Cry of the Heart (page 4)

 As a striving towards transcendence, creative suffering – as we've seen expressed in Germain Greer's anguished words – opens us to others who are also suffering, thus creating a solidarity among those who suffer. To suffer together means to walk together towards transcendence. This solidarity is the proper human response to suffering... What we share is the questioning – and thus we suffer with the one who suffers. We co-suffer with that person.
    Since suffering reflects the transcendence of the human person, since it points to a Mystery that is the author of the drama of human life, then we cannot really use suffering to deny the existence of God. Instead, it is because there is a God that suffering exists as human being experience it. The suffering of human beings is a sign of God. (Page 4 - top of page 5)

I have noticed, since I've gotten sick again, that certain friends have faded away. I simply haven't heard from them since I communicated the recurrence of my cancer. I think I understand them – they're deeply disturbed and terrified of losing me. Their love for me makes them feel that my loss would be an awful thing, something they can't bear. To be near me, to see me suffer, would only intensify this sense of horror and loss, and it's something they instinctively recoil from. I think this is the human condition without redemption. Extreme suffering is simply impossible to witness, especially in one we love. So I can't blame those who don't have the stamina or stomach to stay in touch with me. They have no intention of making me feel lonely or abandoned. In fact, I think it breaks their hearts and makes them feel horrible that they keep "forgetting" to reach out. 

To hang in there with the suffering person – especially, to hang in there without offering "answers" or solutions – is impossible without a special, divine gift (a grace). Those who can do it should take no credit for their capacity because the strength doesn't come from them. Only God can make this co-suffering possible. 

This solidarity that Albacete speaks of is a real thing. Going to the hospital, I would feel the weight of it. Sitting in the little waiting area (it held 10 chairs in a U shape) right outside the radiation rooms, we patients would always strike up conversations. Cancer is so democratic – it strikes all types, from every walk of life – but there we'd be, brought together by this one enemy, and there would be an immediate intimacy. These people would share their hopes and fears, their pain and their relief – all sometimes within a five minute conversation. These conversations, no matter how short or long, would always end, as one person would be led back to the radiation machines, with "I'll pray for you," or "God bless you." Always. I don't know what religion the others were, and I was not always the one to invoke the Almighty. Their are no atheists when it comes to cancer. At least, I never met one. 

So walking in the big hospital (visitors always remark that it's the size of a city), one feels the weight of all the suffering people, especially the children. This is a weight that is impossible for the strong and healthy to discern. It's there, like a cloud, hanging over the shoulders and head of every person who enters and leaves, but only one in real pain, or suffering a big loss, can feel it bearing down on her. And it's a welcome weight, like a weighted blanket. We are part of something greater than we are. We are not alone. And this is, indeed, a sign of God. 

 

SoC Contribution: (RS pages 63-65)

 The Substitution of Questions with Willpower

The three examples Giussani gives feel pretty impenetrable, so I'm going to try to give examples that are "closer to home." 

1. Personal Praxis

I need to clean my house because it will reflect well on me when people see what a great housekeeper I am. They will be jealous. They might even hate me for being so much tidier than they are. I can live with their dislike because I will know (and they will know, too!) that I'm superior to them.

2. Utopianism

I need to clean my house because the world is going to hell in a hand basket and only a few can maintain order and live clutter-free. The world should reward the few who can hold to this higher standard, even if it's not possible for many. There is this ideal that must be maintained, or at least we must strive after it, even if the world is a dark and very cluttered place. 

3. The Social Project

I need to clean my house because it's the right thing to do, for the good of society. I will start a coop of moms who encourage one another to get their houses clean. Together we will realize a dream of clean living. Why? Because it's obvious: a clean house makes me feel better/makes us feel better! Kids get less asthma in clean houses. People can be more productive in clean houses. 

I don't know if these examples help. 

I have experienced these three kinds of willpower. I can think of different examples from my life. The problem is that I hate when SoC gets "confessional" and we wind up talking about all the ways in which we screw up. So I want to ask the question: what happens when INSTEAD of relying on willpower, we live according to "the stimulating energy of the 'elementary experience,' that 'goad [that] drives me on,'"?

When I remember that Christ is Goodness, Truth, Love, Beauty, Mercy, etc made flesh, and I seek to see traces of these qualities in those I meet so as to find the face of Christ "hidden" or obscured within the faces of the people around me, the world becomes a great miracle and life becomes an adventure. 

