Unbearable pain

An unavoidable aspect of life is pain. Every human being at some point or another experiences pain, yes, even you. Pain comes along when you might least expect it, suddenly and sometimes in slow motion at a pace we would happily speed up..

This is not a topic that we might go to often, our human tendency is avoid pain and discussions of it. We look away from our mortality and human suffering, hoping to keep it bay. Human society has developed myriad ways to avoid the topic, escape from the thought but low and behold it dwells in the dark corners of our mind. We might try to see the silver lining, to contextualise, to compare our pain to others and say: “it could be worse”. At moments in our life, it is important to look into our pain and see it, “this is pain”, “this hurts”, this could topple me.

I am drawn in recent weeks to Rebecca’s words as the twins Jacob and Esau fight in her womb and she utters the timeless words: ‘אִם־כֵּן לָמָּה זֶּה אָנֹכִי’, approximately translated: ‘If so, why do I exist?’ [Genesis 25:22]. Rebecca asks a question about her very essence, her core being is called into question.

In the last days, we have been in three different hospitals over two months; everyone remains healthy and God willing will be home soon. In that time I have seen a new world, a world I thought I knew but I have seen afresh: ‘אִם־כֵּן לָמָּה זֶּה אָנֹכִי’, a world in which your whole being is called into question. The new layer is seeing a brand new baby unwell – it is a particularly acute form of pain.

I pay honour to that world, a world of sadness, a space of hurt and injustice which even if fleeting, is real. I have encountered other’s pain in this time, some of whom may not arrive to a happy outcome, some of whom may live with heaps of pain for many months to come, even if their dreams were and remain for ‘a bundle of joy’. How can human beings possibly hold this pain, and endure the kind of suffering we see in our world?

The answer is that we do have enormous resilience and capacity to endure. Our lives may see untold horrors…in my own life, my teenage cancer, seeing my mum pass away before my 20th birthday, my sister passing before her 30th year. These are moments when you live significant sadness and tears. There are often no words that can adequately describe these life altering days.

But there is a methodology of resilience…the first is to say: “this is shit”, “for this card life has dealt me, I have no words, just shit”. We must acknowledge pain, to contextualise or deny is to bury the hurt; a burying which will ultimately be unsuccessful as this pain reappears in other parts of our life, if we do not permit for its gentle care and acknowledgement.

Secondly, this sadness is not all that I am! I have lived some really big moments in my life and it has taken me much of my life to live through these moments of pain but ultimately I am in my life to live, to enjoy and to celebrate. In spite of the sadness, I am here on this earth for one roll of the dice and I am going to enjoy.

Lastly, say it out loud…we hear this more in our generation but still too many (particularly men) are unable to utter the words: “I am sad”, “this is shit”, “I am struggling”. Articulating our pain and our ‘wobble’ is to give it a home, it is to say, this is going on but it is not all of me. I have found in my life, in the moments that I have been able to express my own sadness (including this one now), I have always been better off, stronger, more able for the next stage.  

There is a context, in this week and last, in the Parshiot (Torah portions we read). We have marked the emergence from Egypt of the Israelite people from a cruel enslavement. Now we enter the desert and our travails continue – a bloody and tumultuous journey of complaints, unset and pain.

We live in a world which is on fire, hostages still in Gaza, families dislocated and pained, a world in which there is suffering everywhere you look. We may wish to turn away; some days we do better to turn away, even if momentarily. I believe that we must start with our own acknowledged pain, to see a part of who we are but not the completeness of who we are. Once we take these steps we become more able to support others and bring a small slice of healing to ourselves and to those around us, and God willing to our world.

SHABBAT SHALOM