The truth about suffering

Recently I saw a cartoon in the Christian Century showing an economist holding a clipboard and a distraught man. The economist stated: ”The fundamentals of the economy are sound.”  The distraught man quips:” but I am not earning enough to survive.  The economist answers:”that is not one of the fundamentals. “We’ve had some questions asked about suffering earlier and we have looked at what the Bible texts throw out at us.  How can put that together and find some new meaning about the experience of suffering?   Alfred de Vigny, a nineteenth century French poet wrote: I love the majesty of human suffering.”  This is kind of a troubling statement, but it is true that suffering is it the heart of most human art and literature.  English novelist William Somerset Maugham wrote in The Moon and Sixpence that:” it is not true that suffering ennobles that character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.” Which seems to say pretty much the opposite about suffering.  We have the famous saying:”What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” which is a statement that is part true and part absolute nonsense because I have met plenty of people who were crippled by their suffering and perhaps so have you.  What is clear is that although all through human history men have more often been killed than women, it is also true to say that all through history women have borne suffering more than men disproportionally. We all can come up with hundreds of example from the top of our head.  We remember mothers especially. During my teenage year whenever I came back to the salty smell of the seaside town where I was born, I would walk from my grandfather’s house past the harbor where my great grandfather’s fishing fleet used to be tied down and climb on top of a human made hill designed to protect the town from the restless grey North Sea.  Not far from there is a bronze statue of a woman in traditional village dress peering across the sea, waiting and praying for husband and sons to return from the sea.  It is suffering of the soul, of the heart and of the stomach.

Friends, most of you us know people who are Buddhist and some of you were Buddhists.  Buddhism has a lot to say about suffering which has educated me.  The way I interpret some of what and I have read and heard is that we have some control over our suffering, at least over the psychological and spiritual part of it, for suffering is temporary, just like all things in life are.  It won’t last.  So better to appreciate the good and the beautiful while we can.  Kiyo’s florist has this neat gift item called a Buddha board made up of stone and water and screen.  When you write on it with a brush and water, after a number of minutes the writing will disappear.  It is very realistic, sobering and beautiful. Suffering also has its roots in desire, for if we desire nothing we do not suffer: if we do not desire certain relationships or certain physical comforts or the possession of a home or a certain appearance for ourselves or for those we love, then our suffering will be minimal.  The more we control desire, the less we suffer. The more we accept thing as they are rather than demand they are not, the less we suffer.  Japanese culture of course has been drenched in Buddhist thinking over the century.   I know very few words in Japanese and my favorite is “hontene” or “is that so?”  The words I have heard the most are “gaman” and “shikataganai” which although hard to translate have a lot to do with what I have just said.  It has to do with suffering through things and accepted that things “can’t be helped.”  Christianity is just as concerned with suffering.  The Old Testament psalmists and prophets rail against, Job chews God out over it and as a result Christians and Jews are often beating their heads against the wall crying:”why, why, why?” This is itself is therapeutic, but not satisfying intellectually.  In Christian faith the preoccupation with suffering is not detached and dispassionate, but passionate and involved.  Christian theologians have come up with roughly three different answers to that why question.  The first one is the traditional answer that says “God is in charge and sovereign and some day we will understand why God allows everything to happen the way it does.” Second, much of suffering is the fault of humans and the rest is a mystery.”  Third, God wishes to transform the way things are, but does not control everything and God works in a subtle ways to influence creation, including people’s actions.” People will be more comfortable with one of these answers depending on their personality, experience and stage of life.

William DeBurgh has a drawing of Jesus sitting on a park bench with a young man with a backpack next to him. The young man asks Him: ‘So why do you allow things like famine, war, suffering, disease, crime, homelessness, despair etc. exist in our world?” Jesus answers:” Interesting that you should bring that up as I was about to ask you the exact same questions.” Friends, the most beautiful religious story I think is that one at the heart of the Bible and that God is so desperately in love with human beings that God is willing totally to enter their suffering as one of them, as Jesus.  Only by doing that could God completely show the world the extent of God’s love. This means that in Christian life we are always anchored in God’s love. Thanks be to God.