Dark Rumbling

We talk a lot about happiness in our culture.  Happiness is a state that many of us want to learn to cultivate.  I do believe that happiness is a trait that can be facilitated and cultivated and I too seek to be a person known for a happy disposition.  At the same time, my soul underneath rumbles about the reality of pain and death in life, demanding attention and full recognition without a shiny covering of happy blessing.

In my work as a physiotherapist I have always been aware of the importance of pain.  It can be dangerous to mask pain as often it is a warning signal of deeper damage. I have discouraged my son from getting cortisone shots to relieve pain so that he can go out and painlessly injure himself  even more seriously.  Although I feel controlling pain is important, I also want to face the pain that is a part of life with courage and grace.

Pain has very different faces.  Betrayal, divorce, disruption, sickness, death, and even birth come with pain.  Most close relationships involve some degree of pain.

Pain and death are one side of the coin of life.  Love and joy could be the other. I have been trying to understand why the John Vaillant books have spoken so deeply to me.  Both books have calamitous death in close company with the grounding of hope and renewal.  They express humanity in its full extremes of both great goodness and great liability.  It has helped me lately to have challenging times normalized as part of what is to be expected in life.  Pain was indeed a part of life even for Jesus.   In these days we remember his betrayal, pain and death.  Often we too quickly jump to the hope of resurrection.  Those days of injury and death are not to be glossed over in our lives or the lives of others.  They are hard and dark days where no light is.  Do not be too quick to turn on the light.  Death and pain are realities that are the very stuff of life deeply lived.  Feel and walk through those dark days without denying their very real pain in both ourselves and others.  Recognize and respect the harsh reality of pain and death.  Keep walking, knowing that in pain we also know a vital ingredient of full life.

The earth rumbled and all was dark at Jesus' death.  In these days I stand in humble awe that even God does not deny the reality of pain and death and has not avoided the painful going through.