This is why

Today I saw a middle-aged man who had lost more than 100 pounds to cancer.  He was aged beyond recognition and so weak he could not stand for long.  He walked with a slow shuffling gait.  He used to play guitar in the band at his church and was back on the stage today.

He had to sit in a chair as the guitar slunk almost flat on his lap.  Arms that were no thicker than the neck of the guitar worked to play in a way that used to be effortless as breathing.

At one point in a song he was so moved he slumped forward almost double.  The guitar fell off his lap and hung like a punk bassist.  He kept playing.  When he looked up his eyes glistened.

I don't really know this man.  I don't know his story or his beliefs.  I just know it isn't likely he'll live and if he does it will be a very different life from what he's known.  But for all that.  For all his disappointment, fear, and suffering.  For all his potential misunderstandings, flaws, false beliefs.  In that moment, it was clear that he knew where his need and his hope and his courage lied.

And I call this man a brother.  This is why I'm a Christian.

Pain

Pain is an incredible teacher.  For one thing, you can't ignore it.  If you think you can, then you don't know the capacity a human has to feel pain.  I'm talking about physical pain.

I was recently knocked down by something I didn't even know could happen and which is so painful, I've only experienced one thing more so.  I have hurt so bad from one particular ailment that I come very close to blacking out, which would be a blessing, let me tell you.  This is not as bad as that, but nearly so.

Thank God there are specialists who can relieve this pain in a simple procedure.  The procedure itself hurts and continues to for a while, but the cured hurt is different and more bearable.

I'm not going into details because pain is a very relative phenomenon.  If I were to tell you what it was, some of you would think it's no big deal.  Perhaps you may have even experienced the same and it didn't bother you as much.  This would lead you to judge me, even if in a very small way.

But this is exactly what I wanted to write about.  I tend to be, and used to be much more so, ascetic and willful.  I tend to believe we can endure, not be weak, so forth.  After experiencing such pain, internal, external, physical and emotional, I am becoming much softer and genuinely compassionate.  This time, I have learned to be more understanding of the relative nature of pain.  What hurts each of us is different and we can't know how much it hurts another.  What we may disregard may be excruciating to another.

I have often been guilty of silently and openly judging, belittling, and even mocking other people's pain.  Most people would not call me a monster, but I know myself and I am seeing this aspect more clearly now.

I hope to never experience these pains again.  I will take precautions to avoid it.  But I pray I will NEVER in ANY case make light of what another feels again.

I may not know how to respond.  It may even seem silly to me.  But I hope I can keep this experience as a reminder that I am not as tough as I like to think.  That I can, at any moment, be taken out by the smallest and most sudden thing.  And that there is no objectivity to pain--what someone feels is real to them.

They may actually feel it stronger than I do.  They may just not know how to cope with it and therefore it feels worse to them.  Fear may intensify the actual physical sensations.  But regardless, the person feeling it is the only one who can judge.  I now understand even more deeply the meaning of mercy and sympathy.

I have also been helped in this time in a humbling and genuine way by someone who does not have to.  It has not been pleasant or easy for them.  It is a pure act of love.  Experiencing this has crushed my pride and roused such a deep, deeper love in return.

There are huge universal truths at work here that my words can't even approach.  But then that's why we must experience rather than just talk about things.  It's the only way to learn.

To the one who helped me, I will love you forever.  There are no words to express my gratitude.

To the doctors who can and did help in such short order, and who followed up with me just to see if I was ok, you are what medicine is about. Thank God for you and I hope you will share that perspective with a thousand other doctors.

And to anyone I have wronged by belittling, downplaying, or misunderstanding your pain, I am truly sorry.  I can't go back.  But I will pay it forward...or to use the archaic phrase, I have repented.  I will make right the wrongs I've done and honor the good done to me by doing 10 times better for whoever I cross paths with, God help me.

And if you are in pain, know you are not alone.  I will ease it in whatever way I can.  If you know me in person, I will not turn you away.   If this blog is our only interaction, know that each word is fortified with intention and love for you.  I trust that the Source of all goodness, who is at this moment and always making right every wrong, will provide what you need most in this very moment...now.

Safe

I want to say something very serious...well I'm usually serious, so more serious than usual.  This post is for anyone who finds it and needs it.  I want you to know that this will always be a safe place for you.  I will always be a safe place for you.

I am like you.  I know depression.  I know the taste of a gun barrel and the feel of a blade on my wrists.  I have carved my pain in my arms and chest.  I know about the masks.  I know about good days and bad.  I know decades...literally decades of only nightmares at night.  I know the hollowness.  I know the terror of lonely places, dark corners.  I know the desire to simply cease being.

I know trances and psychic attack.  I know the evil that can make you forget your own name.  I know what it is to have my senses coopted by things that feed on pain and fear, to lose touch with reality for a time, to approach the gates of hell.

