One of the reasons that I think people shy away from believing they could do this work is because of their relationship with pain and suffering. Several weeks ago, I attended Embracing U training, a program designed to help facilitate supportive peer relationships across this organization. While there, one of the leaders spoke about the hospital as a “Suffering Rich Environment”. I have worked in hospitals for several years, but the way that she described this environment hit me in a new way. Most people come to the hospital seeking healing from physicians, nurses, techs – from the folks who have calculated formulas and criteria for attending to specific health problems.
MY ROLE in this environment is to navigate the hidden wounds. People who suffer loss feel an often unspeakable pain. At times, it almost seems unbearable. And loss, is as common of an experience as having a cold. Loss comes in the form of death, expectations, transitions, growth, dreams. I once heard an author described pain as being a gift – a sign that we are alive.
Pain is a gift because it shows we have a capacity to feel, whether pain in the body or pain in the soul. Physical pain demonstrates the capacity we have in our senses to experience the negative side of life in the world. Our nerves give us messages about the world, warning us of its dangers as well as informing us of its delights. What is true in the body is also true in the soul. The pain of loss is severe because the pleasure of life is so great; it demonstrates the supreme value of what is lost.
The last time that I led chapel, I exposed a significant vulnerability. I allowed you to meet me behind the pulpit in the midst of my grief. I shared with you stories of my mom and brother and how their deaths still impact me, three years later. The screaming pain I feel at the loss of my mother and my brother reflects the pleasure I felt in knowing them. I cannot have one without the other, for both show what the soul is capable of feeling, sometimes simultaneously.
Loss is often accompanied by an experience of anxiety and depression. Clinical psychology has a vocabulary to describe depression, and it provides techniques and drugs to combat it. However, some folks find a spiritual image more helpful to connect. The Spanish mystic, John of the Cross, wrote about something he calls “the dark night of the soul.” He defines it as a depressed spiritual state into which one slips and, turning to traditional remedies—emotional fervor, spiritual discipline, rational analysis, worship, service—finds in them absolutely no help and comfort. All props are stripped away. One is left utterly alone and helpless. It is the darkness visible that Styron describes. One enters the abyss of emptiness—with the perverse twist that one is not empty of the tortured feeling of emptiness. If anything, this kind of emptiness fills one with dread and despair.
This experience rarely follows immediately after the loss. It occurs at the end of the fight, after the denial yields to reality, the bargaining fails, the binges lead to emptiness, and the anger subsides. Then there is no will or desire left to resist the inevitable and undeniable. One is left only with deep sadness and profound depression. The divorce is final, and there is nothing to be done to win the partner back. The abuse or rape really happened, and the memory will remain for a life-time. The cancer is terminal, and no medical miracle is going to change that. The disability is permanent, and no amount of physical therapy is going to alter the condition. The job is lost and will never be won again.
At the core of loss is the frightening truth of our mortality. We are creatures, made of dust. Life on earth can be and often is wonderful. But in the end all of us will die. The losses that we experience set off silent screams inside of us that are deafening.
I’ve not been known for ending chapel messages on a positive note. Today is no different. It is not my role to fix the anxieties of patients, families or staff here in the hospital. However, it is within my role to sit in the ick – in the midst of the silent scream – with you. I could understand why some people wouldn’t want my job. However, I believe that we are all capable of holding space for others. If you’re here and need space today – find me or another chaplain after the service.
Pastor Anitta ❤ +
