When pain strikes, it overwhelms our placid assumptions about life and our place in it. It descends suddenly and occludes our accustomed vision. It drives us remorselessly into ourselves. We are imprisoned at once in our own mind and are forced to reflect on ourselves - the mechanism of our being, its origin and its destiny.
Suffering has an electrifying, concentrating effect on the mind. It becomes wholly occupied with one immediate concern, the self. Pain threatens our authority and our future independence. It forces us to guard our inner life against the inroads of destructive despair. Concentration on the self starts as an exclusive interest, and leads to selfishness at the cost of concern for others. The suffering person is occupied at first only with his own welfare, and looks for the support of all those around him. But even if this help is forthcoming, at least in the early stages of our suffering, the interest of others in our particular problem rapidly wanes. Most people soon recede from another's pain and suffering and prefer to occupy their attention with the surface things of life, as indeed did the sufferer before misfortune overtook him.
It is evident from this obvious account of normal human responses that suffering plays a vital role in our growth into deeper awareness. And the source of this awareness is to be found in the self. Many agencies that work to overcome the suffering of the world look to outer sources of relief, such as economic assistance or health projects. Necessary as these are, they merely scratch the surface of the problem. The cause lies deep in the soul of humanity; the outer discord is merely a symptom of a deep inner disease process, the failure to face reality and the tendency to worship idols.
Idolatry is denounced over and over again in the Old Testament. In those days, it seems, the ignorant heathen worshipped idols of wood and metal. Today we believe that, through the advent of enlightened scientific understanding and the spirituality of the world's higher religions, idolatry has been banished, at least from civilised societies. Unfortunately the facts are otherwise. Since the worship of natural objects has become unfashionable, man has instead bowed down to mental images, investing them with a god-like power. The form of this universal idol is the mind of man, which, it is believed, is capable of solving all difficulties through scientific research, economics, sociology, psychology, and the other branches of human endeavour. None of these disciplines is bad in itself; all are indeed gifts of the Holy Spirit who leads us progressively into greater truth about ourselves and the world we inhabit. It is when these disciplines assume autonomy, when they break free from their creative source, that they become demonic and start to dominate the world. Each in its own way, if dissociated from its eternal source, becomes a god, a power that dominates us. In this way suffering is seen in terms of its social, economic or psychological components instead of the groping of the soul of man from the illusion of material sufficiency to the goal of spiritual insight. Full spiritual insight is, of course, unattainable to mortal man, for when he reaches this he will be of god-like stature himself. What he needs is the wisdom that comes from increasing awareness, so that he can begin to direct his life properly and relate to his fellow beings as a person.
Suffering is to be seen as the result of a disharmony between the cosmic flow of life that is the gift of God's Holy Spirit and the will of God's rational creatures, by which is meant those endowed with a reasoning mind able to respond individually to that Spirit and co-operate with it. Those in our world are human beings, but it would be wrong to limit rational consciousness to the human mind; in the psychic realm there are also the souls of those who are progressing in a different medium of activity as well as the angelic powers. These aspects of reality become tangible to us only when we are capable of being released from the imprisonment of the ego by giving ourselves more fully to our fellow beings. In other words, love and service are the means whereby we come closer to the knowledge of God, who in turn, by the power of His Spirit, attunes us to other dimensions of communication. By an act of will, divorced from grace, it may be possible for a psychically sensitive person to effect temporary communication with this intermediate realm, but his contact with it is liable to be malevolent, since the spiritually uninstructed will attracts companions of its own moral stature. This is a universal spiritual law; suffering can be seen in this light as the way in which the will is chastened so that it may eventually be consecrated to the pursuit of that which is good. And we must remember in this context that Jesus Himself rejected the attribute of goodness, stating categorically that it was due to the Father alone (Mark 10:17-18).
It is fatuous to speak of the will and especially of the free will of natural man, for he is driven by powerful desires within himself and an overwhelming coercive force from without that derives from the world he inhabits and the society with which he has to come to terms. In this way what masquerades as a powerful will is, in reality, the enslaved psychic power of the personality which is harnessed to irrational inner urges and indifferent outer directives. To break this stranglehold on the personality so that it may become free and self-determining is one of the important goals in our life. But the end of this way is increasing loneliness (I John 2:15), for it demands a detachment from the assumptions of the worldly-wise and a strengthening of inner discrimination against the surface urges within the psyche that look for immediate sensual or emotional gratification.
