Honesty About the Journey

Several years ago, a woman came to me after I finished teaching a series of writing workshops. She took a deep breath and explained that she had wanted to come to the first workshop, but refrained because she’d attended one I led ten years earlier. She had sensed back then that I was angry with the students (and with the world), and this upset her.

As soon as she began talking, I felt my mind and body slip into spiritual direction mode. I turned directly toward her, let my arms hang to my side, and fixed an attentive, steady gaze on her. I didn’t try to do this—my body automatically moved into this space when I heard the intensity of her words. It did not occur to me to ask questions or defend myself. Her words and feelings poured forth in the midst of a crowd that quietly gathered. She then said that she’d decided to come the second day and sensed that I had changed a great deal. I knew I was to remain quiet.

She continued, “Now I realize that I resented you before because I was as angry as you were. I saw myself in you. I hated you. I hated me.” At this point she started crying, and people began handing her tissues. But I stayed with her gaze as she went on to say more: “I see that your anger is gone now—I want that too.” Finally, she became quiet, and I waited a little longer to make sure she was done. She fell into my arms and I held her for a while.

I’ve been flipping through the channels at night, late. I haven’t been sleeping too well lately. I guess it’s the tornado that came through. You know, changing perceptions of what’s nailed down.

A question from an eleven year-old girl triggered the mini-existential crisis that supplied the energy to write this essay. A long forgotten memory retrieved during a day-and-a half retreat helped focus the direction of this essay.

And a recently devoured book, one that requires stronger teeth than mine to chew properly, suggested the content of this essay. The girl is Josie, my oldest granddaughter. During a late night conversation with this budding epistemologist, with little context she surprised me with this question: “Pop-Pop, if Buddhism and Hinduism are false religions, how do we know that Christianity isn’t just one more false religion?”

One of the most special gifts of being on retreat is that it gives us space to listen deeply. In the silence and the solitude we are able to slow down, quiet ourselves, and hear those things we so often don’t hear. While the primary way to listen on retreat is usually through a meditation on the Scriptures, I want to complement this traditional emphasis with another kind of listening. Retreat, I would like to suggest, is also a time to “listen to the groans.”1

Sometimes suffering is redemptive, like the cross of Christ. Sometimes suffering is destructive and goes nowhere. This kind of suffering leaves us depleted, unable to recognize ourselves as God’s beloved child. It is easy to confuse these two types of distress.

When you are caught in a destructive cycle of suffering, the challenge becomes whether or not you can discern it as such, rather than assuming that you are somehow “taking up the cross of Christ.” I call redemptive suffering “Potter’s-wheel suffering,” and the destructive kind, “Hamster-wheel suffering.”

 Silence. Stillness. “I’m sorry . . . I can’t seem to find a heartbeat,” the ultrasound technician said. More silence. Everything in that dimly lit room was completely still and quiet. Too quiet! Just a moment before, my husband and I were chatting with the friendly technician. We had been a bit giddy as we were about to learn the gender of this little one growing inside me. But in an instant, the room had grown cold and lifeless. As the technician stepped out to call the doctor, the darkness of the room echoed the darkness that began to enshroud our hearts. It can’t be true . . . the doctor will come in, and he will find the heartbeat and everything will be all right . . . our hearts so desperately willed. On a bleak February day and in one sentence, death had altered the course of our dream.

My many-months-ago agreed upon assignment was to write an article that fit in with the theme of this issue of Conversations, the problem of pain. As one member of the editorial team put it, I have the reputation of being “so open about what God teaches [me] on [my] personal journey of pain.” It was thought that perhaps I might be able to help understand the promise of pain more than to strategize its relief.

The last 10 years of my journey have been challenging— physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I grew up strong and active without much sickness, but recently I have experienced several illnesses that have been painful and limiting. In 1995, a major heart artery dissected after an angioplasty. In 1999, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and subsequently underwent treatment, including a mastectomy. In 2005, my thyroid was removed because of cancer and since that time I have struggled to get my hormones balanced. Most recently I have undergone corrective foot surgery following a broken foot.

Without a doubt, going to a conservative Christian liberal arts college in the Midwest has its advantages and disadvantages. Among the many restrictions to which I was subjected on a daily basis, tattoos actually fell into a gray area.

Christianity has perennially had a problem with the human body. At times in the history of the church, Christians have viewed desires and the body as the enemy. In the past few years, the question seems to have been, “What’s the body got to do with spirituality?” Yet we are finding today a surging interest in what can only be called embodied spirituality. Young Christians express worship with their hands aloft and their eyes closed; more and more find spiritual strength in candles and icons, and some churches are bringing back kneelers. Other churches encourage releasing creative gifts for acting, painting, and art. Fasting, too, is on the rise.