I know rage.  I know the overwhelming desire to kill and destroy.  I know what it is to look out of burning eyes and calculate the animal rending of someone before me.

I know rejection.  I know false acceptance.  I know the taunts and insults.  I know the subtle but clear lack of understanding from people who want to care.  I know how that look of alienation cuts more deeply because it comes from those who obviously don't want to wound.  It just tells us how strange we are.

So if you understand this.  If you know me or if you stumble across this late one night.  Know that I am here and you are there.  And you are not alone.  Look at my picture.  Read my words.  Do I not seem like someone who knows?

You don't need to be anything other than what you are around me.  And if you need me, I will be there in whatever way I can.  This is my promise.  Test me and see if I don't mean it.  I don't come with programs and easy answers.  But I come.  I am the living dead, sent for the dead living.  I gave up my life and it has been given back for you.

I am Cavvvp.  I am real.  And I am here.

Shadows

I am in the shadows.  I walked out into the light recently and it was good for a time, but higher heights bring deeper depths.  I don't feel to have changed, nor that I did anything wrong, but circumstances have once again confirmed for me that my place is the shadows.  I must be terrifying.

I don't mean this in the horror sense.  But that I am probably too raw, too intense, too literal.  Most people aren't able to cope with it.  Is it a holiness reflected through me or my own depravity that shows?  Maybe it's both.  A sort of terrible holiness amidst a dead thing...a thing which knows full well the depths from which it existed.  A Frankenstein's monster of life and death rolled together in one.

I don't want to veil it.  I've lived that way too long.  But it hurts to constantly see the same reactions.  To have truth taken for lies.  Do I speak the same language as others?  Do I see too deeply into them?  I can't see this myself.  Am I that delusional that I could be so aversive and not see it?  Or am I hyper sensitive, finding deeper meaning in what is really nothing?

I don't know.  I can't tell.  So in these times, recount the facts.  I desire to do good.  I believe in a living relational God who is active in human life.  I take fairly literally the promises and exhortations in the Bible, taken with a sound logic and historical context...I'm not dancing with rattle snakes here.  I will and do act for good in practical ways.  I do not value my life, future, possessions too highly.  I am often misunderstood.  I don't have many friends and find it hard to keep them.  I am often lonely.  I want to belong.  I want a few people who understand me or at least do not reject me no matter what.  I want to see grace in human action, even for me.

But I don't honestly believe I'll find it.  I think my lot is that of David, Elijah, John the Baptist, Henry Suso.  To dwell apart, sometimes respected, sometimes valued, but never held too closely, always a little feared...always in the shadows.

Wow, this sounds whiny.  God forgive me.

Headache

I've had a headache for two months now. I'm not kidding. It gets more or less intense, but it hasn't gone away. It's a constant companion reminding me of my frail flesh. I'd love to be rid of it, but haven't found the way.

I've been to two different doctors, done three antibiotics, tried OTC decongestants and pain killers. At best, they give a few hours of lessening, but no remedy. I had a CT scan that said it's a sinus infection, but I have none of the usual symptoms. In fact, my nasal allergies have completely disappeared. I feel great other than this nagging headache. I've got another appointment with a different specialist next week.

I've looked into self-healing. I believe this is possible. I've tried meditation, which can relieve the pain temporarily. I've tried the Unmodify method, to no avail. I'm constantly praying. And I've asked for prayer several times from others.

I don't know if this is a psychosomatic thing, or if there is really something wrong. No one who should know seems too worried about it, so I haven't been either. I started to be afraid of tumors or other weird illnesses until I realized that these would actually be a relief to me since I would be forced out of my complacency and may even face the end of my journey here. For me, this is a serious relief and something very hopeful. Knowing the end of my struggle was coming soon would be such a relief at long last. I have no desire for long life in this miserable dimension. I am merely serving my tour.

I also realized that this pain has kept me focused on God, kept me seeking him at every turn. I also realized that there are many who go through life with far worse pains for far longer. I have a new compassion for them. I also realized that many couldn't afford the medical care or even have access to it, that I do. And this is both a blessing that I have access to it and that I am able to sympathize more with those who don't.

Is there some deeper meaning? I don't know. Can I heal myself of this? I doubt it. Does that mean I am not doing the healing properly? Probably. Is God still in control? Yes. He is my healer whether that be through medicine or meditation or instantaneous cure. I have had my moments where the pain gets the better of me. But for the most part, I am surprised at how calm I have been through this. I definitely want it over. I want to learn what I must from this and move on. But if I must wait, I am finding that I can, and not in anxiousness or anger. Just waiting.

Pollen

It's finally warmed up this year. Plants are budding out. Life is returning. It's been an extraordinarily cold year. But now the dry time has hit. We probably won't see much rain until June or July. And right now, the oak trees are blooming. All across this region, the oak trees have gone from dead brown to orange and yellow. Their shaggy flowers dispersing the yellow powder that produces acorns. There's so much of it that cars, houses, sidewalks, are stained yellow. You can actually see it blowing by in the bright light.

