Followup on Suffering Well: Suffering and the Will of God

[Dear Sister Laurel, I wanted to thank you for the article you wrote on suffering well. I am surprised by part of it. You say that you do not believe that God wills you to be ill and I guess that means you don't believe that God wills you to suffer, but don't we pray to accept our suffering when we pray "Thy will be done" in the Lord's prayer? Wasn't Jesus praying to accept his suffering when he prayed this in Gethsemane? Do you really not believe that we are praying to accept our suffering when we pray this way? Aren't we to embrace sufferings as the cross of Christ?]]

Thanks for your comment and questions. I think you have put your finger on a really neuralgic place in the Lord's Prayer, Gethsemane, and our own approach to God's will. (And no pun intended with the term "neuralgic".) It is very common to think of the will of God somehow being related to suffering. We get a difficult diagnosis and say, "Well, it must be the will of God!" Or, some terrible tragedy happens and we (unfortunately often carelessly and blithely) say, "We must accept the will of God!" --- as though God wills the tragedy. Isn't it "funny" (peculiar, strange, uncritical, unreasonable, etc.) the way we 1) associate the will of God with suffering, and 2) assume we know what the will of God is in these and similar cases? In fact, when the Lord's Prayer speaks of the will of God being done on earth as it is in heaven, it is talking about something very much different than suffering. It is the coming of the Kingdom of God, the realm of justice, peace, meaning, hope, and authentic humanity here on earth that is the will of God in the Lord's Prayer. The petition for the will of God is the third "Thou" petition, that is, third petition that refers to God's being God for us. All three  "Thou" petitions refer to God as verb, God as actor and initiator, God as the One who brings creation into being and to fulfillment of being. All three petitions are ways of opening ourselves to dimensions of what it means to allow God to be God.

I believe something very similar is happening as Jesus says, "Not my will, but Thy will be done", when he is struggling in Gethsemane. Jesus struggled with temptation to use his identity as Son of God to do works of power when he was driven in to the desert by the Holy Spirit after his baptism. He very definitively chose the way of weakness even though the temptations he experienced would have involved the use of his power for good things in and of themselves. (There is nothing wrong with getting food when one is starving or to accept leadership of kingdoms when one would be a wonderful leader, etc.) I think this was a choice he made many times during his public ministry. Now, at the end of the story Jesus must choose again in a final and exhaustive way; he must commit himself to a way of seeing God's purposes and plans that depend on Jesus' own weakness, his own helplessness, and his total dependence on God to bring meaning out of the senselessness people will commit against him and the mission of God, not only unto death "but (unto) death on a cross". I think of this choice as both qualitatively the same and distinct in terms of intensity and difficulty as the decisions Jesus has made right along through his public ministry. He continues to choose "left-handed power" (God's power being perfected in weakness). But now he will have to journey to that far place the NT calls sinful or godless death without any precedent for understanding this in terms of either Judaism or the Greco-Roman world. He will have to trust and depend entirely on God even when he cannot feel God's presence (in fact, when he feels God's absence and abandonment by God).

I think this is what Jesus is saying yes to; this is the will of God he is committing to, despite not being able to see it, imagine it,  understand it, etc.  But I also think if we were to ask Jesus if his Abba willed his suffering, he would look at us as if we had gone off the rails completely, and I think he would exclaim, "Of course not! How could you suggest that?? That's not the One I have been revealing (making real) to you all this time!!" And yet, God wills to enter into sinful death and transform it with his presence. He  wills that Jesus choose the way of weakness. He knows what we human beings will do to Jesus. What we will do (and, it often seems, what we almost inevitably do to holiness or true humanity when confronted with these) is NOT the will of God. That is something the Cross shows us without doubt. The cruelty, treachery, cowardice, duplicity, betrayal, human abandonment, etc hardly argue this (trial and crucifixion) is the will of God. But a God who reveals himself in weakness, a God whose grace is sufficient for us, a God who can and will bring meaning out of absurdity, wholeness out of brokenness, righteousness out of sin, and fulfillment out of emptiness --- these things ARE the will of God. Our God reveals himself as the One from whose love nothing whatsoever can separate us; this is the lesson of the Cross. Not that God wills suffering, but that God wills an end to anything that can cause suffering due to separation or alienation from God.

Your question about Jesus accepting his suffering is a different question though than the question of whether or not God wills Jesus' suffering.  It is one thing to determine suffering is somehow inevitable and something else to believe God wills that suffering. It is one thing to consent to journey wherever one's life takes one and to commit to doing so with God; it is another to assert that every step, no matter how skewed or painful was actually willed by God. God can certainly use Jesus' suffering; God can and does bring an almost infinite good out of it (this, after all, is part of the Good News we Christians proclaim); but this does not mean God wills the suffering per se, nor the degradation, torture, and inhumanity human beings take on in their reaction to Jesus!! Surely we cannot say the religious and civil leadership and crowds in Jesus' passion were cooperating with the will of God!!! But Paul faced the same paradox. He wrote, "Where sin abounded grace abounded all the more. What should we say, sin more so that grace may abound even more? God forbid!!!" Our God does not will our suffering any more than he does Jesus' --- but at the same time we should be consoled that where suffering abounds grace will abound all the more!!! Nothing can separate us from the Love of God.

Thus, my answer to your final question re accepting our own sufferings as a share in the Cross of Christ lies in line with all of this. Do what we can to remain open to the God whose power is revealed in weakness. Do not believe that God wills one's suffering per se, at least not when we are speaking of things like illness, tragedy, sinfulness, and death, but believe they will never have the final word or the last silence. Do what Jesus did when he accepted his own cross (the weight of his own authentic humanity), namely accept a humanity that makes God known (or at least CAN make God known) even in those realities which seem antithetical to Divinity and Holiness. Trust this. We do what we can reasonably do medically, etc to relieve suffering, but when there really is nothing that can be done, we trust that our God will be there for us in this way; God has revealed in the cross of Christ that he will be present with and for us in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. This is the Good News we must cling to in the midst of any suffering.

Is Vocation Ever Coercive?

 [[Sister Laurel, do you think God wanted you to be chronically ill so that you would become a hermit?  I am asking because one blogger on the eremitical life wrote that without her chronic illness she might well be tempted to live as other than a hermit and God told her he didn't want that. Here is what she said, [[perhaps the hermit would be drawn out from its vocational calling as a consecrated Catholic hermit. The temptation would be great to do so. The Lord has told it in the witnessed presence of [name] that if the physical pain were eased, this soul would be back out into the world--and the Lord did not will that.]] Do you think God would refuse to heal you so that you can keep on living as a hermit? I also wondered how the Church would deal with someone who was so tempted to leave a vocation as a hermit that God had to inflict her with serious pain and illness to keep her in the hermitage! I mean that sounds kind of depraved to me.

In what kind of God do we believe?

