Thomas Merton on Suffering
Post a responseAt a party, an acquaintance recently told me he is often amazed at how easily some of his clients seem to be able to manage a compartmentalized life.
A pychiatrist, he has heard it all. In our conversation, he implicated men, specifically: some can carry on an affair for years while managing their work and family life. I suppose women can do the same.
He also mentioned the wives of such men. Some spouses of compartmentalized men see the dots (the odd hours, frequent trips, lack of interest in sex) and that they connect (that there is an affair) but avoid the truth. Call it denial or the refusal to alter the status quo. The marital conspiracy can hold for years. Or it may be an avoidance of the suffering that the truth might create. Denial is not all bad.
I’m currently reading Thomas Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, in which Merton interrupts his narrative now and then to comment on human pyschology and Christian spirituality. He writes about the avoidance of suffering:
“Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt.”
Is that really true?
Merton did force me to ask myself, “Am I avoiding reality in a certain part of my life?”
And, “Will God truly be present in my darkest and most lonely moments when I can’t avoid suffering anymore?”
January 11th, 2007 at 12:01 am
I was just thinking today about how truly easy my life is and how miserable I have been for the last two months because things weren’t exactly the way I wanted them to be.
The idea of avoiding suffering and the idea of being concerned about inconsequentials both force me to ask myself, “Who do I really think is in charge anyway?” I say God, but then I behave as if it’s me.
The only thing I am sure of in this area is that I need to be more open to suffering in whatever form God presents it.
That’s something I never thought I’d say.
January 11th, 2007 at 6:52 am
It’s really been a helpful for me just to be aware that I am avoiding suffering. Just to stand back and observe how I am behaving. It’s often comical. Sometimes I test myself by not running away from the suffering. When I look at it as an experiment it just doesn’t seem to be as annoying as I expected. Again, it comes back to my expectations. I guess I expected it to hurt more. It’s like a paper tiger. Of the expectations, I have to ask myself, what picture of my life have I been painting? Why doesn’t my life agree with my painting? A book that helped me on this was “Wisdom of No Escape” by Chodron. Thanks for the wonderful site.
January 11th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Given the choice, who DOESN’T “avoid” suffering? And what do we incredibly wealthy American suburbanites know about suffering anyway?
To us, suffering is very often being called into account for our wrong choices and bad decisions.
Is the “compartmentalized” Christian “suffering” when s/he gets caught in adultery and suddenly has to endure all the heartache, hassle, and expense of divorce?
Or loses their job as a consequence of looking at porno sites on company time?
Or has to “endure” court-ordered safe driving classes because they have garnered too many speeding tickets?
I’m not saying that God shouldn’t be sought or found in the midst of such situations. He is certainly aware, caring and available to comfort no matter what the sin.
But “suffering” should be understood as an unjust consequence of doing the RIGHT thing, or being wrongly accused and judged when entirely innocent.
I think we suburbanites have the means and generally apply the where-with-all to avoid such situations; hence we don’t often experience suffering.
Just as I was about to submit this comment I was called by a client/friend whose 22 year old son (through no fault of his own) was killed by a hit and run driver last month. Now THAT’S suffering.
January 11th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I agree with Jim. I I don’t suffer because I don’t have to. Suffering is for people that can’t get out of it.
I am just beginning to entertain the idea that if I used more of what I have in the service of God and other people then maybe I would get to a place where I could learn about suffering through experience rather than through a book.
I think of it the same way that I think about faith. We should be living life close enough to the edge that faith is a necessity. I should be living close enough to the edge that suffering just happens and those are the times when I would really and truly get to know my savior.
January 11th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
A terrible tragedy that Jim mentions… Unimaginable.
However, I’m not as willing as he is to make as big a distinction between the suffering we create and other forms of suffering. That seems to smack of self-righteousness. We list the sins that we are currently not dealing with (or that no one can see at the moment) and then trumpet the sanctified life and its blessings.
And I suspect that God uses “consequence suffering” just as much to deepen us as God does other forms of suffering.
January 11th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
I don’t belive that God wants to see us suffering.
The way I see it God wantes to open our eyes and making us realize that we can not take everything for granted.
I’ve had a lot of suffering in my life.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Evangelicals have been able to manage living a compartmentalized life since the movement began. The most tangible exression of such dualism involves the all-too-familiar Sunday-nonSunday [read "sacred-secular"] approach to life which has been around a long time. But evangelicals, especially in the suburbs have achieved an even more recently bolder approach by compartmentalizing Sundays into “contemporary” and “traditional” liturgies, which equate to compartmentalized churches. After all, why shouldn’t personal consumerism be given every chance to segment local church communities and continue severing the Body of Christ. Segmenting one’s life along the denial and secrecy of a “managed-over-time” affair would seem to fall right into place among professing Christians whose marriages end in separation/divorce at the same rate as persons who don’t profess to have Jesus as Savior, or is it Jesus as Lord?..might this itself not be the ultimate compartmentalization—an avoidance behavior which replaces participating in the sufferings of a crucified Christ. Suburban evangelicals would rather avoid suffering at all costs maintaining religious appearances complete with Sunday church faces on while their lives are going to hell. Avoidance only works for a while ….in the words of our SouthSide friends, denial is not a river in Egypt. The assurance that God will be presnet in my darkest and most lonely moment is validated by the fact that God was present with Jesus while simultaneously forsaking Jesus as HIs son—a paradox and irony which outweighs any pain I’m going through at this, or any moment.