For many, this is a minor nuisance, but for increasing numbers this means runny noses, itchy eyes, scratchy throats. It's miserable. I am one of these for whom oak pollen is essentially toxic. I don't know why. Allergies are on the rise. More and more people are affected. I've tried everything, but nothing will really solve the problem.

Perhaps it's that more and more people are surviving childhood and that is allowing weaker genes to pass along. Where when infant mortality was higher, the weaker children didn't make it. Or perhaps, as the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki suggests, it is a result of our polluting our world. Perhaps the pollen is actually becoming more toxic, or the pollution we breathe and eat and drink is weakening us so that we can't resist these allergens. I have no idea.

I do know that I have been unable to will this away. I have been unable to treat it entirely, though medicines do help. I have prayed for it to be removed from me, but God has not. So I must bear it. I keep praying, of course, for patience, for resistance, for strength, for it to go away, for rain to wash it out of the air...but ultimately, I just have to endure.

In Japan, cedar trees cause similar problems, so the government cuts them down in populated areas...another aspect of the community spirit and care for each other that is prevalent in that culture. But here, there's no chance of that...it might hurt pharmaceutical sales, which would damage our economy!

But maybe, as Miyazaki suggests, it is cleansing our world, and the toxin will cease after the world has been purified. This sort of Gaia response is not so far fetched to an ecologist. It won't be in my lifetime though. Perhaps I should live in the tundra, or the desert, or somewhere without oaks...but then, it would be another plant.

So in the end, as Easter is upon us and we contemplate the death of Jesus, it is perhaps fitting. If this is all I have to bear, I suppose it is negligible to the sufferings he endured. Even to the sufferings of many around the world today. I am weak and soft and self-centered. But I commit this, as I must do all things, to Him. He is my hope, my salvation, my comfort. May I keep perspective and accept what I cannot change. The Unmodify Method I've described in recent posts has been difficult for me in this. But I'm trying to embrace it.

Happy Easter.

A Painful Corollary

After posting last night, I continued thinking about the problem when my teacher Jack reminded me that he had written a fabulous book on the subject. Not having a copy on hand, I went to the trusty internet and found exactly what I needed. As usual, my thoughts on the subject were highly influenced by Jack's book, even though I didn't realize it at the time. Refreshing my memory also helped refresh my certainty of his answers.

Since I can't possibly recount them as well as he does, I highly recommend that anyone reading this and interested check out his book on the subject, The Problem of Pain.

These things though, I would add to my previous thoughts on the subject. Going through suffering, or pain, is not at all the same as writing about it. While the two influence each other, I would in no way presume that suffering people need only to reason their way through it.

That said, the solution lies in our definition of goodness. I approached this and couldn't articulate it in the last post. As Jack says, it is not a difference like black from white, but like a perfect circle from a child's first attempt at drawing a circle. The one of course perfect, and the other approximating it, but very irregularly. While we think of goodness as mostly kindness, true goodness is composed of all the virtues and seeks to perfect the object of its love, where kindness would simply seek to spare the object of its affection any pain.

With that in mind, we can see how pain can serve a refining purpose. It teaches us that things will happen to us without our consent. It cannot be ignored. It shows us our weakness and need for rescue. It forces a rebel to submit. Thus pain can be viewed as a good thing. The result of force applied justly and beneficently to perfect what is imperfect by its own perversion.

Again, I don't think this fully explains all forms of suffering. In particular the more brutal and horrific kinds. But if we can accept that self must be abdicated (this is the perfecting I mention) and suffering is the tool to effect it, this may take us far enough down the road to trust that it will take us home even if we can't yet see the end of it.

Thanks to Jack, as always, my ready teacher. Your clarity is a gift from God. As my friend Brother Lawrence says, we ought not to be surprised at the badness in such a wicked world, but rather surprised that there is not more of it. This is echoed by one of the most thoughful modern bands I have heard. Flyleaf says, don't be surprised that people die, be surprised you're still alive.

The Problem of Suffering

I'm back on this again. It's a hard topic for me, and one that I keep running into. Mainly because our modern American popular "Christianity" is so much about what God can do for us. The Bible is clear that Christianity is not about fixing all your problems. Most people acknowledge this. But then they make half-baked statements in the middle of sermons like, "How do you know God's voice from a deception? Well, first of all, God will never tell you to do something that harms your health." This is absolutely false! Was Jesus deceived when God led him to the cross? That certainly harmed his health! What about all the martyrs? Was Paul totally deceived because he kept saying things that got him beaten or imprisoned? Come on!

