Ya know, I’m kinda a wimp when it comes to suffering.
Take the flu for example. The younger boy child came home with it last Friday. I dodged it with the first two only to catch it from him. I sat with him on his bed as his temp kept moving upwards; 39.6., 39.7, 39.8… (pushing 104). As a father I wished I could take it from him and bear it for myself. Few things make a parent suffer more than seeing a child suffer. Alas I couldn’t bear it fro him, but sitting at his bedside was all it took for me to experience the same shortly thereafter. Two nights later, and again last night, it was my turn. The highest my fever reached was only 38.7 (pushing 102) but that was well past the suffering threshold for me. For me a sort of delirium kicks in at around 38—like a dreamy state threaded with misery and strange thoughts that morph into visions.
Take the flu for example. The younger boy child came home with it last Friday. I dodged it with the first two only to catch it from him. I sat with him on his bed as his temp kept moving upwards; 39.6., 39.7, 39.8… (pushing 104). As a father I wished I could take it from him and bear it for myself. Few things make a parent suffer more than seeing a child suffer. Alas I couldn’t bear it fro him, but sitting at his bedside was all it took for me to experience the same shortly thereafter. Two nights later, and again last night, it was my turn. The highest my fever reached was only 38.7 (pushing 102) but that was well past the suffering threshold for me. For me a sort of delirium kicks in at around 38—like a dreamy state threaded with misery and strange thoughts that morph into visions.
Though advances in medical science we as a species have done much to lessen or postpone suffering, but invariably there comes a point at which all we can do is ride it out. The most sincere prayers and best science haven’t changed that. That’s as it should be though. It’s so human. Suffering. Trying to be awake to it, to be present in it, brings about a humility and compassion that I otherwise forget. “Oh you were sick I’m sorry” I can say with some feeling. But by experiencing it myself, even to some small degree, I’m better fit to go deeper into compassion. Compassion. Literally to “suffer with”. Recognizing this helps me move past much of the trivial BS that separates us.
Still, bondage to self tells me to fight it. Hurry and get better, pray to recover I want be healthy! It screams. Last night I tried another way, I tried to approach it as this was it—to imagine this is how I’ll exist until the end. Of course I was 99.9% certain I would recover; it was merely an experiment in compassion, in being awake to the present moment, its misery and all.
Right now millions of people who are experiencing suffering at this very moment will continue to do so until death. In the back of my mind I know their fate is mine as well, so fear tells me not to think of it. When able to move past the fear, however, I’m more fit to experience compassion. And by becoming more in tune with compassion I’m better fit to experience the joy in life.
Right now millions of people who are experiencing suffering at this very moment will continue to do so until death. In the back of my mind I know their fate is mine as well, so fear tells me not to think of it. When able to move past the fear, however, I’m more fit to experience compassion. And by becoming more in tune with compassion I’m better fit to experience the joy in life.
I think Joseph Campbell said it best:
“Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and its spectacular.”
“Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and its spectacular.”
So there ya have it—so goes the hopefully on the healing end of the flu ramblings of a stranger in a strange land… In sickness and in health, we’re here to live this life for all its worth, which sometimes includes “suffering with” one another.
Yet still I remain kind of a wimp when it comes to suffering.
Cough cough.
Yet still I remain kind of a wimp when it comes to suffering.
Cough cough.