Paul Bischoff
January 12th, 2007 at 5:00 am
I wish I could think of a more “wordy” response. I just think it’s a more simple question.
My questions is : How do we know we have a stake in the game without the suffering?? Isn’t that the idea anyway?
Or did I miss the part of the Bible that reads “You will live a completely blissful life as long as you are born in the upper middle class suburbs of The United States of America”.
God doesn’t love me more and want me to be more comfortable because of my geographic location. He wants me to lean on him. Period.
January 12th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Some of the strongest people I know have suffered greatly, and some of the most pathetic people I know have suffered little. Why are we, as a society, condtioned to believe that if we do good we will face no evil? The scriptures clearly tell us that the rain will fall on the just and the unjust. Why do we believe, otherwise, that we can guarantee a “good” life just by doing good?
I know I have hit rock bottom when I find myself complaining about all the groceries I must carry to my car and put away when I get home. I know I have lost any concept of thanksgiving when I complain that I must take my kids to three different activities in one afternoon. I know I have lost all sense of a meaningful life when I get mad because someone gets on my machine at the gym. True suffering has nothing to do with our selfish desires.
I think that to love is to suffer and to suffer is to love. They are a package deal whenever we are truly committed to one another, to God, and to his great commandment.
January 12th, 2007 at 10:01 am
I wonder if the strongest people we know who have suffered greatly are strong because of their suffering. I can’t imagine the pain of the loss of a child. When a newscaster was interviewing Malibu, CA homeowners whose homes were sliding down to the Pacific one interviewee said “This is nothing – I loss my daughter last year”. On the other side of the coin there are too many people who don’t get stronger. Some say – “that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” but I know people who are really not alive because of their suffering.
For me suffering (just or unjust) helps to put things into perspective. I have suffered the consequences of workaholism. I could put my wife, children, family, friends, neighbors, etc. into a compartment but not work. Work was always there somewhere in my mind. Whether my mind was dulled by alcohol or energized by CoQ10 it was not on what the Lord wanted. Without suffering I think I am in control. Well, I have got to get back to work.
January 12th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Maybe it’s true that smaller and smaller things begin to threaten us if we’re afraid of suffering. But in my experience, I was the thing that got smaller and smaller. For 20 years I chose to constantly adjust and adapt to my husband rather than suffer confronting the difficult realites in my marriage. By the end of my marriage, I was convinced I was incompentent and unworthy of love. I would have never chosen divorce, the frightening uncertainty, the agony of having my family torn apart, the crushing questions I had about God, but God used it to restore my dignity, as unbelievable as that may seem. I now have a book to encourage other women going through the same thing.
Too often women choose to suffer (to make others happy)and in the process lose their personhood. When that happens, Satan has crippled the impact they could have had and made them question their dignity. I don’t believe that’s God’s plan.
January 13th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Chapter 5 of “Death by Suburb” addresses this issue quite well I think. When I think about the suffering I see, at church, in the community, in the media- I try to rationalize that the suffering I see is opportunity under cover. People have a choice in suffering just like choice exists is much that we do. There is a choice to turn to the one who suffered much for us, or turn within and hate God and all around us. Then I ask myself, would I be able to lean into God in the face of suffering? The truth is, I hope so, but I’ve never truly be challenged is this regard, truly challenged. Would I allow God’s grace to be sufficient for me? I have seen a young teenager at our church, who is slowly dying from Nieman-Pick Disease, become a beacon for Christ to all who come in contact with her. Could I be that kind of warrior for Christ?
The answer is always the Cross. The Cross where Jesus suffered and died, and the cross we must bear.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
David,
I think Merton is right. I once heard Larry Crabb say that American Christians are essentially Buddhists when it comes to a perspective on suffering. We seem to try so hard to deny or avoid at all cost pain and suffering.
My dad had major stroke two years ago and was recently diagnosed with cancer. While this has been very devastating to our family I would have to admit that God has used this suffering in a redeemptive way. Personally, it has brought my dad and I closer together emotionally. We are having conversations now that I would have never imagined before.
Don’t get me wrong, I still struggle with all of this and at times I am overwhelmed by grief as I realize that my dad will never be the same (at least not in this life). This experience raises questions for me about life and the role of suffering but I am learning to rest in the presence of God with my questions. I still want to avoid this issue but in reality I know I cannot. So I find myself in that “in between” place of both embracing and running from suffering.
Ultimately, I am hanging on to Paul’s wonderful words in Romans 8: “nothing can separate us from the love of God”.