Pain: An Addendum

After talking to a good friend of mine a few moments ago I decided to write a postscript to my last blog on pain. I really did not want it  to be taken as a depressing piece but blogs, like life, can never be perfectly balanced. In other words it is impossible to paint the whole picture every time. Nevertheless, this is my attempt at balance...my attempt to paint a broader picture.

Although my pain depresses me sometimes, even to the point of circling the drain of despair, I do not live my life in depression. I live my life in joy. It is a hard-fought, hard-won joy, while at the same time a complete gift of Grace.
Christianity declares that all grace is of God, neither earned or deserved, so it would never occur to me to try to take credit for it. More than anything I am just a utterly grateful that it is there.

The mystery of pain is that sometimes it can lead us to joy as well because it has the potential to make us compassionate, or at least to open the door to it. Com-passion means with suffering or to suffer with another and if we are lucky then we will both give it and recieve it.

The moment you wince at another person's pain it is beginning. And the moment that you wince a little deeper still because you understand their particular type of pain, it is working even deeper. Then sometimes you may catch yourself aching at the mention of someone else's suffering, even across the world...the Indians and Pakistanis dying in flood waters...the sonless and daughterless mothers and fathers whose children have fled to the U.S. for safety...and compassion is taking hold.

Compassion is not in and of itself joy of course, but it is rooted in gratefulness, which in turn, is grounded in joy and I can honestly I have never met an ungrateful person who was compassionate. Joy and compassion feed on one another.

So that is my broader context. My pain has led me, though sometimes against my will, into greater compassion and thus, much greater joy and it has connected me again to the entire world.