The Gift of Suffering

Trying to carve out time for anything quiet is often a challenge for most people, and there are times when that need starts growing incrementally until it becomes urgent. I find that this is when I see myself going down that familiar path that leads to discontent and the feeling of being on a short leash fighting against my life, wondering why I feel so out of step with everything.

These are signs that I need to do something, change something, and make time for spiritual nourishment. I am still learning to do this and I am still getting caught halfway down the road to nowhere, wishing to be able to change what I cannot, with the sense that doors are closing all around me (although this part is not so much as it once was). When I devote more time to prayer and go to daily Mass, things tend to fall into place better. I doubt it looks much different to the casual observer, but it’s the difference between those days when you run into every red light compared to the ones where the timing is more on your side and the lights are green wherever you need them to be.

We humans are, generally, not so great at accepting red lights. We react in irritation, with each progressive red light causing more irritation than the last until it has grown into a full blown rage over something totally indifferent to us and over which we have no control. The one thing we have control over, our reaction to circumstances, we give over to our lowest drives. In this instance, we are spiritual weaklings, the furthest thing from mature warriors imaginable, reacting like slaves to a whip, as prisoners of the world. Sometimes, however, we need to be brought low in order to be “poor in spirit” so that we will have the space needed to grow.

It’s easy to fall into the old trap of self-pity, of feeling like the world is out to get you or that things aren’t fair, but if you can find it in you to just try to accept the things that happen – the things that most frustrate you – as a form of encouragement on the spiritual path, like the encouragement stick, there is a gift in there waiting to be unwrapped. I remember a day, for example, when things started not so great until I checked the post and got out my Catholic Register, and near the back read an article simply titled Pressure and Duty. Sometimes, when everything else seems out of time and off-key, a bell rings and it all stops. Then you have a fresh day in front of you. Suffering is inevitable; but will it be a curse, or a gift?

The Erotic Life

At mass yesterday something occurred to me that, although seemingly a banal revelation in a way, is one of those things that may only be obvious once someone puts it into words. I thought about how flirting is a form of communication and how silly it is to repress it out of fear of “causing a brother or sister to stumble”. Without that in life, something is missing. And I don’t just mean flirting with one’s spouse, but with everyone. I used to do this more, but a rather obnoxious comment and disapproval from my ex before we were married made me think I was wrong. But he didn’t understand it and neither did I or I would have walked away at that point.

If I flirt with someone other than the person with whom I am involved romantically, it isn’t explicit on the same level and it’s not even meant to entice in that way. It’s just communication and friendliness. Fathers do it with daughters – it’s not sexual, it’s just a natural way to communicate and learn how to be human. People who don’t do this or whose parents don’t do this when they are growing up miss out on an essential part of being human. When I think about it, that’s probably what gets some women’s backs up when I’m talking to their husbands – they mistake the communication element with the enticement element. I suppose it is going to wind up being enticing to some but that isn’t my problem – I shouldn’t have to wear a burka and not talk to men because their wives are uptight. Sorry toots! If all I’m doing is chatting with no intent to pull them away, that they are drawn to me isn’t my doing.

And I can tell who has a solid marriage because I can talk to the husbands and the wives don’t get jealous, the husbands are relaxed and although they can see an attractive woman, they aren’t going to try to make any moves because they already have a good thing. Those other husbands won’t make a move either but it’s because they’re too chicken (beta) and they know their wives are glaring at them from across the way and probably later she’s going to say something derogatory about how short my dress was. Again, not my problem!

In The Soul of Sex Thomas Moore talks about the erotic being at the centre of life and that the all of life can be erotic in some sense and when I read that some months ago, I didn’t quite understand and it sounded a little strange, although intriguing. Somehow it is starting to make more sense to me, and this very long path of trying to end the internal war between the spiritual and the sexual seems less of a burden.

Shafts of Light

Sometimes things are said at mass that are exactly what I needed to hear – oddly specific as well. I think that it’s not so much that sometimes it’s more relevant to our lives than others – it’s always relevant, but sometimes we are more open to it or we have gained a little bit of understanding that we didn’t have before, little shafts of light into the darkness. This stood out especially for me today:

Whenever I speak, I cry out
proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the LORD has brought me
insult and reproach all day long.
But if I say, “I will not mention his word
or speak anymore in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot. (Jeremiah 20:8-9, NIV)

In the homily Fr spoke of the Christian’s calling to decry the age and it made me think about what I do here, how sometimes I wonder if I’m just terribly gloomy or depressing, but I calls it as I sees it and if what I see is that we are causing our own death and destruction, then by God I’ll point it out as best I can. It’s not to be self-righteous or to appear pious or any sort of ambition like that, I just can’t seem to stop myself. Lord knows I struggle all day with my weaknesses, blindnesses and all. When I try to keep it in, it is “a fire shut up in my bones” and I just can’t do that any more.

So, this was something I needed to hear today and it has helped to bolster me while simultaneously filling me with the dread of the test. But I can’t even chicken out of the tests any more. Also in this passage is the feeling of wishing He had chosen someone else. Now obviously our situation is not so dramatic as we are not prophets as Jeremiah, but it is human to wish for an easier path through life than we often get, and even the greatest among us struggle at times. It may or may not seem a comfort I suppose, but it is what it is.

And to think, I had to force myself out the door to go to church today. The extent of my own struggle is that even though I never regret going to mass but do regret not going, it’s still a temptation to overcome inertia and avoidance.