Don’t Get Rid of the Pain until You’ve Learned its Lessons

My photo of the mask of Agamemnon, made of a gold leaflet

Blog 52

“Nothing forces us to know

What we do not want to know

Except pain.”

Chorus in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon from The Oresteia trilogy

I wrote about an Aeschylus quote in my last blog, but his works are so full of pithy ideas and meaning, why not linger with his teachings? This entry is actually from the April 8 meditation in my book, Theatre Is My Life!

Or we may say, “suffering” instead of pain. On a recent Super Soul Sunday on the Oprah Winfrey channel, author and American spiritual teacher Gary Zukav explained the difference between pain and suffering. Pain, he said, is really just pain. Your sister has died. That is painful. But, if you transform that pain, if you use it, if you, in fact, absorb it and hold it, then that pain is pressed into service for a worthy purpose which is your spiritual growth, and it can then be called “suffering.”

Suffering alters the health of our souls. Our egos don’t trust the universe. Our egos don’t feel worthy, but they certainly want pain to have meaning, to be explained, and ultimately to go away. But our souls grow each time we experience agony.

My photo of the Lion Gate at the main entrance to the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae, the legendary home of Agamemnon, the ancient king who united and commanded the Greeks during the Trojan war.

Richard Rohr’s email reflection today reminded me: “Don’t get rid of the pain until you’ve learned its lessons. When you hold the pain consciously and trustfully, you are in a very special liminal space. This is a great teaching moment where you have the possibility of breaking through to a deeper level of faith and consciousness. Hold the pain of being human until God transforms you through it. And then you will be an instrument of transformation for others.”

He explained that Mary at the foot of the cross of the crucifixion of her son is a perfect example of holding the pain. Most Jewish women would be wailing and grieving with their voices and bodies. But instead, she is still and quiet, “in complete solidarity with the mystery of life and death.”

I remember the first time I encountered this truth in my own life. I had gotten myself to a wonderful state: physically fit, mentally alert, emotionally stable, and spiritually seeking and finding. At this very point, my then-husband announced that he wanted a divorce. The aftermath was agonizingly heartbreaking. And yet, I was at a place where I could hold the pain almost in my hands and feel the exquisite nature of suffering. Oddly, I embraced life as never before, and experienced a sudden recognition of its beauty and transitory nature. It was not a feeling or a realization that I would have actively sought.

But when it happened, I was grateful. And it did transform me. Curiously, the suffering led to a metamorphosis and new creation. My ego was totally crushed, and my divine self slowly began to emerge. I was in a numinous place where I was able to descend into a profoundly deep relationship with Grace. And it made me so much more aware of other people’s agonies of illnesses, of brokenness, of cracked and shattered lives.

Aeschylus was right so long ago: “Nothing forces us to know/What we do not want to know/Except pain.