This is from John Donne, who was a British poet and philosopher who lived from 1572-1631. Perhaps best known for the quote "No man is an island," his phrasing in this literary piece titled Sermon III is quite different from modern English. I am using it because we will come back to the concept of our suffering as destiny later in the Service.
How much misery is presaged to us... What miserable revolutions and changes, what down-fals, what break-necks, and precipitations may we justly think ourselves ordained to, if we consider, that in our coming into this world out of our mothers womb, we doe not make account that a child comes right, except it come with the head forward, and thereby prefigure that headlong falling into calamities which it must suffer after.
This word "suffer" and its relatives—suffering, suffered—have bothered me for some time. When I was old enough to realize people suffer from illnesses and after accidents that harm their bodies, the concept of suffering began to simmer just below the surface of my own consciousness. My parents died from different cancers, and other members of my genetic family died from heart disease or as a result of diabetes or alcoholism. And I know that each of you here has a similar story related to someone suffering from a disease and then dying. Very personally, we have experienced suffering from the loss of those loved ones. I've suffered (somewhat) after operations, perhaps you have, too. So we have felt the pain in many ways associated with the concept of suffering. As a group, we Unitarian Universalists view suffering and the consequences of terminal diseases differently from some other denominations and the various faith groups. In the words of a friend and resident theologian, "Whatever Is Is." We'll talk about these differences in a moment.
First let's define what suffering is. The Encarta dictionary defines the verb suffer as these: to feel pain or great discomfort in mind or body; to experience or undergo something unpleasant or undesirable. Another definition: to endure or put up with something unpleasant or undesirable. So there are descriptions and definitions to try to explain the word suffer. But I asked, "Why do we suffer?" And the answer to that question is plural, and it begins with a religious involvement. Hmmm... again, religion... it has been and remains a huge part of the human condition.
I discovered that suffering is viewed by the main world religions as having its roots in evil. One of the books from our church library is titled Problems of Suffering in Religions of the World written by John Bowker in 1970. Bowker explains John Donne's thoughts from which I read in the Opening Words [p.1] in this way:
John Donne... may well have been a man of unusually pessimistic temperament: he dwelt frequently on death, wrote his own epitaph and had his portrait painted in his shroud. And yet in that passage he is simply stating one of the most obvious facts of human existence, that suffering is the common lot of all men. It is because suffering, in one form or another, is a common experience that religions give to suffering a place of central importance or consideration—indeed it is often said that suffering is an important cause [sic] of religion, since the promises held out by religion represent a way in which men can feel reassured in the face of catastrophe or death. It is, many would add, an inadequate or immature way of seeking reassurance, because it rests in illusion: it is an attempt to control the real world by means of the wish-world, and it was this insight which formed the basis of [Sigmund] Freud's critique of religion.
Sigh... It is deep. And the research into this word "suffer" delved deeper. However, as deep as it got, the one thought which remained in my mind is this: many of us humans believe that mankind creates its own God, gods, or goddesses to explain the workings of nature and what happens to humans. So involving a higher being allows us humans to rationalize. We can put the blame somewhere—we humans created our gods, and extremely in-depth literary works put a god at the basis of suffering and evil. Indeed, the three main Western religions—Judaism, and its two offspring Christianity and Islam, begin with the story of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve's fall from favor by disobeying God, their creator. Pain and suffering were then cast upon Adam and Eve and all of us who would come after them would likewise experience pain and its relative suffering. Woman would have pain in giving birth to a child, as John Donne remarked, and be subservient to man. Man would toil continuously to eke out a living for himself and his family. In the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Torah, and later to be the first book of the Christian Old Testament, it was to be considered mankind's fate... to be striving continuously to regain favor with God. On our visit to colonial Williamsburg, Edward and I had this experience. A man in character as a dentist was asked by a member of our group of visitors, "What do you use for anesthesia?" He slowly replied, "I don't know that word." The questioner asked further, "What do you do for pain for the patient?" The dentist casually remarked, "Oh pain? It's God's Will."
We know these words—"It is God's Will," "I am blessed because I wasn't hit by the tornado, hurricane, etc.," and in the words of the late comedian Flip Wilson, a related attitude, "The devil made me do it."