My answer is an unequivocal NO! I think it is always important to ask ourselves what kind of God would operate in this way. If we leave the character of such a God merely implicit we may never see that we have suggested God is some kind of monster responsible for the sufferings and tragedies of our lives. I think it is clear that the author of the comments suffers from serious pain and that that means she struggles to make sense of the dislocation that has caused. But to attribute all of this to a God who wants her to be a hermit and knows she would consider returning to "the world" outside her hermitage, and thus actually causes her to have terrible physical pain to prevent that is simply awful theology in any number of ways. Catholic faith's theology of vocation is skewed in this presentation, as is a theology of discernment. The same is true of our concept of free will, authentic freedom, providence, and of course, any other bit of theology that depends on an eternally faithful, self-emptying, creative, merciful God who is love-in-act itself.

Still, the questions you asked are important and the problem of theodicy (a theology of suffering) is one with which theologians and every individual human being struggles. But no. I do not believe God willed me to develop a medically and surgically intractable seizure disorder accompanied by chronic pain. Never! No God worth worshiping would will such a situation. Illness is a symptom of sin, the state of estrangement from the ground of being and meaning. We are all more or less subject to it, more or less threatened by it, and in many ways assured that one day we will know it intimately. Sometimes we are complicit in the illnesses that befall us or those near us. In any case illness is an enemy of God. Sin and death are intimately related and death, we are told in Scripture, is the final enemy to be placed under God's feet. We simply cannot buy into theodicies that make God complicit in these realities.

The Place of Chronic Illness in my Own Life:

But what do I believe about the place of chronic illness and God's will in my life? Clearly I believe that God called me to this life and I believe that chronic illness is an important source of my understanding of this vocation; in fact, I would argue that I am suited to this vocation in a unique way because of chronic illness and other life circumstances. I would even argue these elements of my life prepared me for this call and for living it ever more deeply and authentically. When I quoted the passage from The Hermitage Within recently (cf A Contemplative Moment on Entire Availability) I was pointing to something profoundly true in my own life, namely, that even when our lives are stripped of individual discrete gifts and talents, when all we have to offer is a kind of emptiness, God can and will make a gift of that (of us!). It is precisely this bottom line kind of situation the eremitical life witnesses to. As I have written here a number of times now, human beings ARE covenant realities, made for and of union with God. Their weakness is the counterpart of divine power and sovereignty;  unless a person's life evidences significant weakness and stripping or emptying how can they witness to the unmerited fullness of the grace of God?

At the same time, whether life has stripped the person in this way or they have renounced the use of so many of their gifts and talents in becoming a hermit, they MUST witness to the other side of the equation. When one looks closely at her life one MUST see a life defined not by the things that stripped and emptied that life of gifts and talents (or of the opportunities to use these) but instead a life defined by the grace of God that transfigures and redeems such a life. Here is one of the differences between a hermit and a failure at life, between a hermit and a curmudgeon, between a hermit whose life is truly one of the silence of solitude (the quies of a life in union with God) and one whose silence is merely a mute scream of anguish, between an authentic hermit and an isolated individual whose life is marked by deprivation and lack of real relatedness (which would include a superficial or nominal relationship with God).

For a long time I was unable to see various circumstances in my life as gifts which truly prepared me for answering this unique call of God with a commitment to eremitical life. They really seemed to be obstacles to the fullness God was calling me to instead. Today I see them as gifts, not because God willed them but because God transfigured them in ways which made an infinite sense of them. Thus, I am not saying I believe God always called me to be a hermit, much less that God willed the negative circumstances in my life that especially prepared me for the response I was to make to God's call --- circumstances like chronic illness for instance. Part of what I am saying is that God always called me to be fully alive and especially to be myself in union with Himself; the circumstances of my life tailored the kind of answer or response I could and would give.

They tailored or shaped the form which my response to God's love and promise of life would need to take just as they shaped the aspects of the Gospel I would be most responsive to. They urged me to respond to the Word of Life wherever it entered my life, in the smallest and most ordinary ways --- and in a few absolutely extraordinary ones as well. Especially all this defined my call in terms of weakness, emptiness, and stripping because it was these which were redeemed and transformed by the unfailing love of God. These were what needed to be transfigured so that they would not have the last word in my life, or better, so that they would speak of victory rather than of absurdity, defeat and destruction! The various vocations I felt called to (Religious life, teaching, writing, and music) served, both more and less well in the accomplishment of all that. As my director reminded me when we spoke about some of this last week, God's word (so Isaiah 55 promises) does not return to him void.

Vocation as collaboration:

The one "shaped response" which was truly adequate, to the circumstances of my own life and the necessary and unique witness to their redemption or perfecting is, in fact, eremitical life and beyond that, solitary eremitical life. In other words, my entire life prepared me to make this specific and radical response to the creative call of God. I have the sense that God's call and my response are a collaboration which makes my whole life an expression of Gospel truth and joy. Thus it seems to me that vocation is always a matter of collaborating (or, at the very least, cooperating!) with the creator God who brings life out of death and an awesome and infinitely complex cosmos out of nothing at all.Today I recognize that had the circumstances of my life been different  I would likely have still become a theologian and religious Sister with a bent for solitude, but my call to eremitism is more radical because the answer to the question of my life needed to be a truly radical one.

Thus, the vocation we eventually embrace is something which frees us; it makes sense of and answers or completes (resolves) the questions we are. It is a supreme act of love on God's part and our embrace is an act of worship only we can make or become. Our whole lives we listen for that God who calls each and all of us to life and freedom in the midst of even the worst circumstances. We listen to the deepest yearnings of our heart, to the cries of anguish that result when those yearnings are frustrated, denied, and damped, to the potential and talents we hold and develop as signs of the promise of our lives, and the words of encouragement we cling to as part of what motivates and gives us hope. The response we will one day become is shaped in all of these ways and more by the God who is with us in all things. Each of these is a face of vocation, an aspect of the creative and loving call of the God who, standing with us moment by moment, draws us more deeply into a genuine future --- and in fact, into our own truest future.

The only personally diminishing or coercive aspects of this picture are those supplied by sin and evil. So, no, I absolutely reject the notion that God willed me or anyone else to be ill so that we might be forced somehow to become a hermit. The notion that God might thereafter have refused to ease my (or anyone's) suffering much less made it worse lest I (or they) chose something else is absolute anathema and quite frankly, it is blasphemous anathema at that. Such a "God" is unworthy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; this God would be a scandal and only worthy of our rejection. To believe in such a God is to apotheosize coercion and violence. It is to transform the idea of a vocation or call from an awesome gift into an oppressive, even crippling burden and to make ludicrous any attempts to speak of Gospel freedom or the covenant nature of human existence. As you have said so well, all this sounds "depraved."

The Church and the Discernment of Eremitical Vocations:

Your question about the church's approach to a person struggling in the way the person you quoted seems to be struggling is also a good one. I don't think anyone I know in vocations work would let a person who admitted such deep unhappiness with a vocational path to continue pursuing it. Above all, my sense is the Church (diocesan Vicars, Bishops, vocation personnel, pastors, etc) would encourage the person to embrace the world as sacramental and push her to seek God in those things she really loves and is drawn to. That is especially true if there is significant suffering; after all, God does not will suffering and there must be sources of life and inspiration which allow the grace of God to counter such difficulty. Since suffering and chronic illness tend to isolate one, unless there are strong indications that solitude is precisely this person's way to human wholeness and profound joy, I sincerely doubt any diocese would allow them to be professed or consecrated as a solitary hermit.

