Approaching Suffering - Danny Givens (Nov. 11, 2016)

Transcription

1 1 Approaching Suffering - Danny Givens (Nov. 11, 2016) I want to say beforehand that I'm an excellent thief. Many of the following thoughts are from some of my favorite thinkers and mentors such as Thich Nhat Hanh, Richard Rohr, Krista Tippett, Scott Peck, Henri Nouwen, and others. Without them, I couldn t have prepared this talk. I asked Anne Gibbons on a whim if i could go with her to Haiti in July and she readily accepted my request. I had visited Santiago Chile in the 1980 s and Mexico in the 90 s but this didn t prepare me for the devastating poverty I witnessed in Haiti and the island of La Gonave where Anne and I helped out with a school. I'm not good at the outward journey so this was incentive to help me as well as some children in Haiti. Haiti did what Santiago did to me over 30 years ago but that I had since forgotten. It forced me to observe excess in my life along with the superficial and the unnecessary and to reflect on suffering. Suffering and poverty, especially in third world countries has often been a litmus test for faith and belief in trying to reconcile extreme suffering with a loving God. That dilemma is far too complex to address here but i would like to talk about our personal response to suffering in our lives and the lives of others. Please know that I approach this topic with apprehension -not knowing what type of pain each of you carry or have carried in the past. And I speak of suffering in some contexts, not all. Let me begin with an ancient tale. One day Kwun crossed a valley and stumbled on a bloody scene. An entire village was laid to waste, the people torn apart. Walking among the bodies, her heart was breaking open, enlarging for coming upon the suffering. She was drawn, almost compelled to look inside their bodies and at the same time repulsed by the violence that had opened them. There was an eerie silence steaming along the ground. It looked like the fierce work of a warring clan. Suddenly, Kwun heard a terrible cry from the middle of the scene. She had to pull a dead man aside to find a woman barely breathing, clinging to her little boy who was bleeding from the head. Kwun fell to her knees and without thinking embraced them both, their blood coating her.

2 2 as the wind can lift the snow off a branch, the cries altogether can somehow lift the sadness of a broken heart. The cry of the dying mother was as much from her own pain as from her powerlessness to help her son. When she saw Kwun, her cries grew worse. It was clear she was asking Kwun to take her boy. At first, Kwun shook her head, unprepared for any of this. The dying mother clutched Kwun s hand and fell away. The boy was unconscious, still bleeding from the head. Wherever Kwun was going before stumbling into the valley, that life, that plan, that dream was gone. It was too late to close her heart and walk away. She lifted the little bloody boy and though he was unconscious, Kwun covered his eyes as she walked over the rest of the bodies, leaving the village. Carrying the boy, she began to cry, feeling for the mother who had watched her man die and her son bloodied, and feeling for the boy who, if he woke at all, would be all alone. She began to moan as she walked, keeping the cry of the mother alive. By the end of the day, Kwun managed to climb out of the valley and, exhausted from the tasks of surviving, fell asleep at the mouth of a cave. When Kwun woke, the bloodied little boy had died in her arms. She didn t know what to do, though there was nothing to do. She held him for a long time, then opened his little eyes, wanting to see what was left within him. And, looking there, she began to feel the cries of the world. Long gone and long coming. It overwhelmed her as she felt a pain that almost stopped her breathing. But she kept rocking the little one, certain the world would end if she put him down. Without her knowing, she began to hold the broken that would fill eternity long before they would suffer: the stillborn, the betrayed, the sickly, the murdered, and the thousands left to mourn. Letting this move through her began to open her heart like a lotus flower. And the cries of the world, though she couldn t name a one, made her stronger. At last, she fell asleep again. While she slept, Kwun became a source of healing. When she woke, she spent her days touching the wounded, holding the dying, and keeping the cries of the world alive. The cries became a song she didn t understand, other than to know that, as the wind can lift the snow off a branch, the cries altogether can somehow lift the sadness of a broken heart. The great chief, Black Elk said, Perhaps the most important reason for lamenting is that it helps us to realize our oneness with all things, to know that all things are relatives.

3 3 Henri Nouwen has said that our pain is connected to a specific event but the full meaning of our pain is missed if we focus on the details or specifics of its origin. The deeper truth is that the situation that brings about our pain is simply the form in which we come in touch with the human condition of suffering. Our pain is the concrete way in which we participate in the pain of humanity. Paradoxically therefore, healing means moving from our pain to our pain. When I keep focusing on the specific circumstances of the pain, I can become angry or resentful and in some cases, unkind or unforgiving. I am inclined to relieve the externals of the pain in order to relieve it. But much healing comes from realizing that my particular pain is a share in humanity s pain. That realization for me has allowed me to try to forgive more and act more kind and loving. Not always but this process helps. So each time we can shift our attention away from the external situation that causes our pain, and focus on the pain of humanity in which we participate, our suffering has the chance to become easier to bear. Scott Peck rather famously said that the avoidance of suffering is at the root of much mental illness. At the least, our attempts to avoid suffering distort us. A life without suffering must be small and shallow in order to avoid it. When we refuse to face and resolve our suffering, we only pass it on to those around us. Richard Rohr said that Healthy religion instructs us how to transform our pain to avoid transmitting it to others. The pain that people pass on to others can take the form of sexism, homophobia, racism, judgment of the poor, anger, pettiness, an inflated ego, resentment, or jealousy of others, revenge or just plain unkindness. Pain is one of those paradoxes of life: the only way for it to lose its power over us is for us to accept it. To stop fighting and trying to avoid it. Even Bonhoeffer perfected the art of accepting suffering with gratitude. It s been said that an unhealthy spirituality is when pain is always someone elses fault so transformation occurs by holding the tension rather than expelling it or fixating on blame or the source.

