TO LIVE WITH PAIN ON A DAILY BASIS

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

 To live with pain on a daily basis is to be involved in a high-maintenance relationship. To make peace with the pain can require as much energy as fighting it. Things you once did without thinking--rising, dressing, eating, walking--now take concerted effort, if not paid help. Who is this person who cannot help anyone, not even herself?

One night of real pain is enough to strip away your illusions about how strong you are, how brave, how patient and faithful. Who would have thought that a torn cornea could hurt all the way down to the heels of your feet? Who would have imagined that a really bad case of food poisoning could make you doubt the mercy of God? You do not need a torturer standing over you to recognize the direct link between pain and truth. Pain is so real that less-real things like who you thought you were and how you  meant to act can vanish like drops of water flung on a hot stove. Your virtues can become as abstract as algebra, your beliefs as porous as clouds.

(The above words are from An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. It is one of the best books I have read in a long time. She has much more to say about living with pain. I have left this open ended because I want you to think about what she said in these two paragraphs. I am impressed with the fact that living with pain causes us to erase most of what we thought we knew about ourselves.)