It is not easy to make sense of the suffering that exists in our lives and to some extent I can understand why the person you cited wrote what she did. After all, the Old Testament is full of stories which attribute the calamities of life to "the gods". But more and more what emerges throughout the OT is the God of Abraham, the God of Jacob and Israel who is revealed in terms of mercy and compassion. In the New Testament the revelation of just HOW exhaustively merciful and compassionate this real God is is realized in our midst as he spends himself to rescue us from sin and death by becoming subject to these things in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus his Christ. It is here especially that love has the last word as reconciliation (union or completion) and life are brought forth from the depths of godless death and godless death itself is destroyed forever. To affirm that God refuses to ease a person's pain or even exacerbates it so that she cannot pursue another way of living is to implicitly reclaim the gods being progressively rejected in the Old Testament at the expense of the God of Jesus Christ. Probably we all have pockets of such belief deep within us, but if we are to respond to the gifts our vocations truly are it is really imperative that we outgrow these and allow them to be replaced by the merciful and compassionate God of Jesus Christ.

Exaltation of the Cross (Reprise)

[[Could you write something about Sunday's feast of the Exaltation of the Cross? What is a truly healthy and yet deeply spiritual way to exalt the Cross in our personal lives, and in the world at large (that is, supporting those bearing their crosses while not supporting the evil that often causes the destruction and pain that our brothers and sisters are called to endure due to sinful social structures?]]

The above question which arrived by email was the result of reading some of my posts, mainly those on victim soul theology, the Pauline theology of the Cross, and some earlier ones having to do with the permissive will of God. For that reason my answer presupposes much of what I wrote in those and I will try not to be too repetitive. First of all, in answering the question, I think it is helpful to remember the alternative name of this feast, namely, the Triumph of the Cross. For me personally this is a "better" name, and yet, it is a deeply paradoxical one, just like its alternative.

Cathedral of Christ the Light, Oakland

How many times have we heard it suggested that Christians ought not wear crosses around their necks as jewelry any more than they should wear tiny images of electric chairs, medieval racks or other symbols of torture and death? Similarly, how many times has it been said that making jewelry of the cross trivializes what happened there? There is a great deal of truth in these objections, and in similar ones! On the one hand the cross points to the slaughter by torture of hundreds of thousands of people by an oppressive state. More individually it points to the slaughter by torture of an innocent man in order to appease a rowdy religious crowd by an individual of troubled but dishonest conscience, one who put "the supposed greater good" before the innocence of this single victim.

And of course there were collaborators in this slaughter: the religious establishment, disciples who were either too cowardly to stand up for their beliefs, or those who actively betrayed this man who had loved them and called them to a life of greater abundance (and personal risk) than they had ever known before. If we are going to appreciate the triumph of the cross, if we are going to exalt it as Christians do and should, then we cannot forget this aspect of it. Especially we cannot forget that much that happened here was NOT THE WILL OF GOD, nor that generally the perpetrators were not cooperating with that will! The cross was the triumph of God over sin and sinful godless death, but it was ALSO a sinful and godless human (and societal!) act of murder by torture. (In fact one could argue it was a true divine triumph ONLY because it was also these all-too-human things.) Both aspects exist in tension with each other, as they do in ALL of God's victories in our world. It is this tension our jewelry and other crucifixes embody: they are miniature instruments of torture, yes, but also symbols of God's ultimate triumph over the powers of sin and death with which humans are so intimately entangled and complicit.

In our own lives there are crosses, burdens which are the result of societal and personal sin which we must bear responsibly and creatively. That means not only that we cannot shirk them, but also that we bear them with all the asistance that God puts into our hands. Especially it means allowing God to assist us in the carrying of this cross. To really exalt the cross of Christ is to honor all that God did with and made of the very worst that human beings could do to another human being. To exult in our own personal crosses means, at the very least, to allow God to transform them with his presence. That is the way we truly exalt the Cross: we allow it to become the way in which God enters our lives, the passion that breaks us open, makes us completely vulnerable, and urges us to embrace or let God embrace us in a way which comforts, sustains, and even transfigures the whole face of our lives.

If we are able to do this, then the Cross does indeed triumph. Suffering does not. Pain does not. Neither will our lives be defined in terms of these things despite their very real presence. What I think needs to be especially clear is that the exaltation of the cross has to do with what was made possible in light of the combination of awful and humanly engineered torment, and the grace of God. Sin abounded but grace abounded all the more. Does this mean we invite suffering so that "grace may abound all the more?" Well, Paul's clear answer to that question was, "By no means!" How about tolerating suffering when we can do something about it? What about remaining in an abusive relationship, or refusing medical treatment which would ease mental and physical pain, for instance? Do we treat these as crosses we MUST bear? Do we allow ourselves to become complicit in the abuse or the destructive effects of pain and physical or mental illness? I think the general answer is no, of course not.

That means we must look for ways to allow God's grace to triumph, while the triumph of grace ALWAYS results in greater human freedom and authentic functioning. Discerning what is necessary and what will REALLY be an exaltation of the cross in our own lives means determining and acting on the ways freedom from bondage and more authentic humanity can be achieved. Ordinarily this will mean medical treatment; or it will mean moving out of the abusive situation. In ALL cases it means remaining open to and dependent upon God and to what he desires for our lives IN SPITE of the limitations and suffering inherent in them. This is what Jesus did, and what made his cross salvific. This openness and responsiveness to God and what he will do with our lives is, as I have said many times before, what the Scriptures called obedience. Let me be clear: the will of God in ANY situation is that we remain open to him and that authentic humanity be achieved. We MUST do whatever it is that allows us to not close off to God, and to remain open to growth AS HUMAN. If our pain dehumanizes, then we must act in ways which changes that. If our lives cease to reflect the grace of God (and this means fails to be a joyfilled, free, fruitful, loving, genuinely human life) then we must act in ways which change that.

The same is true in society more generally. We must act in ways which open others TO THE GRACE OF GOD. Yes, suffering does this, but this hardly means we simply tell people to pray, grin, and bear it ---- much less allow the oppressive structures to stay in place! As the gospels tell us, "the poor you will always have with you" but this hardly means doing nothing to relieve poverty! Similarly we will always have suffering with us on this side of death, and especially the suffering that comes when human beings institutionalize their own sinful drives and actions. What is essential is that the Cross of Christ is exalted, that the Cross of Christ triumphs in our lives and society, not simply that individual crosses remain or that we exalt them (especially when they are the result of human engineering and sin)! And, as I have written before, to allow Christ's Cross to triumph is to allow the grace of God to transform all the dark and meaningless places with his presence, light and love. It is ONLY in this way that we truly "make up for what is lacking in the passion of Christ."