This time of recovery has offered many opportunities to be tempted toward willpower: I can tough this out... If I can just get through this day... Keep your stamina up, Suzanne... But things fall apart when I try to rely on willpower. And I can taste resentment between my teeth. 

Lately, I've been thinking about Passover, and my favorite prayer that Jews sing during the Seder: Dayenu. This word means, "It would have been enough," or "It would have sufficed." Here are the zany Maccabeats singing their version of the song: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZgDNPGZ9Sg

If He had brought us out of Egypt, it would have been enough

If He had split the sea for us, it would have been enough If He had led us through on dry land, it would have been enough If He had provided for our needs in the wilderness for 40 years, it would have been enough If He had fed us manna, it would have been enough

If He had led us to Mount Sinai, it would have been enough

If He had given us the Torah, it would have been enough

If He had brought us into the Land of Israel, it would have been enough

If He built the Temple for us, it would have been enough it would have been enough.

I've been substituting the experiences of the Hebrew people with my experiences in various friendships. For example, in meeting Caroline (but I have been doing this with each one of you): It would have been enough if Caroline had brought new life to the Pittsburgh SoC... It would have been enough if Caroline had been willing to attend national events... It would have been enough if Caroline had wanted to visit me and help me with the Studio... It would have been enough if Caroline had joined Visitation... It would have been enough if Caroline had come to various events in Steubenville... It would have been enough if Caroline had written beautiful witnesses for the CL Newsletter... etc. 

Only God could have accomplished all the wonders that the Hebrew people experienced in the Exodus, and only Christ could accomplish the wonders (each of which is an instance of Goodness, Truth, Love, Beauty, Mercy, etc.) that have threaded through my friendship with Caroline (and with the rest of you, too). To see Christ means joy for my heart and gratitude filling my thoughts: and then the things I need to accomplish throughout the day become easy and light. 

Thus willpower, in all its ugly forms, loses. 

Cry of the Heart: pages 1-3

[...] Every fiber of my own heart vibrates with this anguished protest. I too would join Wiesel, Mauriac, and all who have experienced such horrors [of the Holocaust] in cursing this face of the Infinite. And yet, there is something else in my heart that will also not go away – the certainty that this anger cannot be, and cannot be allowed to be, the last word about human life.
    The last word must be the hope of the same heart that causes me still to protest, to rail against the infinite Mystery that permits such horrors to happen. [page 3]

To me, this is a great mystery. How is it that some people – people with great minds and great hearts (Wiesel and Mauriac) – could let their anger have the last word? It makes me wonder: "Albacete, how can you be so sure? You haven't seen anything so horrific as the events in the concentration camps..." But then I remember people like Max Kolbe, Edith Stein, Corrie Ten Boom, and I think, "Yes, Albacete would be among these who kept their certainty in mercy and hope, even in the worst circumstances known to humanity."

I don't know what makes the difference, but I want to be with Albacete (and Kolbe, Stein, and Ten Boom). I want to stake everything on mercy and hope. 

What sort of education or training do I need in order to land among those with hope, rather than among those for whom anger becomes the last word?

Cry of the Heart, Ch 1, Paragraph 1

 Chapter 1 “A Mystery to be Lived” 

I would never attempt to offer an answer to the problem that suffering poses to believers. Suffering is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. As a Catholic Christian, I see the problem of suffering as inseparable from the cross of Jesus. But this is not the perspective I have adopted here, because I do not wish to begin by speaking only to other Christians. I want to start by reflecting on experiences we all have because we are human beings, whatever our beliefs. 

Two very provocative points, right out of the gate: a priest who would never attempt to offer an answer to the problem of suffering. Can I say the same of myself? When I was younger, I was often in a hurry to explain – I thought I was offering a gift by spelling out what the catechism teaches about suffering. This made me feel like a "star pupil" who had the "right answer," but also like a generous person who could dispense the true meaning to people who, once they received my explanation, could be at peace because they knew the truth. 

