needs to hear that God is *against* the evil done through the abuse of free will, grieves with her, and fights through her for a better future for both herself and others. This can give strength for the life-giving suffering--assuming that the suffering has some breaks and that the resources are available--of working through trauma rather than passing it on. And if suffering is too immense to be overcome at least it does not compound it with false guilt.
*Please* just share the grace found through your own suffering, rather than insist that others do the same--or that it is inherently superior to justice, life, joy, and goodness in bringing about union with God. If it were this suffering, sinful world would have been transformed to paradise long since....
Sophia, I don't know exactly to whom you were speaking, to me or to the other commenters, but, at least in my original post, I was trying precisely to "just share the grace found through [my] own suffering".
I'm sorry if you thought I "insist[ed] that others do the same--or that it is inherently superior to justice, life, joy, and goodness in bringing about union with God." I certainly never meant to do that, nor to cause you any distress.
Thank you very much, Mike. The insistence on both points was much stronger and clearer in some of your commenters, and my plea was directed most strongly to them. But along with your own eloquent witness there were elements of your post that I understood to be making, or at least implying, the case that everyone can and should find spiritual meaning in any and all suffering. Primarily this was the closing statement quoting a scripture claiming that affliction is good and commenting "This is true, isn't it?" Especially in the concluding spot it sounds much more like a claim of universal truth than simply what is true in your experience.
Secondarily I reacted to the long sentence equating pain with self-pity and a lot of other pathetic, immature sounding things. On reflection you probably meant only your own pain in that sentence, but it came across to me--admittedly exquisitely sensitive to such themes--as a general statement applying to anyone suffering intensely, since those who speak of abuse and injustice, and call it to account, are often branded with such epithets. I'm sure that wasn't your intention, and it is very gracious of you to clarify and honor my feelings and insights.
I'm rereading your comment in response to Gannet, Mike, and I see much more clearly there your clarification on the points I was concerned about. My bad for missing them.
The one thing I do take exception to there is the approving quoting of Jay that grace gained through joy is more liable to humans trying to take credit rather than give glory to God, and that we can't do this with suffering, so it is somehow safer or spiritually superior. I frequently experience great joy as a pure gift and so have many others--Dorothy Day's conversion following her child's birth is a classic example. And people can take credit for anything rather than give glory to God. In fact, that tone is frequently and precisely present in those who insist that suffering is inherently beneficial or superior because it was for them--especially the implied or explicit statement that it's the fault of other less mature, spiritually superior sufferers if they don't find it the same. That is certainly not you, of course--but I hear it an awful lot.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Sophia. Interesting, isn't it, how the same set of words can have different inflexions for different readers? Maybe there are lessons there for how we read Scripture ;-)
Two little clarifications: my long sentence about my own reaction to pain was, as you saw, just my own reaction. But I wasn't meaning to demean that reaction even in myself. It is the natural and inevitable reaction to pain that is undeserved, that seems, at the time anyway, to serve no purpose. That's why I titled the post "Pointless Suffering..."
Secondly, while I approved of Jay's caveat regarding grace through joys, and I concurred with his suggestion that there was a danger of our appropriating that - a danger absent with suffering - I didn't mean (nor I think did Jay) that because suffering is in that sense safer, that it is therefore somehow "spiritually superior". A Volvo is a safer car than a Porsche - but you won't get many petrol-heads who will agree that it is therefore a superior car!
We all have very different lives, different experiences, both good and bad, and we cannot all find the same value in different means of grace. One size does not fit all. God knows that. Even in the Psalms, which deal with this stuff more clearly than most parts of Scripture up to Romans, show that. I guess it's God's wisdom that there are Psalms from so many different psalmists. As I suggested in my later post Called..., things change even within the space of one life. I didn't mean to imply otherwise; and if I did so, I was in error, and I'm sorry for that.
Every blessing
Mike
Thanks again, Mike. I guess we will have to agree to disagree about the safety of suffering in comparison to joy in terms of tempting one to take credit for grace....
I like the car analogy! But I'm not sure it's quite parallel. The reason I took claims about the safety of suffering to mean spiritual superiority is that it is being claimed as protection against a major spiritual flaw, which in this realm seems to be a trump card!
Sophia,
I am very sorry for the pain and loss of your children. I also apologize if my comments were unfeeling in anyway. In my enthusiasm to share the beauty of my own experience I have on some occasions been callous and over-looked the pain of others. I honor you and your journey. That you for the lesson in mindfulness.
Painter of Blue,
Thank you so much for your gracious words. I am sorry for the pain you have suffered but glad that you and God have transformed to such grace and holiness.
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