The paradox in Sunday's Feast is that the exaltation of the Cross implies suffering, and stresses that the cross empowers the ability to suffer well, but at the same time points to a freedom the world cannot grant --- a freedom in which we both transcend and transform suffering because of a victory Christ has won over the powers of sin and death which are built right into our lives and in the structures of this world. Thus, we cannot ever collude with the powers of this world; we must always be sure we are acting in complicity with the grace of God instead. Sometimes this means accepting the suffering that comes our way (or encouraging and supporting others in doing so of course), but never for its own sake. If our (or their) suffering does not result in greater human authenticity, greater freedom from bondage, greater joy and true peace, then it is not suffering which exalts the Cross of Christ. If it does not in some way transform and subvert the structures of this world which oppress and destroy, then it does not express the triumph of Jesus' Cross, nor are we really participating in THAT Cross in embracing our own.

I am certain I have not completely answered your question, but for now this will need to suffice. My thanks for your patience. If you have other questions which can assist me to do a better job, I would very much appreciate them. Again, thanks for your emails.

Questions on Suffering and the Exaltation of the Cross

[[Could you write something about Sunday's feast of the Exaltation of the Cross? What is a truly healthy and yet deeply spiritual way to exalt the Cross in our personal lives, and in the world at large (that is, supporting those bearing their crosses while not supporting the evil that often causes the destruction and pain that our brothers and sisters are called to endure due to sinful social structures?]]

The above question which arrived by email was the result of reading some of my posts, mainly those on victim soul theology, the Pauline theology of the Cross, and some earlier ones having to do with the permissive will of God. For that reason my answer presupposes much of what I wrote in those and I will try not to be too repetitive. First of all, in answering the question, I think it is helpful to remember the alternative name of this feast, namely, the Triumph of the Cross. For me personally this is a "better" name, and yet, it is a deeply paradoxical one, just like its alternative.


(Crucifix in Ambo of Cathedral of Christ the Light; Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, or Cathedral Sunday in the Diocese of Oakland)


How many times have we heard it suggested that Christians ought not wear crosses around their necks as jewelry any more than they should wear tiny images of electric chairs, medieval racks or other symbols of torture and death? Similarly, how many times has it been said that making jewelry of the cross trivializes what happened there? There is a great deal of truth in these objections, and in similar ones! On the one hand the cross points to the slaughter by torture of hundreds of thousands of people by an oppressive state. More individually it points to the slaughter by torture of an innocent man in order to appease a rowdy religious crowd by an individual of troubled but dishonest conscience, one who put "the supposed greater good" before the innocence of this single victim.

And of course there were collaborators in this slaughter: the religious establishment, disciples who were either too cowardly to stand up for their beliefs, or those who actively betrayed this man who had loved them and called them to a life of greater abundance (and personal risk) than they had ever known before. If we are going to appreciate the triumph of the cross, if we are going to exalt it as Christians do and should, then we cannot forget this aspect of it. Especially we cannot forget that much that happened here was NOT THE WILL OF GOD, nor that generally the perpetrators were not cooperating with that will! The cross was the triumph of God over sin and sinful godless death, but it was ALSO a sinful and godless human (and societal!) act of murder by torture. (In fact one could argue it was a true divine triumph ONLY because it was also these all-too-human things.) Both aspects exist in tension with each other, as they do in ALL of God's victories in our world. It is this tension our jewelry and other crucifixes embody: they are miniature instruments of torture, yes, but also symbols of God's ultimate triumph over the powers of sin and death with which humans are so intimately entangled and complicit.

In our own lives there are crosses, burdens which are the result of societal and personal sin which we must bear responsibly and creatively. That means not only that we cannot shirk them, but also that we bear them with all the asistance that God puts into our hands. Especially it means allowing God to assist us in the carrying of this cross. To really exalt the cross of Christ is to honor all that God did with and made of the very worst that human beings could do to another human being. To exult in our own personal crosses means, at the very least, to allow God to transform them with his presence. That is the way we truly exalt the Cross: we allow it to become the way in which God enters our lives, the passion that breaks us open, makes us completely vulnerable, and urges us to embrace or let God embrace us in a way which comforts, sustains, and even transfigures the whole face of our lives.

If we are able to do this, then the Cross does indeed triumph. Suffering does not. Pain does not. Neither will our lives be defined in terms of these things despite their very real presence. What I think needs to be especially clear is that the exaltation of the cross has to do with what was made possible in light of the combination of awful and humanly engineered torment, and the grace of God. Sin abounded but grace abounded all the more. Does this mean we invite suffering so that "grace may abound all the more?" Well, Paul's clear answer to that question was, "By no means!" How about tolerating suffering when we can do something about it? What about remaining in an abusive relationship, or refusing medical treatment which would ease mental and physical pain, for instance? Do we treat these as crosses we MUST bear? Do we allow ourselves to become complicit in the abuse or the destructive effects of pain and physical or mental illness? I think the general answer is no, of course not.

That means we must look for ways to allow God's grace to triumph, while the triumph of grace ALWAYS results in greater human freedom and authentic functioning. Discerning what is necessary and what will REALLY be an exaltation of the cross in our own lives means determining and acting on the ways freedom from bondage and more authentic humanity can be achieved. Ordinarily this will mean medical treatment; or it will mean moving out of the abusive situation. In ALL cases it means remaining open to and dependent upon God and to what he desires for our lives IN SPITE of the limitations and suffering inherent in them. This is what Jesus did, and what made his cross salvific. This openness and responsiveness to God and what he will do with our lives is, as I have said many times before, what the Scriptures called obedience. Let me be clear: the will of God in ANY situation is that we remain open to him and that authentic humanity be achieved. We MUST do whatever it is that allows us to not close off to God, and to remain open to growth AS HUMAN. If our pain dehumanizes, then we must act in ways which changes that. If our lives cease to reflect the grace of God (and this means fails to be a joyfilled, free, fruitful, loving, genuinely human life) then we must act in ways which change that.

The same is true in society more generally. We must act in ways which open others TO THE GRACE OF GOD. Yes, suffering does this, but this hardly means we simply tell people to pray, grin, and bear it ---- much less allow the oppressive structures to stay in place! As the gospels tell us, "the poor you will always have with you" but this hardly means doing nothing to relieve poverty! Similarly we will always have suffering with us on this side of death, and especially the suffering that comes when human beings institutionalize their own sinful drives and actions. What is essential is that the Cross of Christ is exalted, that the Cross of Christ triumphs in our lives and society, not simply that individual crosses remain or that we exalt them (especially when they are the result of human engineering and sin)! And, as I have written before, to allow Christ's Cross to triumph is to allow the grace of God to transform all the dark and meaningless places with his presence, light and love. It is ONLY in this way that we truly "make up for what is lacking in the passion of Christ."

