Facing Pain

Readings: NM 21:4-9; JN 8:21-30

I have always loved this reading from the book of Numbers because this story feels so real.

The Israelites are exhausted as they collectively wander in the desert.  They’re low on food with sore feet and withering spirits.  It’s hard to remain positive and upbeat anymore.  The harsh realities of their lives press upon them.

Maybe you can relate.  I know I can.

While I try to be grateful every day and remember what God has done for me and brought me through, I find myself complaining and focused on what’s wrong or what hurts.  I can get a little down on God.

Now in the gospel, God gets a touch angry with the Israelites and “sends” snakes their way to bite them because of their complaining.  Now I do not believe that God works that way, but my guess is that the Israelites interpreted it as such.  They said, “We’re being punished!”

Of course, the people change their tune and God relents and tells Moses, “Ok, Ok, I’ll help.  Make a serpent and mount it on a pole and all who look at it will be made well.”  And so it happened.

Then the gospel repeats this theme when we hear “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM,” and that those who gaze upon the cross of Christ will be made whole.

This is counterintuitive theology in our culture.

We spend so much time trying to get away from pain, discomfort, inconvenience and suffering – ours and everyone else’s.  We try to cover it up, deny it, distract ourselves and pretend that things are not there – individually and collectively.  We’re just not a culture that knows how to hold pain very well.  We tend to pass it on to others rather than transform it.

But we hear God saying today, “Look at that which hurt you.  There is something more there.”  The very things we think we need to get rid of are what God wants to address in our lives.

Trauma therapist Resmaa Menakem (whom I have referenced before in these blogs) – along with many others – says that we need to pay attention to our bodies when we are trying to address the pain and harm that have come our way (directly or inherited).  Facing pain requires embodied healing and releasing.  Resmaa speaks of “clean pain” and “dirty pain.”  

“Clean pain is the pain that mends and can build our capacity for growth. It is the  pain we experience when we don’t know what to do, when we are scared, and when we step forward into the unknown anyway, with honesty and vulnerability…Dirty Pain on the other hand, is the pain of avoidance, blame, and denial. When people respond from their most wounded parts, become cruel or violent or run away, we experience dirty pain” ((My Grandmother’s Hands, p.19-20). 

When we avoid pain and discomfort, we create more of it for ourselves and for others. 

Looking to those parts of us that hurt is not easy work, and it is often best done with forms of accompaniment (a counselor, a group of trusted people, a spiritual guide, etc.).  This is, in fact, a form of the reconciling work that we are called to – to reconcile within ourselves the parts that have been separated.  Inner healing needs to be a meaningful and integral part of our Lenten journey every year.

Facing that pain may require different things from us.  It may require tears but it may also require laughter.  It could bring difficulty but it might also bring release.  It could require quiet and contemplation but it might require dancing and more playfulness.

Whatever it requires, may we renew our commitment to attend to our own hurt. For today, just sit with a pain that you carry today – especially one that you may have tried to avoid.  What happens if you sit with it even for a little while and see what it might have to offer you.