This previous week was a tough one. It was like a recurring theme of needless pain. Several patients talked about the pain and suffering they endure, questioning why the whole thing happens. One of them doesn't really remember from day to day, but each day it's the same existential question--and for his mom, it's the same, too. I'm not a big fan of "God is doing this to me" thinking, but several patients go this route. At this point, I don't think it's harming them, so I don't challenge it. They're searching for meaning--why would God do this? Or they're relying on their faith, "Someday we'll know why, we'll know what the lesson is." I think this is a potentially healthy way of looking at it, but I'm not always sure. I'm not sure what the alternative is, because my existential answer--that things happen because they do; pain hurts because we have perspectives, because we favor ourselves and our loved ones over other circumstances (like favoring ourselves over the survival of the bacteria causing our infection)--my existential answer doesn't seem to work for lots of folks.
I think the question of meaning is best left to the ones who are suffering, and my job is to be a conversation partner in their searching. It's unethical of me to force meaning, or to suggest it without being asked. It's also unethical to force the issue of there even being a meaning to it. As I wrote in a paper for my Human Suffering class, sometimes the meaning is that there is no meaning. Sometimes the meaning that a sufferer finds is that pain is purposeless. It got some flack from some classmates for that, but I think it's true. It's hard for some people to imagine suffering that has no point, but I've seen it. Though it also seems easier for someone to be able to find meaning, or at least growth or development, out of it.
That's where I come down: Trusting that someday we'll find meaning--that's psychology. That's our ability to look back on something and find a way to integrate it into our histories. What I want is to ask about finding love. That's the spiritual question for me. Where is love, where is connection in the midst of suffering? That's my job, that's our job as humans, to care and connect with each other, and to support those who suffer (and we all suffer). In the end, I don't think God "teaches" us lessons, by "giving" us experiences. In my spiritual journey, "God" teach us how to learn, how to seek, how to connect, how to endure, how to seek hope and joy and peace even against the odds. Since it's Easter, I'll say that's resurrection if anything: hope survives death itself.
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4 comments:
Good to finally visit the blog again! And of course it raises all the big issues it usually does. So here's some random thoughts sent your way....
I think we can make meaning out of pain we have suffered, but that does not mean the meaning was in the painful experience before we put it in there. Is that what you mean with your 'existential' answers?
I also think it's important to talk about meaning in/meaningless pain when we're not experiencing pain (which is why I want to do congregational ministry instead of chaplaincy). That's not to say that we won't change our minds when we are suffering, but it's important to integrate ideas about the significance of pain into our non-pained lives. I guess that's part of why I'm so interested in studying genocides, the superlative suffering. It's important for me to explore what I think suffering means when I'm not suffering it, so that when I suffer, I have a framework to put it in.
More than that, it's important because if people not suffering don't think about it, then the suffering will continue. Of course, we can't 'make sense' of suffering by justifying the suffering we cause, either. If the meaning we give suffering and harm allows it to survive and thrive, then that's the wrong meaning...
I guess I end up feeling that suffering and harm have no intrinsic meaning except in the power they have to orient us against them. It's almost like the opposite of eschatology: instead of something existing as it arrives into being, harm exists as something meaningful only when its meaning is eradication of its existence.
Of course, some pain is natural, but we have to distinguish between harmful pain and pain that hurts but is part of life....
And then, as if I've started to get a grasp on what this all means to me, I get the 12-year-old asking me why the Devil exists if God created everything in the world. Any good responses to that one?
hm, yeah, you're right. It does seem important to establish meanings of pain in our non-pained lives. Maybe. I'll have to think about that. I think it's important to establish -responses- to pain anyway.
Maybe what I'm talking about is the impulse to 'do something' with suffering, to somehow fit it into an understanding of life. And in that case, you're right to bring up the significance of congregational ministry. If we have a way of understanding suffering as 'non-pained' people, then we can 'do something' with it.
As for God and the devil, I think you have two options: Either the devil doesn't exist, or God created the devil. If you don't count my stance that God didn't 'create' things, I'd lean toward God creating the devil--ie the adversary. These days I've been getting a lot of sensible theological explanations about how the Enemy works, from people struggling with addictions.
I just talked about this with my Supervisor today, who has had quite a bit of her own personal suffering. She says she need to search for meaning to avoid crushing futility. In her tradition, rather than asking why, she asks where. She asks where God is in this, because she doesn't believe God wants or inflicts suffering. It helps me articulate it a little more. It's about what to "do" with suffering in order to integrate it into life instead of getting stuck in its vortex forever (though from what I've heard and seen, you just have to deal with being in the vortex for a while).
You cannot really pre-plan effectively in hopes of trying to "get" pain before pain exists, because one of the things pain does is destroy language and any conceptual system that might/could make meaning. See Elaine Scarry's writing on this. I do think we can theologize about God's power prior to crisis, which is essential throughout life anyway. But pain has its own emotive/physical/psychic impact that pierces EVERYTHING in the moment. So preparatory measures seem futile and silly to me. I don't give a shit what I thought about God 2 weeks ago, when my body is racked with pain I didn't ask for, I don't want to make meaning. I want an omnipotent God who will take it away immediately. I afford myself that in the moment. And I also take note, later, when the pain has subsided, how imperative it was for me to believe in that God just then. Maybe that's meaning-making. Or maybe the memory just enables me to have compassion with other cases of omnipotence I encounter. Who knows. This is interesting stuff. All I know is that I want you to be my conversation partner when I'm laying in bed, helpless, broke down and hurting because you, dear Wade, embody the goodness that might/could get me through. That's what makes you a chaplain for me...and a friend...and a colleague...and brother in the Risen Christ.
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