The paradox in Sunday's Feast is that the exaltation of the Cross implies suffering, and stresses that the cross empowers the ability to suffer well, but at the same time points to a freedom the world cannot grant --- a freedom in which we both transcend and transform suffering because of a victory Christ has won over the powers of sin and death which are built right into our lives and in the structures of this world. Thus, we cannot ever collude with the powers of this world; we must always be sure we are acting in complicity with the grace of God instead. Sometimes this means accepting the suffering that comes our way (or encouraging and supporting others in doing so of course), but never for its own sake. If our (or their) suffering does not result in greater human authenticity, greater freedom from bondage, greater joy and true peace, then it is not suffering which exalts the Cross of Christ. If it does not in some way transform and subvert the structures of this world which oppress and destroy, then it does not express the triumph of Jesus' Cross, nor are we really participating in THAT Cross in embracing our own.

I am certain I have not completely answered your question, but for now this will need to suffice. My thanks for your patience. If you have other questions which can assist me to do a better job, I would very much appreciate them. Again, thanks for your emails.

More Questions: Does God Will ANY Suffering?

[[Dear Sister O'Neal. Again, thanks for your response. It is clear you don't believe God causes chronic illness, nor that he actively wills it. Do you believe that ANY suffering is the will of God?]]

Actually, I do believe that God wills some suffering. This would include forms of suffering that are simply part and parcel of being (or becoming) authentically human on and in their journey towards union with God. Such a journey involves struggle and struggle involves suffering. For instance, loneliness would be a form of suffering I think God wills because it causes us to be open to others, to our own sense that we are not isolated or non-relational monads. It also underscores the gift quality of the love relationships we share in; these are not things which are necessary (in the technical sense of that word). That is, they might not have been and in fact they might not be again. Above all this "existential" or "ontological" loneliness marks us a made in the image of the Triune God, relational and made for love in all aspects of our being --- solitary (eremitical) as our lives might also be.

I think that some non-pathological forms of anxiety are normal and willed by God, not only because such anxiety marks us as incomplete and finite of ourselves and also opens us to those things which bring comfort and actual joy, but because we find creative outlets for it. The peace of Christ is not the numbness that can come with drugs or other forms of artificial distraction, etc. It includes a kind of anxiety, a yearning for more, a sense of being made-for more and challenged to embrace it. Similarly, temptation is part and parcel of the human situation (temptation is clearly present in Scripture prior to sin) and leads either to sin or to self-transcendence. Of itself temptation is neutral but it can serve life and spiritual maturity.

Even death itself (the greatest cause of anxiety) is intended by God. But this is, as I referred to in my earlier post, death-as-transition, not sinful, godless, death-unto-oblivion. We are made for eternity. It is death as limit (and this includes all the limits of contingent being we meet each and every day) that reminds us we have but one life which we are called to live and in which we are called to achieve authentic humanity. We are made for eternity, and God sustains us eternally, but growth into authentic graceful humanity is a task we have only a limited time to complete. We need the spur of death to put things into perspective, to remind us who God is and who he is for us, who we really are and what the ultimate challenge before us is. But note well here that ordinary death does not call attention to itself, it does not serve itself. (Sinful death is a different matter.) Ordinary transitional death witnesses to the eternal "more" or fullness and abundant life we are called to. This is true with each of the forms of "existential" suffering I have referred to here. None of them call attention to themselves. They all witness to something other and more than suffering itself. They are life-serving and it is this that predominates.

What I think we cannot do is make a religion out of suffering. Our experience of the God of life and wholeness, the God who enters our existence exhaustively, must be what puts suffering in perspective, not vice versa. The living God can use suffering and transform it with his presence, but he does not wield it like a weapon nor does he send it directly; some of it it is built into the situation and structure of human life and is necessary for growth and development in authenticity and maturity. Other suffering is the result of sin and evil per se and we especially cannot trivialize this by minimizing its reality as evil and an example of the absurd. Especially we cannot attribute such evil to God. Ultimately, as those who proclaim the Gospel of the God of Jesus Christ however, our witness is to be to life, to wholeness and holiness, and to all the ways God empowers transcendence, not to suffering per se whether that suffering is existential or the result of sin.

Followup Questions: Chronic Illness, Victim Souls, God and Suffering, etc

[[Hi Again, Sister O'Neal! Thanks for answering my questions [about a vocation to chronic illness] with more of your own story. You said, "Especially, I am no victim!" Are you familiar with the idea of "victim souls"? Do you think this is a helpful idea? What do you think about the notion that God sends suffering to one person and then eases the suffering of another as a result? I have even read where one person who has been characterized as a victim soul receives some grace and then EXPECTS to suffer because of this grace that was given. That doesn't make sense to me. Yet is it really so awful to be a "victim"? Wouldn't being a "victim soul" be a very special vocation?]]

Victim Soul Theology, an Introduction

First, let me be clear that this whole notion of victim souls is not official Catholic theology. There are some superficial precedents for it in Jewish theology of scapegoating, and superficial correspondence with Sacred Heart theology and the like. For this reason teasing out the legitimate from the illegitimate is not always easy to do. But generally, what commonly passes for "victim soul" theology is a misguided attempt to make some sense of personal suffering which is rooted in a REALLY bad reading of Paul's notion that we are to "make up what was lacking" in the sufferings of Christ. More, it is based on a terribly distorted idea of God as the one who sends suffering, and indeed, who bargains with people to accept additional suffering in order to relieve someone else's, or (worse yet) who even punishes one with suffering after gracing them with something joyful. What kind of God works this way? Not one I could ever believe in, and certainly not one worthy of worship --- at least not if worship is a function of love, as I believe it must be!!!

Also,(with the exception of the Christ Event, where God in Christ took on suffering himself and in the limited sense the word actually applies, was OUR VICTIM) to believe that God causes one to suffer (or sends suffering) and applies it to another means that one believes God is playing some great game with each of us and is in complete control of the suffering in this world. More, and even more problematical, it is a "theology" which believes that God can be convinced to relieve someone's suffering if another person is willing to undertake it in her place. It is as though there is some great quota of suffering in the world as a whole which God needs us to experience in order to be placated or satisfied or something. Even (or perhaps especially!) Anselm's theory of satisfaction never got this crude, and it was already a complete misunderstanding of Paul. Let me explain.


Another look at the Theology of The Cross: Paul vs Anselm

Despite some strands of common piety which hold otherwise, it was not Jesus' suffering per se which was redemptive (though it was absolutely essential), but rather his entering exhaustively into the realms of human sin and death while remaining obedient (that is, open and responsive) to God in spite of the depths of his failure, fear, suffering, etc. This obedience unto death, even death on a cross (that is, not just natural, death-as-transition, but sinful, godless death-unto-oblivion!) meant that God could now enter completely into these realms from which he would otherwise be excluded by human sin in order to transform them with his presence. Once this occurs, their power (which is the power to isolate and separate one from God, and thus from life and meaning) is broken definitively.