Now when I think of these experiences, I wonder why I was in such a hurry to dispense with these explanations? When I search my conscience, I can't find any motive beside a genuine desire to help, to ease suffering, to provide an adequate meaning. Unfortunately, I was in the wrong, and I started to realize this before reading Albacete's book. I think it's important to mention motive because we can be very well-meaning and have the correct answers but still be wrong. We need to acknowledge this first for ourselves but also when dealing with others who make the mistakes we've overcome – we must remember that their hearts are in the right place, and they're acting out of love, a love untempered by wisdom, but still it's true love, and it may even be superior to our own capacity to love. 

What is the second provocative point? "Suffering is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived." How often do we rush in with solutions? "Try this diet"... or "Here's a device that might help with that"... or "You should change doctors"... or "Take this herb/vitamin/medicine" etc. What would it look like to instead confront someone else's suffering as a "mystery to be lived"? 

I can't help but think that it has to do with presence: recognizing that our presence (MY presence) has more value than all the solutions we could think up. We want to eliminate the suffering, but the person suffering needs companions who can enter into their life with them far more than she needs suggestions and solutions. In fact, the solutions others offer can feel hostile or belittling and certainly alienating. Even professional helpers (doctors, lawyers, social workers, therapists, etc.) who will not first offer their presence and companionship cannot be trusted to find correct solutions. This is because the various disciplines that serve to relieve suffering are each an art that requires humanity to be effective. 

If anyone would like a conversation on this paragraph, we could use this question as a jumping off point: What would it look like to instead confront someone else's suffering as a "mystery to be lived"?

Contribution to SoC (RS pages 60-62)

A gift from a stranger, who had heard about my cancer from my brother-in-law and brought this back from Lourdes for me... For me! 

"... in one way or another, these stances are either temptations, or actual attitudes all of us live" (60). 

Let's all be very disciplined and look only to ourselves and our own consciences when testing Giussani's "unreasonable positions." We all know OTHER people who are getting it wrong, but to focus on them would mean a lost opportunity for us. 

Theoretical Denial of the Questions: 

This is when we treat the great questions ("Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life? Why is there something and not nothing? etc.) as absurd. 

I don't do this consciously, but often, without thinking about it, I leave the great questions off the table as "extraneous" to a given problem to solve. 

The big "problem" I face now is my recovery from radiation/chemo. The symptoms need to be managed – with medicine, therapies, devices, various practices – it's easy to turn all these problems into complex calculations, endless adjustments, the need for some new product that will solve everything... Each day I put my little wood statue of Our Lady of Lourdes in my front left pocket where I can easily reach for it and hold it in my hand... But even this can become a kind of "practical solution" rather than an opening up of awareness or a reminder of the Big Questions and my need to keep them in play. 

What happens, though, when I allow these questions to frame and define my symptoms and the misery I experience? What difference does it make when my little statue of Our Lady becomes a source of ultimate meaning (and not just a comforting gesture, made with less awareness)?

As I placed the small piece of wood in my pocket this morning, a kind of song or prayer rose spontaneously in my heart: O my Jesus, my beloved. I love you. I'm yours. from the bottoms of my feet to the top of my head, I give it all to you because you're my Jesus, my all. How I love you. How I want to be your beloved, forever and always. Only this... The song continued with many repetitions/different words but the same basic meaning. I didn't consciously choose to pray this way; I didn't even say, "Now it's time to pray." Nothing like that. Rather, it was something that welled up from my heart, as a gift to me. I asked myself, "Where could such a gift come from?" and the only reasonable answer is that the gift comes directly from the misery, the pain, and the odious symptoms I work so hard to stamp out. How many times while leaning over a sink or a toilet, or while sitting up in bed when all I wanted to do was to lie down, did I find myself spontaneously begging: O my Jesus, deliver me, take this away, please, Jesus, my Jesus, please...But if you cannot take it away, please be with me, please stay with me. Please... And these occasions laid down a kind of pattern or habit of invocation and of turning my face in the direction of Christ. 

"I would create the universe again, just to hear you say again that you love me" [Christ to St. Teresa of Avila]. 

If I ask, "What is the meaning of this pain I experience? Why does God allow me to suffer with these symptoms?" then the only adequate response is: for my need to expand and for my love for the Mystery to become the habitual attitude of my heart. These experiences are so much more satisfying than all my calculations, adjustments, researching solutions. And yet God also wants me to do this work of calculating, adjusting, and researching! He gave me this desire, too, because to want wholeness and integrity of the body is also an elementary need. In God's economy, nothing is ever wasted or lost.