We look to others for inspiration. We wish them to lift our spirits. When they express joy, we share in it, and it feels good. But sometimes we want them to inspire us not by expressing joy. We want to rest in the knowledge that they suffer. Because we sometimes suffer, we look to others that pine as well, so we realize we're not alone. It's not as if we're vampires, sucking on the life-force of others - it's just that we don't want to be alone in our pain. We cannot be joyful all the time, and it feels good to see others also unable to be always happy. Sometimes we think of our friends in their frustration, loneliness, poverty, unemployment or grief and we say,"It is well. I am not the only one suffering," and it feels good. It is good.
Suffering is good. It is not good all the time, but only some of the time. We need suffering to balance out the joy we occasionally experience. We cannot escape it, and it is foolish to try to. Think about Jesus on the cross, with the nails and the thorns digging into his body. He suffered. Next time you stand in front of a crucifix, don't just think of Jesus suffering, or you for that matter. Think also of your family and colleagues - think of all those you know that are suffering and allow yourself to rejoice in their pain. Allow yourself to thank God that things are not going well for them. When you place your pain side by side with the pain of all the people you know who are suffering, you may experience a soothing feeling. Stay with it for awhile, and let it lift your spirit. You cannot always pray for others to be joyful - what's the good in that?
Did you ever read of the Buddha? The story had it that he wearied of enjoyment. So he began to journey to the places where people suffered. He sat with them, and suffered alongside them. He took them all in, the varied images of suffering. He did not seek to deny what he saw. Then he went and sat under a tree, and he said to himself, "I have found the answer!" The answer was in the suffering he had seen. He did not wish to change anything. The pain was alright. Everything was alright. Did you ever hear about what Mother Teresa did one day? She was on her way to catch a bus, but she saw a man dying along the road. She did not begin to shout for paramedics to come help. She did not begin to make a fuss. She simply sat by the man's side and soaked in his suffering. She stayed with him for many hours, until he died. She sipped in his suffering. She did not want it to go away.
We should not always wish that our friends be joyful. There's no fun in that. So they ache - it's all good. We too suffer. It's good to have company in pain. We and our friends should suffer. Suffering is like the morning, which is always sure to come, bringing with it it's own set of lessons. We suffer because we must. And since we must, we should learn to almost enjoy it, welcome it for us and for our friends. Suffering is in unemployment, thousands of people waiting in line to apply for a company's openings, where only six people are needed. Suffering is in the faces of people on food-stamps or disability. Suffering is in the hospitals, where people fear their next surgery, having already had several that left them sicker. Suffering is in broken homes, where the children throw glass tumblers at the wall and scream because their parents fight in the next room and they're too helpless to do anything about it.
When people do try to "fix" suffering, they resort to drugs, pornography, alcoholism or other forms of addictive behavior. They seek to run away to Avalon, or La-la land, or Sugar-Candy Mountain. They frenziedly act out, trying to dull the ache. No senor! Leave the pain there. Stay still and suffer. I once told my younger brother, Chima: Look - if you wake up one morning and life seems all sweet and dandy, go back to sleep. When you wake up and it feels painful and challenging, get up and begin to walk about. Life must be hard. In the Rosary Prayer, we ask Maria Mater Dei to deliver us from "this valley of tears," not to join us on a jolly cruise along the surf of pleasure. A life of perpetual bliss is needfully weird.
I am no alien to suffering. I've stood on food lines at Wichita and Chicago. I've flashed my ID at the lady at the counter, and opened my bag to receive the groceries; then carried it to the bus stop to wait. As I've sat waiting, I've seen mad, homeless people sitting in the dust - dejected, unwanted, unloved. I've wept for them, and for myself. I've questioned and pondered, without answer. Across from the Cathedral in Wichita, several homeless, mentally-challenged individuals congregate as if in rival liturgy, praying to a crazy God, while the faithful in the grand church across the street petition Jehovah, their God, the one that spoke to Moses, and later to Jesus, in whom they find their comfort. I sigh. I cannot understand it.
Existentialists say life is absurd. Perhaps. And at the heart of this absurdity must be suffering. It is the agony we cannot escape, the one that persists in spite of God; the one we must allow our loved ones to experience with us, together. It is hunger, loneliness, frustration, abuse, hatred, bitterness and shame. It is everywhere, and we cannot eradicate it. The Buddha knew this; Mother Teresa knew this. I know it - I've seen it with my own eyes, in the places I've been, in the gripe I've felt when, confronted with the sad reality about me and pondering on the absurdity existentialists preach concerning the world as we know it, I've prayed to this God of ours: Let me and my friends continue to suffer. Do not make life easy for any of us.
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