In Anselm's satisfaction theology Christ's death makes up for the infinite dishonor done to God. Christ's suffering is not a way to enter exhaustively into our situation so that situation can be objectively changed. Instead the debt of sin, a debt owed to God's honor, is paid in terms of suffering. God is offended and needs to be reconciled, placated, his anger etc, assuaged. But this, despite superficial linguistic similarities, is precisely the antithesis of what Paul provides in his theology of the cross. For Paul, the Christ Event works to overcome the objective chasm that exists between the world and God. It works to bring the world back to God and to friendship with him. It works to overcome the estrangement, alienation, and antipathy towards God, and it does all these things not by appeasing God's anger (which would be a subjective change) but by implicating God in precisely those aspects of his creation from which he has been excluded (i.e.,his death effects an objective change in reality). Thus, Jesus' suffering is necessary for he must plumb the depths of human sin and sinful death; unless he does there will remain depths of Godlessness which are not overcome by his obedience (openness and responsiveness) to God. However, it is not the suffering per se that is redemptive. Instead it is is Jesus' complete dependence on God in spite of everything which might otherwise separate him from God by tempting to sin (that is, to remain dependent upon himself and his own resources) that is salvific.

As in Christ's life, of itself suffering is not redemptive; it is our dependence upon God, our remaining open to God's grace (God's living self) in spite of and within that suffering that is redemptive, for it implicates God into the places or realms from which he would otherwise be excluded. (Realms like sin and death are also personal realms, and God cannot simply force his way into them, or overcome them by fiat; they imply human decisions to live --- and therefore to die --- without God, and thus they come to be embodied realities which are deeply personal. This is why Paul refers to "this body of death," and describes death as a power or principality with influence in our lives. God does not force his way into any area of our lives, though he is present both within and without those lives, and eagerly waits to be allowed to be sovereign over even their darkest regions or dimensions.) This is what Paul is referring to when he writes in 2 Cor 5:19 that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

To reiterate, in Paul's theology of the cross and contrary to Anselm's version, God is not in need of reconciliation: we are. God is bringing the far places we journey in and through, and our own prodigality under his own sovereignty; he is transforming godless realities within and around us into sacramental realities where he may be met face to face. God's wrath is not an all-too-human anger or emotional response, but the fact that God allows the consequences of our sins to run their course. (Dunn, Theology of Paul the Apostle) We use anthropomorphic terms to speak of divine wrath, but they are singularly inadequate. Meanwhile, Jesus' passion is not inadequate; it has dealt a definitive and terminal blow to sin and death. However, that victory must become personal to us; it must touch and redeem the sin and death we have embodied within ourselves, our lives, and all our lives touch. It is only in this sense that we are called upon "to make up for what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ". We allow the suffering and obedient Christ into our PERSONAL realm, and through him in the power of the Spirit work to bring all of it into the life of the Trinity.

So suffering does not appease or placate God. Suffering is a consequence of creation's estrangement and brokenness and one which God takes on himself. It becomes the gateway into the realms of sin and death because largely it is the result of the effects of sin and godless death in this world and tempts (or leads) us either to depend upon ourselves or to hand our lives over to God. Therefore, at the same time then, these can be gateways of grace for they open us to the need for God's love and mercy, but they do not come directly from his hand. Especially, God does not send suffering nor engage in some kind of distorted calculus of suffering where SOMEONE must suffer and the question is merely who will be made to do it. Examples of such a perverse calculus would include the following: "If I suffer willingly, God will relieve x's pain," or "If I suffer, a person a world (or era) away (and unaware of me) will be prevented from sinning," or again, "I am suffering this pain so that x's painful dying might be eased (also where x is unaware of me and we are not speaking about her being edified by my own suffering, etc)." These beliefs are superstitious, not expressions of faith.

Beyond being superstitious, what kind of God would such a calculus of suffering reveal? First, it would be a "god" who directly sends both suffering and its relief, and who, for arbitrary reasons might relieve some suffering so long as someone else can be found to take it on. He would be a "god" who bargains with his creatures, a tyrannical torturer or sadist who somehow needs a certain amount of suffering to be "satisfied" and never mind who does it. In such a scheme suffering is not merely the result, the tragic consequence of sin created and exacerbated by our inhumanities or by the brokenness and incompleteness of creation, but is the result of a God who directly punishes his creation for sin. And of course this punishment falls arbitrarily on the heads of the innocent and the guilty alike while asserting that God can PERHAPS be convinced to relieve the suffering of some and apply it to others. The notion you referred to in your question that God will grace a person and then punish them with suffering because they were graced is simply too perverse and unChristian to respond to. It sounds more like a portrait of a paranoid schizophrenic parent dealing with a child than the God of Jesus Christ. Sorry, but in my estimation, these notions are perversions of the idea of divine justice, and parodies of the God of Jesus Christ --- not one whom we can really love or worship.

Legitimate Views of Suffering?

It is one thing to act as Maximillian Kolbe did and give away bread and soup while being fed in other ways, and eventually to even ask to stand in and be executed in another's place so that that man might live and return to his family. It is entirely another to believe that one's own physical pain can/may be used by God to relieve the suffering of someone dying of cancer in a crude kind of substitution for instance. To believe this presupposes a God who could stop or mitigate a person's suffering but does not do so because the suffering is needed to fill some cosmic quota or something. (The idea that God requires our suffering to appease his being offended by sin is certainly no better.) It is one thing to accept the suffering that befalls one with equanimity and courage, and as an opportunity to share in Christ's own cross by remaining open to and dependent upon God therein; when one does this, God is implicated in one's suffering and redeems it. Again, it is entirely another thing to beg God to send suffering so that he might relieve the suffering in another, or to attribute suffering to him which is some sort of payback because he graced one with something wonderful or joyful that day. In the first instance there is some generosity involved we should honor (the willingness to suffer in another's place), but the theology involved is simply unjustifiable and possibly unconscionable.

Magical Thinking is not okay.

It is one thing to know that if one suffers well (that is, suffers patiently in complete dependence on the love and support of God in this suffering), God is allowed to dwell more fully in our world and one becomes a part of Jesus' own work of bringing the Kingdom. In such a case one's suffering may indeed touch and edify others; it may indeed convince them of the grace of a God who enters exhaustively into our reality and transforms it with his presence. It will also contribute to the healing of the whole world in the sense that personal holiness does this. But it is entirely another thing to think in magical terms, or in terms of a religious quid pro quo, or to suggest that God makes one suffer so that he may have mercy on someone else and relieve their suffering. As one friend of mine points out, such a God is not the God of Jesus Christ; he is Moloch! (And, should you doubt that there are those who hold such views, search the web; this kind of nonsense is not hard to find. It is a holdover of some of the very worst French Revivalist piety and deserves a quick and deep burial.)

Rejection of the Term "Victim Soul"

Even when I think of Maximillian Kolbe I can't accept there is a place for the category "victim soul" and I especially doubt it is a phrase or status someone like Fr Kolbe would have applied to himself (or that anyone living should do), particularly given the degree of suffering that went on all around him in Auschwitz. What defined Fr Kolbe was not his suffering, though that was plentiful and profound; what defined him was his love of God, his own experience of God's love, and his authentic humanity and selflessness in spite of his suffering. He was known for and was transparent to being nourished, fed, and consoled in ways which make the term victim particularly inadequate, I think. Ordinarily, as the Bishop of Worster noted in regard to a celebrated case of a comatose girl in his diocese who was "billed" as a victim soul, this is a term the Church herself uses for Christ alone; at best we can use it for others only with very great caution.

