Discourse 5.5: Beyond That Pain

Transmuting the problem of evil into a solution for the soul.

“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feelings with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already born the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are, beyond that pain.”

-Kahil Gibran

Nietzsche said that to live is to suffer, and to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. To that end I certainly do not disagree, but the question remains. Who are we beyond that pain once it has laid hands upon us and transmuted our soul? The answer to this is no doubt influenced by what meaning and purpose one ascribes to the nature of suffering. It is also influenced by how we have built ourselves and if we are even capable of moving on to the other side of pain and not forever buried under its weight. Beyond building ourselves whole in preparation for the battle of life, this is one of the most important questions we will ever have to decide for ourselves: Why do we suffer?

To begin with, one must recognize its inevitability and not fall under the illusion that if we live carefully enough… we can avoid the sting of pain and suffering. Additionally, too often while under this illusion, we form the perception that pain serves no other purpose but to inflict cruelty and torment upon our being, negating the possibility that such tribulations provide a measure of optimal stress necessary for some other purpose. The natural laws of nature provide us many examples of the necessity of suffering, yet we often consider this as part of the “problem” of evil, as if God somehow desires you to suffer for its own sake. What if suffering is not the problem, but part of the solution?  Not that I am advocating for intentional pain, rather a paradigm shift as it relates to the natural suffering of a living sentient being.  

-For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

-Ecclesiastes 1:18

Perhaps even our very soul is formed much in the same way as a diamond, where the pressure is the catalyst for its inception, necessitating the need for pain for it to unfold? It has been often said that to suffer is to know God. Even Carl Jung in his book “Answer to Job” stated that we should “Embrace your grief, for there your soul will grow.”  To that end, we all must assign meaning to pain, at the least to survive as Nietzsche proclaimed… but I posit that it is so much more, including surviving physical death.

“The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God.”

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

I was taught at an early age that life is going to sometimes be painful and really fucking hard. It is inevitable for all of us to different degrees and we need to be prepared to meet that difficulty, endure it, learn from it, and move on. Beyond the metaphysics of suffering, the aforementioned are necessary skills all should learn. After all, we do indeed die at the end of this life, and for most of us that experience will not be without physical pain. We cannot run from this. Society used to call these life skills, then coping skills… and there are serious consequences of neglecting or delegating these individual responsibilities of managing our headspace to a therapist or the collective…

Even worse society at large has become designed to exhibit external cope and has devalued personal steadfast fortitude.

The materialistic world seeks to inundate us with distractions and pleasure to counter the sufferings of life, a trend that has only grown since the industrial and technological revolutions. It seems we have been so desensitized to pleasure that we are always seeking more of it in the way a drug addict seeks their fix. Pleasure, joy and happiness, are no longer a complimentary component of life opposite of pain and suffering, rather it has become an expectation to always be experiencing a form of pleasure. When we do not get it, we either think something is wrong with us or we become destructive in our pursuit of this fix.

“Pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishment.”

-Marcus Aurelius

This psychological mindset is beneficial for manipulators who sell both poison and cure, but beyond that the demand of a pain free pleasurable life is not only unrealistic, but it also fails to allow one to unveil the importance of pain… and what may lie beyond it.

I am not going to claim there is a specific point to every sharp bite of pain, although I suspect there is a higher unseen synchronous, perhaps “quantum” entanglement, of all events. What I will claim is that pain is a necessary state of our nature and that it is pain itself that serves the function, not necessarily a specific cause of it. We do indeed need our pain to assist us with the battle of life, and perhaps it serves as a key to the God shaped hole that resides within us all… a key to unlock the soul and the mysteries within.

My wife and I have made it a priority to teach our children about the certainty of pain and the battle of life, as well as our views about its greater purpose... too many adults (and their children who will become adults) have embraced a form of arrested development with these skills by deferring to external cope. (or external delegation) While it is ok to talk about things that trouble you, particularly as a child who is still learning how to cope, we should be progressing as life goes on to build resiliency and a proper mental and spiritual relationship with pain. After all, this is the path to having peace in one’s heart about the nature of life itself with the understanding that the obstacle is the way.

It is not easy to manage the pain, nor should one expect it to be. To not only endure, but to overcome pain and move beyond it takes courage, and faith. It is here that I have found supreme agreement with C.S. Lewis:

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

Yet, if we can muster the courage to face our pain and let it transmute us to something new, to unfold our nature to what lies beyond the pain, is to find ourselves not alone in our journey. As I have previously mentioned how we must choose God to feel it reach for us, we must also choose courage as it is not our default setting. It is then beyond the pain we can feel the spirit of the creator reach back, shining through the serenity of suffering.

“God will not have his work manifest by cowards. Always, always, always, always, always do what you are afraid to do. Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

To display courage, is to choose to trust in God. One can think of the story of Abraham, approaching pain is like his approach to the potential death of Isaac. It is not the end of all things nor a permanent separation/situation. It is not the event of pain itself, such as the death of his son, but the absolute trust that it demands. Courage, while its existence demands uncertainty, divinity can be found within the hope it creates by its trust through our faith.

With all of that said, just what is this connection to God through suffering? If God is Love (I John 4:16) why must we have courage to wrestle with what philosophers have called the “problem of evil”? To speak in parable: Must the butterfly struggle against its own cocoon to force blood into its wings, so that it may flourish on the outside? Without this struggle, the butterfly dies. Perhaps without suffering our soul dies.   

I suspect the 14^th century German Dominican friar Henry Suso was on to something when he said the following:

“Suffering is the ancient law of love; there is no quest without pain; there is no lover who is not also a martyr.”

I believe we have to travel over and through the mountains known as pain, heartache and suffering, in order to increase our understanding of the depths of the words of devotion (duty) and love. It seems we need a measure of contrast to appreciate (or recognize) the opposite. As we need darkness to know light, perhaps we must know evil to comprehend good. God being love - but to love is to be a martyr, to suffer. The image of Christ suffering on the cross is a reflection of our own journey with pain, a roadmap. A sign pointing at the gate. We are the inverted evil image, perhaps we have to know and overcome pain, to exist beyond that pain... in order to know God.

I have lived a life with ample amounts of pain, and my path is not yet complete. But as William Faulkner once said, “Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”  There is a purpose and a season for all things. My advice to you, learn to feel all you are beyond your pain… and then you may decide for yourself why it is we suffer as I have.

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”

-Meister Eckhart