Whenever a person consecrates himself to the spiritual path, which demands the subjection of the self to the full rigour of a religious discipline, he is evoking the will within himself - or perhaps it could more appropriately be said that the will is awakened and is consecrating itself to the pursuit of a new, higher way of life. It should be noted here that spiritual progress requires the discipline of a religious tradition. This alignment of the personality to a living faith anchors it to a body of aspiring believers and demands active participation in worship in a community whose concern is service for others besides themselves. By contrast, spiritual striving which is devoid of a living, communal faith usually ends up in idealistic fantasies devoid of practical fulfilment. There is consequently little growth of the personality into something of the stature of a living man seen fully in Christ.
The will is awakened and consecrated so that the person may become free to be himself. He ceases to be merely a faceless member of the mechanical society in which he lives, but starts to articulate his own identity. This does not mean that he excludes himself from the world so much as his little world no longer has a place for him in it. If one cannot conform to the demands of those around oneself, one becomes alienated from the society in which one lives and ultimately a positive threat to it, at least in its present form. The circumstance that usually precipitates this changed attitude of the individual is personal suffering. The man in pain is drawn up into himself and can no longer participate in the social dance. He is removed from the surface world and has to withdraw into his own being.
The theme of spiritual growth is one of withdrawal followed by return. But the person who returns after the harrowing withdrawal that follows great suffering is changed, and in turn brings that change to the world around him, so that it attains to a greater measure of reality. The experience of suffering effects the inner transformation that withdrawal demands. It is a withdrawal from everything that was held to be necessary for happiness, indeed for life itself. This includes material security, supporting relationships with other people, bodily health, and intellectual certainty. In any one instance some of these are likely to be threatened more than others, but each has to be challenged in a most radical fashion before it can be transfigured.
It is a basic spiritual insight that all we possess on a purely personal level has to be taken away from us before we can know that deeper inner authority that lives in a world beyond the changes of our mortal life. This is the first great lesson of pain. But this insight must be balanced by a positive acceptance of our possessions; they are not mere illusions but gifts that God has bestowed on us. Where we err is in clinging to them as a means of personal support and identification. Only when we have been obliged to part with them on this purely acquisitive basis can they in due course be returned to us, not as things to be grasped, but as treasures from God that are transformed by our love into objects of eternal beauty. As we change, so all that appertains to us changes also, and is brought back to God, transfigured and resurrected. Pain in its various forms is the great transfiguring power, but its severity is such that it shatters into fragments all who suffer except the chosen remnant that can stay its unnerving force with steadfast faith. This faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and its power is immeasurably augmented by the support of a loving community. At present, however, such a community is a distant vision rather than a practical reality, since, no matter how caring other people may be, they are weak in flesh and soon grow tired of supporting their fellows in pain. Only those who have passed through the valley of lonely suffering can be relied on to sustain their brothers in need. This is perhaps the greatest testimonial of a life well spent, that a person is capable of upholding the suffering world in the light of love. We must remember also that the one who can support even one sufferer is supporting the whole world. The work on the cross illustrates this eternally.
The question inevitably arises, and will recur as this account of suffering unfolds in the pages that follow, as to what part those who have not experienced any notable degree of inner pain can play in the life of the community. I would not like to make such people feel positively guilty because of the good fortune they have until now had the privilege of enjoying. I personally believe that we all have our quota of pain to endure; the heart knows its own bitterness (Proverbs 14:10), but it tends to keep this a secret until its outer façade is swept away by the inroads of misfortune. But while all goes well for us, let us give thanks to God in constant prayers of praise and gratitude, and be ever vigilant on behalf of those less fortunate than we are. The springs of enlightened social action depend on this awareness of God and of our fellow creatures. "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the time of trouble comes and the years draw near when you will say, 'I see no purpose in them.' Remember Him before the sun and the light of day give place to darkness, before the moon and the stars grow dim, and the clouds return after the rain" (Ecclesiastes 12:12). If one remembers God with this intensity in all the circumstances of one's life, suffering will merge into happiness, and happiness be consummated in joy in that blessed state of equanimity which is the preserve of the world's saints.
Jesus tells his disciples: "If you dwell within the revelation I have brought, you will indeed be my disciples; you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" (John 8:31-32). When the disciples claim hereditary freedom stemming from their ancestry with Abraham himself - that they have never been in slavery to any man - Jesus reminds them that true slavery is a state of subservience to the power of sin. Whenever we function at the superficial level of our personality, driven by the demands of the body and the ego power that directs it moment by moment, we are in danger of sin. While the body and the ego too are of divine origin, inasmuch as all things that are made come from the Father and the Word that issues eternally from Him, they can easily assume an independence of their own and be exalted to god-like eminence. They can dominate the person and eventually others also, soon assuming a demonic power. Sin is the result of separating oneself from the full flow of cosmic life, which one knows first of all in one's neighbour. The aim of the sinful life is to acquire things for oneself - sometimes also for one's predatory family - at the expense of the greater community. The end of the sinful life is isolation of the person from the flow of life. It follows that the Spirit of God, who is the lord and giver of life, is excluded from that person, who suffers a breakdown of health. No wonder the wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23). In this way, as Jesus teaches in the passage quoted above, the slave can have no permanent standing in the household.
