Suffering, Authenticity, Identity and Transformation

[insilentmeditation]

Suffering, Authenticity, Identity and Transformation

A Poem and a Pondering for Maundy Thursday

 

This poem is the first one that I created specifically as a spoken word piece, and it is the first one that I performed. It’s about the life I lived between my teen years and the few years I spent pursuing some kind of rock-n-roll dream in Phoenix and Los Angeles. It’s called “Regret.”

 

When I was young, I was afraid and boys were a mystery

Oh, I knew myself, and I was convinced that I was the

Ugliest, most undesirable and fattest thing to ever walk this earth

All five foot three, one hundred and ten pounds of me

No boy would ever want me

But oh, how I wanted one of them.

I wanted to be loved and cherished so badly that when the

First one came along, professing his undying love

For me in tears, I fell head over heels and heels over head and

Straight into the bed of terror

 

Oh, it took a couple of months;

Just a couple of months after wedding bells for him to

Tear out my heart and my soul and shove them into the closet

Cowering in fear while my head was slammed

Over and over and over again against the wall

Until I saw stars

 

There was no word in those days for the thing that I did

With the wire cutters and the knives and the scissors to my arms

No word, but I knew

I knew that the only way to release my fears and my frustrations

And my hopelessness

Was to rend my very flesh

Until the day came, after eight years, that I could rescue

My heart and my soul and walk away

 

I have no regret for those years

No regret, for there is no point

Today I know who I am; I know my power;

I know the control that I have over my own future

 

No regret. But I remember

I remember that young girl, who at fifteen…sixteen…eighteen…

At twenty five did not know who she was

Did not know the power she had over her own life

 

Yes, I remember.

I remember her hopes and I remember her fears

I remember her dreams and I remember her tears

And for that, I have regret.

 

In their book, Proverbs of Ashes, Rebecca Ann Parker and Rita Nakashima Brock argue that the theology of suffering so prevalent in Christianity is harmful; that it has led to the mistreatment of others and the acceptance of mistreatment against the self to the detriment of humanity. They contend that suffering is not necessary for salvation.

 

There are entire denominations that hinge their theological standpoint on the understanding that suffering is necessary for salvation. For the next three days, Christians worldwide will gather to commemorate the betrayal and the suffering of Jesus. For many, it is a celebration of a sacrifice so great that it changed the world. Like Parker and Brock, I question the necessity of suffering as a means of salvation. Is it really necessary? Must we suffer in order to become authentically who God means for us to be? Is suffering necessary to reveal our true identity? For many of those who attribute Jesus as divine, his true identity was not revealed until after his physical death and a short walk along a road with his own followers who did not recognize him. It has been suggested that had Jesus not been tortured, had he not suffered and died a horrible death, he might not be remembered today. But does this mean that it was necessary? Does this mean that our own suffering is necessary? Or is the idea that we must suffer in order to transform a result of our own failure to accept responsibility for our own actions? Do we transform because we suffer, or do we transform because we respond to God’s call to use our experiences for good, no matter how bad those experiences might be?

 

There is a saying that goes, “The Lord never gives us more than we can handle.” For many, this is a soothing platitude. I say it’s a crock. God does not give us suffering. God gives us our lives and our breath. God gives us creation. God gives us community. God gives us love. God gives us the potential for infinite beauty in a multivalent creation. God gives us a breathtaking song of Becoming that calls us toward our ultimate potential for good. It is an eternal call and response. God calls, we respond. We call, God responds.

 

If we listen for our own song, the one that God sings to our own soul, and respond in love, we can transform without suffering. In the real world, suffering happens. It is the nature of existence in a physical world. Suffering happens and when it does, we can justify it or we can rectify it. We can listen for God’s song even in the midst of the ugliness, and we can transform. Or, we can ignore it and continue to create a protective covering of inauthentic identity. To believe that God sends us horrible experiences in order to force transformation upon us is to believe in a cruel, manipulative God. To believe that God knows the suffering we will endure and allows it “for our own good” is contrary to the belief in a God of love.

 

Today is Maundy Thursday, a holy day in the Christian cycle of redemption. For many it is a day that commemorates the suffering of Christ. I prefer to see it as a commemoration of community. According to the story, Jesus gathered with his disciples for a Passover meal, in which he acknowledged his awareness that he was in a precarious position with the Roman authorities. He knew that he would be betrayed; it is a human thing, betrayal. We betray those we love in order to save ourselves. He knew that he was likely going to die. He had just spent the previous week stirring up the people, promising them God’s “kingdom” and teaching them how to attain spiritual fulfillment by seeking beyond the law and beyond human understanding of the world. He spoke out against injustice, he welcomed the disenfranchised, and he lived his life authentically.   And at that last supper, he reminded them that they were a community. He gave them something to build that community around. He trusted them to remain in community after he was gone.

 

Did Jesus have to suffer and die to reveal his true self? Was he more authentic after the suffering than he was in his lifetime? Do we have to suffer to discover who we are? Are we more authentic after suffering?

 

I think that when we are in suffering, we build walls to protect ourselves. We devise safe personae that we believe are more acceptable to those at whose hands we suffer. As long as we believe that suffering is necessary for transformation, we allow ourselves to be compromised. The longer we are in suffering, the more inauthentic we become. It needn’t be physical suffering. It needn’t be blatant. As long as we are ostracized for being who we are, as long as we let others tell us who and what we need to be, we are in suffering. Was I more authentically me before my first marriage? Or was the one who emerged from that time to struggle for years with my identity, my beliefs, and my relationships with others more authentic? Did I have to live in fear of my life every day for eight years in the marriage and with the residual baggage for another twenty-something years in order to transform into the person I am today?

 

I don’t think so. I don’t think it was necessary. I do think, however, that in order to be authentic today, I must recognize and admit that I did experience those years. I must utilize the negative experiences and memories in a positive way. In order to be truly authentic, I must reject the God-constructs and belief systems that reinforce the idea that suffering is not only necessary, but God-given. In order to be truly authentic, I must reveal those experiences. In my pursuit of authenticity, I must take the chance that I will be rejected by those who would judge my behavior and my understanding of God. As I seek authenticity, I must reject theologies and doctrines that continue to build and support walls that obstruct community, diversity, and the acceptance of God’s universal, enduring love. I must always seek to build community. No matter who or what Jesus was or is, it is his authentic life and his loving and trusting heart that are my example.

 

Throughout history, God’s song has been heard by people in all cultures and all lifestyles. The most authentic of all the people who have walked the earth are those who have responded to their own song without regard to established norms and societal expectation. Those who are authentically responding to God’s call seek nothing but the highest good. It does not matter what they call this goodness; it does not matter what religious or philosophical environment they operate in; it does not matter what cultural heritage they grow in. What matters is that they reach across boundaries to one another.

 

In seeking to be true to ourselves, we allow others to live into their own identities as well. In rejecting the belief that suffering is necessary for transformation, we no longer allow others to impose negative values upon us, and we facilitate the expansion of positive responses to one another and to God.   The real transformation occurs, I think, when we allow our true identities to be revealed – flaws and all – so that we might be able to be of service to others.  Jesus lived his life authentically, revealing his disagreements with the socio-religious establishment of his time and reaching across cultural, religious, gender and identity lines. By doing so, he risked losing his family support system, friends, religious leaders and even his very life. By doing so, he responded to God’s call and revealed himself as the most perfect reflection of God’s identity as the very essence of love.