Generally, at least when it is self-applied, it is often an arrogant term associated at best with people who simply have suffering in their lives and must deal with it as we all must; too often these persons are unaware of how much suffering others undergo on a regular basis. At worst such a self-applied designation is associated with unstable narcissists struggling to find a way to give meaning to the suffering in their lives (which, historically at least, they often willfully exacerbate) while inadvertantly denigrating or distorting the God of Jesus Christ in the process. This is especially true when it is based on theologies which see God as the sender of suffering who doesn't care who does it just so long as the cosmic quota of pain is met, or when it assumes one's own suffering makes one special and allows one to forego ordinary treatment and prudent behavior to minimize it. It is also especially true today when everyone is tempted to see themselves as a victim in one way and another, and when victim status is one of the most disedifying and truly "worldly" dimensions of our society. Since the phenomenon of the "victim soul" is particularly linked to women, many of whom were completely oppressed in one way and another, and often have a history of self-mutilation, cutting, binding, etc, it is one of those phenomona about which the Church is indeed right to be skeptical, or at least VERY CAUTIOUS.

We ALL Share the Cross of Christ

It should go without saying that we are all called upon to share in the cross of Christ. We are called upon to bear the suffering that comes our way in union with him and in complete dependence upon his Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. Also, we are called upon to believe that our own suffering and its redemption has dimensions and scope which transcend our own private world. It contributes to the perfection and fulfillment of God's creation, and when undertaken in faith, can edify others who come to recognize the victory of God in the transformation of one's life and the transfiguration of one's pain. We join ourselves to the crucified and risen Christ and in this sharing of HIS life our own pain becomes a holy space where light may be brought forth from darkness, life from death, and meaning from absurdity. Suffering in this way implicates God more fully into the pain and brokenness of the world. It allows even pain to become sacramental. This is a completely legitimate theology of suffering.

Once again, Suffering Does not Appease or Reconcile an Angry God

But note that what suffering in this way does NOT do is make up some sort of cosmic (or Divine) quota, as though there is a fixed price for sin which God exacts, and nevermind who pays it.  As I noted above, God does not need to be reconciled; we do. It is not the case that God needs us to suffer to be placated or appeased or in order that "payment" be made for our own or others' sins. (The question of why Paul uses such terms in his theology of the cross is another question, but for now let me say he has been misread more often than not.) If someone is dying of cancer, for instance, I cannot bargain with God to ease their pain and give it to me instead. I cannot treat God as though he is the cosmic distributor of suffering, or some sort of punisher. What I CAN do is sit with the person through the pain of their illness and dying, and share in that. I CAN and SHOULD bring Christ to her in whatever ways possible. Sin has consequences and suffering is certainly one of them, but this does not make God the direct dispenser of pain or the One who demands retribution. This is a completely illegitimate theology of suffering. Much commonly-held Victim soul theology is at least implicitly based on such a perverse notion of God and those who claim to be victim souls need to consider this.

Victim Souls, a Special Vocation?

As for whether this is a special vocation I have to disagree. We are ALL called upon to accept and join our sufferings with Christ so that they and our world may be redeemed (that is brought to wholeness and perfection by being reconciled and transformed). Do SOME suffer more in this world than others? Undoubtedly, but how really are we to either quantify or qualify this? More, are they victims? Of what or whom? Certainly not of God! Personally, I find the entire terminology objectionable. As I noted above, our world (especially the 1st world portion of it) is too enamored of victimhood. Everyone is a victim, and they exalt in it! It becomes their whole identity, and that is truly tragic. The notion of a victim soul in such a milieu is particularly unacceptable or objectionable. What this world needs are martyrs (witnesses to the grace and Gospel of God that brings wholeness and peace in spite of their suffering), or prophets (those who speak God's Word into the present situation with a power that transforms it). What we need are men and women with the courage to be something other than victims!!! We do not need more victims, especially those who dress up such status in perverse piety and the notion that somehow such perversity glorifies the infinitely merciful God of Jesus Christ.

Personal Questions on the Vocation to Chronic Illness

 I have received several questions, some of them followup, during an email correspondence. Since they may reflect questions others are asking I have decided to post them here.

[[Sister O'Neal, you have written about chronic illness as vocation and explained the sources of your interest in your profile. Is your interest more personally motivated though? You write a lot about the God whose power is made perfect in weakness, and you adopted that as your motto for perpetual profession. That make me think your interest is more personal than I have read up until now. I hope this is not too personal to ask about, but I understand if you choose not to answer.]]

Well, there is no doubt it is a personal question, and one I have not dealt with on this blog on purpose; neither is it one I will deal with again probably unless it raises significant questions for readers and I think saying more can actually help them; but yes, my interest in chronic illness as a vocation (or better, my conviction that there is such a thing) has a personal basis as well as the other reasons I have mentioned.

Since I was a young adult I have suffered from a medically and surgically intractable seizure disorder (epilepsy). For some years it went undiagnosed (or inadequately so), and for many more years (25 or more) it was life-threatening on a regular basis. It also resulted in injuries, some of which led to chronic pain because of Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy --- a condition characterized by neuropathic pain which results when soft tissue injuries do not heal quite properly. Today, the seizure disorder is relatively well, though not completely controlled (seizures are triggered by some types of external stimuli which are more prevalent today than in the past), but the chronic pain continues as a daily reality. Evenso, I take Rx pain relievers (which I believe is the only responsible thing to do here), and the med I now take for seizure control has a happy side effect of helping diminish neuropathic pain as well! The bottom line is that I function well in spite of these things, and am (Deo Gratias!!) graced by God in ways which cause other things than these to dominate!!

My real interest in the idea of God's power being perfected in weakness is first of all a function of my interest in Pauline theology which I began to develop in 1971 under John C Dwyer's tutelage. There is no doubt that Paul's Christology is kenotic, that is, it is centered on the self-emptying of God in creation which culminates in the Christ Event. Kenosis translates into asthenia or weakness. Our God is one who limits himself in order to create and enter definitively and exhaustively into our world. Further, redemption is effected only through Jesus' complete self-emptying in obedience to the will of God; obedience is an openness and responsiveness to God, a complete dependence upon him which implicates God in those places from which, by definition, he is otherwise excluded: the realms of sin and death in particular. It is above all the story of a God whose power is made perfect in weakness: his own, Jesus', and mine or yours as well; undoubtedly I was predisposed to hear this message with a particular keenness.

But it was not only Paul's theology that captured my imagination here. Throughout the Gospels we are confronted by a message where the values of God are not those of this world, where the poor are truly rich, the alienated and marginalized assume places at God's right hand, etc. These kinds of paradoxes intrigued and excited me; they still do, because they spell out the possibility of a life which is prophetic precisely because it does not measure up to, but rather criticizes ordinary worldly standards of productivity, status, value, etc. Still, in Pauline terms what they mean for me practically is that weakness in my own life has been capable of becoming the place where God's power is perfected, not because he delights in this kind of weakness or its attendant suffering (I sincerely believe he does not), but because he enters into our situation exhaustively and heals, transfigures, and redeems it. It can indeed become the place where his own power (love) is perfected in our world. Thus, 2 Cor 12:9 became not just the summary of Paul's gospel, but the summary of my own personal story as well.

