Step 12: Being Emptied: Letting Pain be pain: Kenosis
p. 141 - When Christ was in pain, we were in pain. All creatures of God's creation that can suffer pain suffered with him. The sky and the earth failed at the time of Christ's dying because he too was part of nature. - Julian of Norwich.
I like what Julian of Norwich says. What an enlightened woman. I can see why she is under consideration sainthood and to become a doctor of the church. I find it interesting that Roman Catholic women can't become priests, yet four women are now Doctors of the Church.
p. 141 - It would seem that our culture is not well adapted to deal with pain. Pain is today's unmentionable reality, much as sex was unmentionable in the Victorian period. And pain is everywhere--deep, ineffable, unfathomable, cosmic pain. And it needs to be named for what it is so that we can pray our pain, i.e. enter into it.
I like what the author says. It's so easy to ignore or minimize pain to not have to sit with it (or pray our pain as the author says). I wish the Bible gave more concrete examples of how Jesus prayed his pain. He wept when Lazaruth died and he sweat tears of blood in Gethsemane - but the Bible says so minimal about Christ's inward journey that it is easy to think of it as a "doing" journey and not a "being" journey. That mindset pulls me into right/wrong, black/white, good/bad mindset that isn't healthy or productive.
p. 142 - Love your enemies. Pain is our enemy, but that is no excuse to run from embracing it, kissing it long enough so that we might truly let go of it. There is no way to let go of pain without first embracing it and loving it--not as pain but as a sister and brother in our dialectical living of both pleasure and pain. Eros does not come without a price.
I understand the author's thoughts on embracing something so we can let it go.
I have been thinking of ways to embrace my pain in a particular relationship mentioned yesterday, so I can let it go. Sitting there and listening I can sometimes use a meditative style of letting it go overhead and not grabbing it but releasing it as soon as it hits; my concern is that I'll let everything this person says float overhead and not be able to participate or hear even healthy communication.
Other times, it sneaks in and pierces me in the old wounds and the skin next to the tough scars is torn and causes new woundedness.
The only options I see today are (1) running from the pain; (2) hiding from the pain; (3) being a martyr to the pain; (4) partially protecting myself so the pain isn't constant but intermittent as I can handle it.
An online friend suggested spiritual direction to help me evaluate options, find new options and work through this fiendish situation.
p. 142 - First comes the embrace, the allowing of pain to be pain; next comes the journey with the pain; then the letting go, but in a deliberate manner, into a fire, into a cauldron where the pain's energy will serve us. And finally comes the benefit we do indeed derive from having burned this fuel. Pain is meant to give us energy.
I found this interesting, especially the timing. A friend from across the pond and I made paper rulers and burned them at 12:30 GMT. These were symbolic of the times we have measured ourselves unfairly and unjustly, the times we've felt measured inaccurately. For me, it's a putting away of self-condemnation and taking up new self-gentleness. It's embracing that pain and letting it go.
p. 143 - pain helps us to understand other people in pain. Pain is profoundly social, it is eminently shareable, and it is no coincidence that the privatizing of pain, the covering up of pain in our culture, parallels the privatizing of body and pleasure and spirituality in our culture and religions. A healthy experience of letting pain be pain is always a schooling in compassion. For when a person has suffered deeply even once and has owned that suffering, that person can never forget and never fail to recognize the pain of others. Pain is the most legitimate school for compassion that I know of.
I can relate with that. The times of immense pain; are the times when my ability to recognize and speak compassion soared. I've even eventually found compassion for the ones who caused me pain. Many times I've found ways to stay in a limited relationship with those who continue to cause me pain and I am rewarded because of that... not only for my self-protective boundaries but by the limited friendship I can embrace.
p. 143 - pain helps us to understand pleasure and to criticize it. ... allowing us to experience how the true pleasures in our lives are of the simplest, most shareable kind.
I understand and agree with that. Pain slows us down inside so we can experience those simple pleasure and often share them with others.
p. 144 - pain enlivens us and gives us energies that embarking on pain and making that journey toughens us up.
There are times I worry that if I get any tougher that I'll be impenetrable like shoe leather. How do you toughen up and keep a heart of compassion?
