The Upside of Suffering

April 8-9, 2011

For those going through a divorce, there are days when it all makes sense.  In our case, a chimp with a fifty-word sign language vocabulary could come up with a list of reasons why it is the best thing for me, my ex-wife, and our kids.  By this stage in the process, I can usually see the chimp's logic.

At other moments and other days, it feels like someone cut out my heart with an jagged sawblade.  April 8th, 2011 was one of those days.  I had to come face-to-face with the reality that she is never coming back to us.  The first word in "irreconcilable differences" is operative.  It is over.

I played with the kids that night and put them to bed.  After getting the elves down, I called a friend, did some work, and watched an episode of "The Office."  Anything to keep my head from the pillow and the sad thoughts that would keep me from sleep.

My gaze kept returning to a red book on the desk in my livingroom, "Called to Love: Approaching John Paul II's Theology of the Body."  I felt beckoned to open it up and try another chapter, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.  The first 124 pages had been excruciating as it examined the divine root of spousal love.  I thought that it might help me come to terms with my new reality.  Unfortunately, the book had done nothing more than to add in questions about the divine and how it related to my failed marriage.  I was willing to take the hit on my daily Looking 4 Answers quiz by passing up the day's spiritual reading.

I went to bed about midnight.  My daughter Fiona came in around one and sometime after three she gave me a kick that brushed away any semblance of sleep.  I went downstairs hoping to find a distraction.  The laundry was done.  The house was clean.  I didn't want to turn on the TV to risk waking up the girls.

It was just me, grief, and that damned red book.  I didn't understand why it had to hurt this bad.  I'd saw it coming and I thought I was moving on.  What was the point in all the suffering?

I put aside the question and picked up the book.  The first dozen or so pages barely even distracted me from the thoughts of why my prayers hadn't been answered.  Why we'd failed so miserably when I knew that we both really tried.  The pages went along and I didn't find hte answers that I was looking for.  I knew that Creation had been broken and that evil was a reality in the world, but there had to be an upside.  I'd seen too much goodness to just fall into the pit of despair.

Why had I been called to read this book that wasn't helping?

Then on page 138, I saw it, "This analysis of our fallen situation has a sobering corollary: Because love runs counter to the logic of domination, a genuine lover is bound to suffer.  Anyone who wants to love must face the possibility of indifference and rejection; he must be willing to suffer on account of the fractured unity of human existence[.]"

The book went on to describe how suffering has a special capacity to reveal love.  Human suffering moves others to compassion, inviting us to comfort them in their sorrow.  As Pope John Paul II described in Salvici Doloris, "[S]uffering is present in the world in order to release love, in order to give birth to works of love towards neighbor, in order to transform the whole of civilization into a 'civilization of love.'"

At some level, something clicked.  I rewound through my memories of the collapse of my marriage and realized how many acts of kinship and love had been directed my way through that suffering.  Friends calling to see if we were alright.  Near strangers offering to do anything to help us get through the days.  Colleagues at both mine and my ex-wife's work displaying boundless depths of patience and compassion.  A staggering amount of support from my family.

My daughters and I are closer now than we ever would have been without the sorrow created by the distancing of a wife and mother.  Earlier that day, I'd held my little brother's new baby boy in my arms and found out that they were considering using my name as his middle name.  I don't know if they would have given me that honor if they hadn't seen how hard I'd worked to try and keep this sad little family together.

I knew that while I would not wish this sorrow on anyone.  I also couldn't deny that it had led to a powerful force of good in my life.  While I could not guess with any certainty  on what the future brings, I would feel comfortable betting that some of the further good things to come will spring from the reaction to this sorrow.  For better or worse, that is how the Divine works.

The red book's message of peace allowed me to turn off the light and go back to bed.