Everyone suffers. But perhaps “suffering” is too strong a word for you. Then try these words on for size; everyone hurts, everyone experiences setbacks, everyone gets cranky now and then.
Knock on wood, my life is going really well; I am not presently experiencing suffering, and yesterday I was in a really good mood. But yesterday I was amazed at how the littlest things can bring crankiness, which is a quiet form of suffering, into my life. I am so human.
Yesterday I visited a parishioner at a local hospital. After the visit, as I was driving out of the hospital parking garage, the driver in the car ahead of me was driving UNBELIEVABLY SLOW!
I wasn’t in a hurry, but for a fleeting moment I became very irritated. “Why is this guy driving so SLOWLY?” I asked myself. Then, in the next moment I caught myself and asked, “Jay, why are you letting this bother you so much?” The moment of irritation was a minor form of self-inflicted spiritual suffering.
Some of you reading this are experiencing real suffering. Yesterday I also shared a conversation with a parishioner whose family member has a life-threatening form of cancer. This brand of suffering is not self-inflicted. The prognosis is not good. We’re certain a long road of physical and spiritual suffering – the real kind, not the parking-garage kind, lies ahead for this person.
Most days, to one degree or another, everyone suffers. What can we do with our suffering?
Here is a parable offered by Paulo Coelho, author of the novel The Alchemist, which is a book I recommend to everyone.
A man made a promise to carry a cross to the top of a mountain if a certain wish of his was satisfied. God granted the man what he asked for.
He had the cross made, and he set out on his climb. After a few days he found the cross weighed more than he had reckoned – and so he borrowed a saw to cut off a large section of the wood. On reaching the top of the mountain, he noticed that, separated from it by a gulf, there was another mountain.
Over on the other side, everything was peace and tranquility, but he needed a bridge to get there. He tried to use the cross, but it was a little too short. Then he realized that the piece he’d sawed off was exactly what he would have needed to enable him to cross the abyss.
Anyone who has experienced the summer storm of real suffering, and then ridden out the storm in order to receive the dawn of new life, does not need this parable explained to them.
I don’t want to suffer and I’m sure you don’t want to suffer either. But when we do, we can realize the gift of the living Spirit of Christ who comes not to make life easy, but to make us equal to life. We can experience the God who can turn the shadow of suffering, even death, into daybreak.