Most importantly, it was the isolation occasioned by illness that demanded I confront unhealthy withdrawal, and eventually, to move through it to the legitimate anachoresis (withdrawal) of the eremitical life. That left me sensitive to legitimate and illegitimate forms of anachoresis, as well as to appropriate and inappropriate motivations for embracing the eremitical life, but it helped me to let go of the inappropriate and embrace the appropriate. (Yes the desert vocation involves contending with demons, and they are mainly our very own!!) It also forced me to confront my own essential poverty apart from God and learn how infinitely valuable and precious I am as one made in his own image. In light of his regard for me, and especially as one who (in Christ) is his counterpart --- called to assist in the coming of the Kingdom despite my weakness and personal inadequacies --- I am chosen as God's own bride and dignified beyond all counting by his love. What I discovered was that the call to eremitic life was in every way a call to wholeness, love, and joy. Additionally, it is a call to koinonia in solitude, not to an isolation masked in piety. There is withdrawal (anachoresis), yes, but there is a more profound connectedness or relatedness than is often apparent to those not living the life. In particular, for the diocesan hermit there is community on so many levels beginning with God that it is hard to describe the richness of relationship(s) within the solitude.

So, yes, my reasons for being interested in chronic illness as vocation stem from my own personal medical history as well as my experience as a hospital chaplain and work in neurosciences or clinical lab. Sometimes we witness to the power of the gospel in our weakness. As I have written before, I don't for a moment believe that God willed my illness nor desired the anguish and other suffering that accompany it, but I am convinced beyond all doubt that he willed to teach me how sufficient his love (grace) for me was in ANY situation. My own circumstances became a means to an end despite the fact that God did not will or send them. I came to hunger intensely for God's love, and for the capacity to return it very early on in my life; I also came to be aware of others' needs for it although I could not have explained that coherently at that point. And of course, God filled that hunger, even as he also sharpened it, and he commissioned me, as he commissions each of us, to bring that love to others in genuine compassion and service!

The story about how this all came to be is a complex one and unimportant in this context. What is important to say is that in my emptiness, weakness, brokenness, hunger, anguish, and pain, I met the God who brings meaning, strength, wholeness, satiety, joy, and delight out of all these things. The vocation I discovered is the vocation to witness to THESE latter things, to AUTHENTIC HUMAN EXISTENCE and the God who makes them possible in spite of and through the weakness and brokenness that besets us. God does not will the illness, pain, etc, but he does will their redemption, tranfiguration, and especially their transformation into a life of essential wholeness and compassion. THAT, afterall, is what a vocation to chronic illness is all about.

The reason you do not hear about the personal reasons that brought me to an understanding of this vocation is that while illness or injury remain problematical on a daily basis (this is mainly true of chronic pain), they do not define who I am. Especially I am no victim. Instead, my life is defined in light of God's grace and who that has made me; I want very much for that to be clearer to readers of my posts than these other things. God wills that I live as fully and lovingly as I can in spite of them. He has (with my cooperation) brought wonderful people into my life who have assisted in this including doctors, directors, teachers, pastors, friends who accommodate me in various ways, et al. In all these cases they have helped and challenged me to grow beyond an identification with illness and pain, and into an identification with God's grace, fullness of life, and growing personal holiness. Unless that is clear in what I write, live out, or otherwise proclaim, the suffering itself is meaningless and certainly not edifying; on the other hand, if the effects of the grace of God which transfigures both suffering and life IS clear in my writing and living, then there is rarely any need to focus on the suffering, and doing so would be a disedifying distraction!

[[Do you think it is important for people to know how to suffer? Do you think you have a responsibility to teach people how to suffer or to speak about your suffering?]]

While I think it is important for people to learn to suffer, and while I think suffering well is one of the things we are least capable of today, I am of the opinion that the way to teach (model, or witness to) that is NOT by focusing on suffering itself. In particular, speaking about my own situation is rarely necessary (or helpful) except when it is important to remind someone what is possible with the grace of God. For instance, occasionally a client will wonder if healing is really possible, or if it is possible to transcend a given set of circumstances. In such a situation I will refer to my own illness or pain. Here my own suffering is important, but only so long as it does NOT dominate my life or define me, and only in order to underscore the possibility of healing, essential wholeness and humanity along with the capacity to be other-centered and compassionate in spite of negative circumstances. God's grace ALWAYS heals and brings life out of that which is antithetical to these things, so what one wants to witness to is the transformation of one's life as one moves from faith to faith and from life to more abundant life. His love ALWAYS transfigures our reality, not least because he is WITH US in ways which remind us of how precious we are to him, how much he wants for us, how much he longs to share with us, etc.

Even in situations where it is helpful to speak of one's suffering one needs to recall that it's a lot like a single microdrop of skunk spray: a very little goes a very long way and "scents" everything in its path --- for a very long time!! Also, if you think about the stories of suffering that really inspire and move you, they are ordinarily the stories where courage, patience, joy, wholeness, dignity and selflessness predominate and the pain or suffering is recognized but allowed to disappear into the background. They are the stories where humanity triumphs (and this means a person living from the grace of God); they are not exercises in navel gazing or detailed and repetitive accounts of one's pain. Suffering well is, after all, about courage, about affirming life and meaning in spite of destruction and absurdity, and especially, it is about LIVING AS FULLY as one is able. There is no way to do this if one focuses on the suffering per se. This kind of focus is ALWAYS self-centered and can be temptingly and distractingly so both for oneself and for others; it is ALWAYS a bid for attention to self (even when appropriately used this is the case). It is also focused on the thing which God's grace helps overcome rather than on the effects of that grace (or the one who gives it). Neither of these (self-centeredness, or a focus on evil) is generally edifying, and can be quite disedifying except in certain limited circumstances. The question is always what does one want to witness to; viz, what do you want others looking at, God's grace and the possibilities for hope and wholeness or one's own self, brokenness, and suffering? For these reasons if one MUST refer to or focus on these latter things one must ALWAYS do so rarely and briefly.

What I am saying is that in "teaching" (I would prefer to say assisting or encouraging) people to suffer well, as far as I know, the only way to do that is to teach them how to live, how to pray, how to give themselves over to God's grace, and especially how to cope so that life and not pain per se is the focus. In my experience, a sure way to FAIL to suffer well (or to fail to inspire someone to bear their own pain well) is to focus on the suffering per se. By the way, "teaching" someone to suffer well presupposes one DOES that oneself, and I wonder how many of us can say that is honestly true of us? It is another reason to focus on life, on hope (both of which are the result of God's grace), and on placing oneself in God's hands so that he may redeem and transfigure the situation as far as possible. We need this encouragement and focus on a continuing basis as much as anyone we might witness to.