4 4 Richard Rohr said that communities and commitment can form around suffering much more than around how wonderful or superior we are. There is a strange even wonderful communion in real human pain, actually more than in joy, which is too often manufactured and passing. In one sense, pain's effects are not passing and pain is less commonly manufactured. Thus, it is a more honest doorway into lasting communion than even happiness. If you ve been raised in the Christian tradition, Heaven conjures up all sorts of ideas and images. My whole life I ve imagined heaven as some idea or state of mind devoid of suffering and pain. (or place...we don t know, do we?) Thich Nhat Hanh, the famous Buddhist Monk, turned my mind a mere few months ago to the reality that bliss and joy are inseparable companions to pain and suffering. I read once that he couldn t imagine a heaven without suffering. It was another one of those beautiful epiphanies. In an instant, all my childhood notions of this word heaven, this state of mind, however you define Heaven as, was irrevocably altered. Now mind you I had already rejected many notions of traditional ideas of Christianity but the very word Heaven was still some sort of last refuge. You know, no more war, no more sickness, bliss without suffering etc. But the word Heaven still did conjure up or connote in my mind the cessation of suffering and pain. And now, I somehow welcomed this new thought, introduced to me by this Buddhist Monk and my mind worked on abandoning this childhood notion that I had been attached to ever since early Sunday School days. Not only is joy not possible without suffering, the two are interdependent and integral to us as humans. And God, who must surely weep over our pain must also not be immune to all kinds of suffering. He or She must weep when observing our suffering. And to weep is to suffer. Is it not? And so, God, who I feel weeps over pain must also not be immune to grief and sadness and hence suffering. *** these words are by Kahil Gibran from the book, The Prophet: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

5 5 And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. I do have a few confessions to make I came back from Haiti sobered and perhaps a bit embarrassed by my white privileged status and to be truthful, envious of their immense strength to carry what they carry. I was envious of their smiles amidst unimaginable burdens of poverty and hardship. I was envious of their laughter amidst heartache. I was envious of a strength I lacked a strength they seemed in possession of hewed and formed and earned (though under Grace) by suffering. I do stand in awe at what so many people carry in their lives the heartache of loss, of grief, of suffering -- especially of children and the powerless and countless other losses. I stand in awe of life s little deaths that so many experience all the time. I stand in awe of people with deep strength forged by suffering and divine almost Holy people who forgive when others can't. I think of Mary Johnson whose son was murdered by Oshea Israel. Mary decided to forgive Oshea and adopt him as her own son. She became the mother he never had, despite the pain and betrayal and he became the son to replace the son whom he killed. I stand in awe of Sue Kliebold, the mother of Dylan who killed over a dozen people at Columbine and who found herself agonizingly praying for her son's death to possibly avoid the loss of other lives. And, who in her pain and grief after the massacre, hand wrote letters to all the victims' families. Ann Marie, a student who was left paralyzed said that the catalyst that allowed her to forgive and move forward was the handwritten and heartfelt letter she received from Sue Kliebold. Ann Marie's mother committed suicide 6 months after the incident. What

6 6 connected them both, Sue and Ann Marie, was the powerlessness they both felt in preventing the loss of life from loved ones. So tragically and somehow beautifully and powerfully, their grief connected them in profound ways. All I know is there is a deep joy and some inner strength some power or knowledge that people who have suffered possess that I can't tap into or that I'm not worthy of. That I, by the nature of the law of life don't deserve. The trip was powerful in so many ways but what seemed like a token 10 days in service helped me in far more ways than I can count and served as a poignant reminder of what I lacked in my life. I returned with resolution to try harder to not run from suffering but to turn toward it. And, to not distract myself with noise or work or frenzy or busy-ness to numb myself or divert my attention from suffering which only dishonors me and deepens my own suffering. And more importantly, to try harder on the outward journey. To live outside my silly head more and see the countless ways both small and large that I can alleviate suffering in others and to try harder to not pass suffering on to others. The great Sufi thinker Hazrat Khan said : God breaks the heart open again and again and again until it stays open. Perhaps in this sense, breaking is a good thing if it means opening our hearts more to the world and its pain. Krista Tippet said the following: Depression can kill you. It can also be a spiritually enriching experience. It's really an important part of my theology now and my spirituality that life is not perfect, and I grew up wanting it to be and thinking that if it wasn't, I could make it that way, and I had to acknowledge that I had all kinds of flaws and sadnesses and problems and that these problems are probably our richest sources for rising to the ultimate virtue of compassion. And, that the very things that go wrong have the potential to be your gift to the world. May we all this Christmas season view suffering in more transformative ways and see how suffering can connect us all in deep and meaningful ways.