On Witnessing Effectively to Suffering

[[ Dear Sister Laurel, I noticed that you have a disability and a problem with chronic pain and that was part of what you claimed to have brought to the Church in seeking profession and consecration under c 603. You don't say a lot about this very often and I wondered why not? If suffering is important to the eremitic life, why don't you speak about your own suffering?]] 

Thanks for your questions. It has been a long time since anyone asked me a similar question. In that response I wrote the following (I am posting it again here since it was written in 2008 and has not changed much) from Personal Questions on Vocation:

[[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.]] 

In Cornelius Wencel's book on the Eremitic Life, he writes: [[But the hermit's days are not free from tears, pain, and sadness. Just the opposite --- tribulation remains present in the way of eremitic pilgrimage. The Word we respond to, however, is the One who has created us and who is constantly renewing our youth with his love. So to encounter the pain of our existence is to get another impulse to search, to listen, and to respond even more actively and faithfully. In this way we can be motivated to open ourselves up even more to the radiating presence of the Lord, whose glory is fully revealed in the shadow of the Cross. The voice that calls and the answer that we give never separate us from the refreshing air of this space. In fact, the fullness of the eremitic life is nothing else but the contemplation of God's magnificence that flashes at the intersection of the bars of the Cross. Any other perspective must be incomplete and even false.]] The Eremitic Life, pp 49-50.

Like anything else in Christian life, witnessing effectively to suffering involves a paradox. It means witnessing more directly to the life, love, and joy found in God in the midst of one's suffering! It recognizes that God counters human suffering with these realities, that God does not will or send suffering per se, rather, He transforms it with His presence (that is, His grace). This does not mean denying one's suffering, of course, or that suffering can help us open to God's saving love, but the emphasis is never on the suffering per se (except, perhaps, as one works through it in the privacy of one's meeting with one's Director or in one's prayer)! And even then, the light will shine through to the extent that one's work or prayer is truly graced and God-centered. I believed this in 2008 and believe it still --- even more emphatically. I hope this is helpful.