The two ideas of toughening and of growing in compassion seem at odds to me at this time in my journey.
p. 145 - men who discover their gentle sides in our culture is, that too often these men mistake gentleness for passivity and weakness. Sensitivity, which includes sensitivity to pain, also demands strength. A new kind of strength, it is true; the strength of endurance and perseverance; the strength that solitude requires; the strength that vulnerability is about. This strength does not come from willing it or gritting our teeth. It comes from undergoing pain--unwished-for, unplanned, unhearalded pain. There is a strength learned from suffering that cannot be learned any other way. For suffering tests the depth of our love of life and relationship even when and especially because relationships are so often the cause of our suffering.
Gender Bias Alert: I think women are better equipped to embrace pain. We're the ones who go through pms, cramps, pain of first intercourse, labour, delivery, hot flashes, etc. The physical pain associated with being female helps us develop compassion. Then there is the emotional pain of being female: the glass ceiling and the "good-ol'-boys" club at work, the wolf whistles and cat calls that objectify us, rape, abuse, etc. Although I had sons, I'm sure there is pain of seeing our female offspring suffer through the same problems of being female in a male dominate society.
Even with all that, I am grateful to be female. I am grateful to have felt the monthly life and death forces within me - the dying ovum and the pain of my body and emotions for not having conceived and the pain of cramps; or the pain of having conceived to bring forth a child. The emotional, hormonal and physical pain of menopause when our bodies lose their ability to re-create - an issue men never face since they stay fertile as long as they live. I can't imagine living in a body that had not experienced those life and death forces. The bonding those experiences have with other women and gay friends who empathize.
p. 145 - suffering is the manner in which letting pain be pain links us with others. All social movements and organization were born of pain. Not privatized pain or pain kept to oneself or the wallowing in one's own pain, but pain shared.
I have been very blessed because I have an online community and we work through our pain together. It has helped me be open to others in new ways. It has given me a more egalitarian outlook and a humbler attitude about what I know and don't know... and I don't know nearly as much as I once thought I did. ;-D
The parish I attend has started a grief support and a depression support group. I think that is wonderful. There is almost no support groups for what I was going through so I am thankful I found online. I want to write a book to share my story to help others heal. I had 50 chapters of 180 chapter devotional completed when my computer crashed. I took it in stride, I'm sure a re-do will just be better because I've continued to grow as a compassionate woman.
p. 146 - Some suffering--that which leads to birthing--can be a blessing
I think all suffering leads to birthing. A few off the top of my head births that I have experienced: growth in interpersonal relationships, becoming less demanding, losing unrealistic expectations and still learning to get rid of expectations so I can experience healthier relationships, learning boundaries, learning the language of compassion, learning to listen more carefully, learning to listen to others pain without offering guidelines unless asked, learning there are safe people and unsafe people, learning to share the pain with one or two people instead of limelighting it, learning where I need to do more boundary work, learning to express my emotions, learning to have limited relationships with some people, learning to love people even when they cause pain, learning to trust God through the pain, learning to trust pain is a teacher, learning pain eventually reduces and stops if I learn the lesson it brings, learning humility because I know I didn't figure these on my own but through God and His children who walked with me in the pain, learning to be strong for myself during pain and to ask for help when I need it.
p. 147 - I must emphasize how important it is that we not glorify pain or cling to our pain or wallow in our pain. That is not letting pain be pain--that way lies letting pain be our boss.
I agree. I also know there are times of reprocessing the pain as I grow in other areas. I am not fearful of those times because I know I will learn and they will pass. It doesn't mean I didn't heal - it just means I am healing at a deeper level. I am currently having some pain because a court order issued 2-1/2 years ago was not followed and for my financial future, I have to write and file a contempt of court and do the court thing once again. It is causing me to reprocess a very difficult and painful time of my life.
But I know the One who has laid it on my heart to not let this continue to slide but to be proactive. I think it is a good time because I am more healed now and it should not cause too deep of damage. Unfortunately, I feel like a bully for doing this; yet I know it was because the other party did not obey the judge that it has come to this. I wish the court system kept a tracking system and when somebody did not follow the judge's decree, it would automatically be taken care of. Unfortunately, it is the other party who is responsible to assure the other side dots each i and crosses each t. This too shall pass and I will (not might) grow because of it and I will experience a new round of healing... which will give me more joy and peace.
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