Rationalizing the commonality of humankind's suffering means we are not alone in the probability of suffering at some time, and so it must be true that a creator is involved in this experience. And then that line of reasoning continues to other aspects of our lives. Ancient peoples could not comprehend or even imagine the science of genetics and the inheritance of diseases. We have it in the many sacred scriptures of the world religions that some higher being created us and therefore that creator is responsible for our suffering. This thinking allows us to postpone the perhaps terrifying reality that one day our lives, and those of our loved ones, will end.
The word theodicy is a new one for me; however, a resident theologian passed along an article from the New Yorker magazine written by James Wood. As Wood defined it, theodicy is the classic difficulty of how we justify the existence of suffering and iniquity with belief in a God who created us, who loves us, and who providentially manages the world.
We get ourselves off the hook with explaining away natural disasters in this way. Some insurance companies use the phrase "Acts of God" to explain windstorms, hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural incidents or freak accidents. It works for them—these are the exclusions in our insurance policies!
Continuing the premise of the biblical story of creation, I offer this: In a compilation of essays by Peter Koslowski about the various points of view of the main world religions, titled The Origin and the Overcoming of Evil and Suffering in the World Religions, Christianity's point of view is related through an essay by Julio Teran Dutari. Mr. Dutari explains the Roman Catholic point of view by citing passages of the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible which place "The origin of evil in the disobedience of the creature" [the humans Adam and Eve], followed by "The promise of overcoming evil in the kingdom of God." Dutari's premise is that by the creation of a developing and limited world with free creatures, the presence of the physical and moral evil was brought forth. He follows this with the statement: "The origin of evil is disclosed only with the light of faith in the love of the Creator and the Savior." From here on the logic is based upon the passages of the Bible. This is but a glimpse into the depth of study Mr. Dutari has accomplished. I use Catholicism as the example because it is the basis for Protestantism's points of view which are similar.
I do not wish to cast aspersions on any of the believers in the Bible. This is not my purpose. I am merely presenting what these scholars have determined by their studies. I don't agree with them because I think one has to accept the Bible as "Truth," as they have, in order to do that. Through my research I am learning how others view suffering—as having its basis in evil. As a biologist I see suffering as having its basis in being an animal. All animals suffer to some extent in their lives. We know about higher animals, those with more cognitive brains, because we can hear them moan in pain when they have a disease or broken limb. Our pets tell us in their own way when they are hurting. So, I do not agree with these scholars; I do respect their research and opinions.
Let's look at Buddhism. The author of the essay titled "Evil and the Overcoming of Suffering in Buddhism," Jae-Ryong Shim, offers this:
...both evil and goodness as long as they do not last forever, can produce suffering... The basic Buddhist attitude to evil is not to deny its existence nor merely to reconcile its presence in the world, but to observe carefully, and study its nature and causes in order to eliminate it... the Buddha dictates: "Never commit any evils; but practice all the goods. Simply purify your mind/heart. This is the teaching of the Buddhas." Both good and evil are posited as real, and the fundamental way of eliminating evil, i.e., the mind-purification method, is prescribed.
Quite briefly, Buddhists believe that until they attain Nirvana, the highest state of well-being, they must be born, experience human existence, die and be reborn thereby learning through the constant reincarnation of experiencing evil. I said earlier that the subject of suffering and evil is a deep one.
Another resident theologian offered this from Karen Armstrong who lived a solitary life in a convent. She developed the idea of compassion as not pity or condensation, but the deep feeling for another. From Armstrong's book The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness:
Self, after all, is our basic problem. When I wake up at three in the morning and ask myself, Why does this have to happen to me? Why cannot I have what X has? Why am I so unloved and unappreciated? ...I learn that ego is at the heart of all pain. When I get beyond this for a few moments, I feel enlarged and enhanced—just as the Buddha promised.
Arthur Ashe, the late world-renowned tennis champion was asked if he ever questioned why AIDS had to happen to him through a blood transfusion. He wisely replied that when he was born with the ability to play tennis, he didn't ask why he was chosen to be a great tennis player. "It just happened."
And, since we, each of us, have experienced pain and suffering, you must have an opinion or a comment about why we suffer. I'd like to hear it. [Open the microphone to the congregants at this point.]
So, to close... There is so much more to this... we merely opened the door to answering the question "Why do we suffer?" Here, in Harford County, in our United States of America in the middle of July, I wish you well on your spiritual path and journey. Thank you. Amen.
Copyright © 2008 JoAnn Macdonald. All Rights Reserved.