The son, on the other hand, belongs to the household for ever. If the Son of God sets you free, you will indeed be free. This Son of God, seen historically in the form of Jesus, is also the eternal light of the soul, which is called the spirit of man. The light shines in the darkness of personal consciousness, but the darkness refuses its illumination because it prefers the surface glitter of illusion. But there comes a time in which this glitter, which is the vanity of life, is dulled, and the essential darkness of personal life is revealed. This is the moment of truth, when pain makes itself felt, and suffering is the one unassailable experience. Now at last the person is driven down into his own resources. All those advantages that derive from inheritance and experience fade into impotence, useful as they once were in the time of health and assurance. All that remains is the person himself. This consists not only of what was brought in from the time of conception but also what has been built through the experience of life's vicissitudes. And the power, or the cornerstone, from which, or on which, the personality has been fashioned, is the eternal spirit present in the apex of the soul of man.
Those who do not know this spirit are not only unaware of themselves as children of God, but are also unformed individuals. Their lives have lacked the warmth of full humanity, and the darkness of this extreme revelation is scarcely bearable. The pain that heralded this fearful glimpse of the destitute personality is also the only full awareness that is left to accompany the bereft person on his journey into hell. And it will be with him until he has allowed the Son full power in his life. Only then will he experience transformation, a return to life and full humanity. Pain is indeed the dark face of God, which has to be known no less than the brightness of God's love, in the full intensity of a personal relationship, before we can aspire to divine sonship.
When real tragedy enters the life of a previously unawakened person, there is at first a period of indignation and revolt, but with the unfolding of time he has to take stock of himself and face the new situation. There is darkness where once there was light, and the emotional darkness is destined never to leave the person's orbit until he himself is so changed as to be able to see the greater light through the darkness. In other words, the resolution of life's tragedy is not a blissful return to the status quo, to the old times of childish abandon and irresponsible indulgence. These are past recall. What lies ahead is solid labour in the darkness of cold reality, but the end in distant view is a transformed life. The greatest happiness that the human, in his natural state, can conceive, is a bliss of sensual comfort in which the ego, that point of immediate awareness which the person identifies with his true self, asserts its demands over the world, so that man himself is the measure of all things. This is an illusion that has to be dispelled before the eternal centre of truth in the personality can be revealed. When the person can function at this level of reality, he is free because he is no longer bound to any external source of support. He has attained a relationship with God, and comes to be increasingly full of the Holy Spirit as he confronts the mystery of God.
The cleft truth of the human situation therefore comprises both its divine origin and destiny and its terrible fall from divine knowledge in the course of incarnate life. This truth is in each of us. It is only when we acknowledge that there is something profoundly wrong with us in our present situation that we can start to move towards a total re-creation of our personality in the form of the divine nature that is deeply implanted within us. Pain in all its manifestations forces us to face this dark truth, that we are all become like a man who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy rag (Isaiah 64:6).
Nor is our responsibility limited to the personal or even the human dimension. We, through our selfish way of life and abuse of the world's resources, have brought about a field of suffering that outdistances our conscious awareness of the damage we have done. I refer to the natural order of which we are essentially a part, though certainly the dominant member. We are in psychic communion with all life, and our own malalignment injures the relationship that prevails between all living beings. The tragedy of conflict in the natural order follows on man's conflict with God's creatures.
St Paul expands majestically on this theme in the eighth chapter of his Letter to the Romans (verses 18 to 22) in which he writes, "For I reckon that the sufferings we now endure bear no comparison with the splendour, as yet unrevealed, which is in store for us. For the created universe waits in eager expectation for God's sons to be revealed. It was made the victim of frustration, not by its own choice, but because of him who made it so; yet always there was hope, because the universe itself is to be freed from the shackles of mortality and enter upon the liberty and splendour of the children of God. Up to the present, we know, the whole created universe groans in all its parts as if in the pangs of childbirth."
Suffering is never entirely personal or isolated. In this thought we reach the intensity of the phenomenon and also glimpse its resolution.
MeditationI thank you, O Lord, for the constant abrasiveness of life's encounters, which bring me closer to my true nature unadorned by fantasies and illusions.