Now, I understand how easy it is to mis-speak in the midst of a speech. And I am confident that if confronted in a calmer setting this same person would not at all really mean what he said, but the fact remains that he did say it publicly, and that is the burden of any public teacher. People heard what was said and will take it at face value whether he meant it that way or not...a falsehood by accident is still a lie. Ironic that it came in a sermon about deceptions!

But more difficult for me than this is how people treat the topic of God's role in suffering. I'm not going into the tired old 'how could a good God..." argument, you can read the thousands of books on that as well as I can. What bothers me more is this. Many people argue that a good God couldn't make people suffer, but He could allow it for a greater purpose. I totally agree with this. It is consistent with the Bible and historic teaching. But some go further and say that an all-knowing God allowing people to suffer means He must have purposed the suffering in some way...and that isn't good, therefore He couldn't even allow it. This creates an impasse, since suffering does exist. Is He just impotent in this way? That doesn't work! So, many modern people explain it by saying that God doesn't purpose the suffering but is big enough in His omniscience to use the sufferings of our fallen world for His purposes. He won't violate our will even enough to stop the suffering.

But is that love? What parent wouldn't violate their child's will to seize their hand going for the hot stove? And if He is big enough in His omniscience to work good from the bad that He has no part in, isn't He big enough to find a way to get around the undeserved suffering without violating our free will? See this just doesn't work in my mind. I would say the people who espouse this are just wrong, if it weren't coming from some very respected sources. I trust these people's judgement far too much to dismiss it. I may very well be missing something.

So, what options might exist? There's the medeival view of a God that has some sort of backward sense of good and finds mortal pain to be pleasure...but this seems to me more fetish or perhaps misinterpretation of words that took on a very jargoned meaning for those groups. (Just like the Romans thought that Christians were orgiasts from the outside observations of their behaviors and from overhearing how they talked to each other.)

But what about the view that God is a parent? This is common in the Bible. Any parent knows that disciplining a child means inflicting some form of suffering. A good parent knows how to do it in a correcting and nurturing way, but it involves scolding, punishing, restricting...depriving of free will. No good parent would even think they could raise a child without proper application of these tools, even if the child feels bad...suffers...temporarily by it. We know it will work good in the end and they will be better off when they come to see it. Does this not much better fit the problem of suffering than all the mental gymnastics it takes to make it work otherwise? In this view, we simply need to acknowledge our own limited perspective (orthodox) and view ourselves as children (biblical) and God as the loving parent (natural). This seems to resolve the whole issue. If we suffer, God isn't limiting Himself out of His love for our free will ("go ahead honey, grab the stove if you must, I'll be able to nurse your wounds after so good will come of it, even if you don't see that I love you now."...how sick!) Rather, He is using the same tools He has modeled for us in our natural lives to train us and work His purposes. Therefore the suffering isn't really bad...but a sign of higher love.

This all breaks down again when we talk about heinous evils that some people suffer. It would be far too severe to say that rape or child abuse are training up by a parental God. So, I'm back where I started. And when logic goes in a circle, it is prudent to simply say, "I don't know." This is beyond me. I can't explain it. But I know from experience, from philosophical proof, and from authority that God is good, must be good. I also know that bad things happen, even to good people. I can only trust that my Daddy is not going to hurt me or those I love one ounce more than is absolutely necessary to work His purposes, which are always good.

There are some things that words cannot embody. Where they fail, sometimes we must look to other means of communication. When I plead this before God asking for clarity, I find only the most loving embrace. And in that, I know there is no malice. In that, I find myself letting go of my will to self and knowing my existence is beyond any mortal suffering.

God, make your presence known to all who are suffering tonight.

Suffering

Suffering is a difficult concept. We all know that it does not feel good to suffer. Bad things are part of life, but who wants them? Various traditions deal with it in different ways. In my tradition, it is taught that since God is in total control and is totally good, suffering of those who love God is a matter of growth. In this light it can even be a blessing to suffer. The martyrs and ascetics positively gloried in it. I can understand this, but I must qualify that it is only so in the context of those who love God. How deeply this holds true, I can't say. While in my naivety I once thought that ultimate suffering was good and that I could handle it, I have long since left the plain of the hard-minded. There is definitely a suffering that is just evil. Suffering that I would not wish on anyone, no matter what. Rape and beating of children are easy examples. But there are many other sufferings that we would not wish on people.

So I find myself in a tension...strung between two wires. The one understanding that God can allow suffering to purify and to draw us to his love. The other hating the suffering caused by evil and wanting to alleviate it at all costs.

But I guess it is in that tension that there is the most truth. To suffer in peace and understand that God will work His good in spite of and through it while seeking to lighten the load and resolve suffering and injustice. How we talk about it should depend on the understanding of who we are talking to. I see this in Jesus' life and words. Tender to the hurting, angry toward those who inflict it, and humbly submissive toward God who led Him through it.