An Altar in the World, Chapter 10: The Practice of Feeling Pain
Reflections and Discussion
Breakthrough
MaryAnn McKibben Dana
Focus Scripture: Romans 5.1-11 (suffering produces endurance…)
I. Reflection
I found this chapter to be the most challenging in the entire book. The topic of pain—its theological dimensions and spiritual purpose, if any—is filled with land mines. Too many suffering folks have been doubly wounded by well-intentioned people who have heaped suffering upon suffering with chirpy platitudes and bad theology.
As a hospital chaplain years ago, I met a man who had struggled with debilitating chronic pain for thirty years. Like the hemorrhaging woman, he had “endured much under many physicians… and [he] was no better, but rather grew worse.” (Mark 5:26) After spending the morning with him I walked back into the pastoral care office and poured out my experience with a colleague, lamenting the decades of pain he has endured. My colleague listened soberly and responded, a little too brightly, “Maybe he is here to teach you something.”
Maybe, I thought. But boy, that’s a hefty price to pay for my personal edification. I can’t conceive of this man as an object lesson. But I am willing to say that pain can be a teacher for us—though perhaps not a teacher whose lessons we welcome.
I am one of those crazy women who gave birth to my babies without medication. I did this not to prove a point, not to win some contest for Granola Mother of the Year, but out of basic curiosity. I was curious about the pains of labor. I was curious to see how I would endure pain that I knew had been endured by women over countless generations, pain that was not eternal, but that I knew would end in a matter of hours with (hopefully) a healthy baby and a healthy me. And in fact I did learn a lot about myself and my body’s ability to listen intuitively to itself. But I would never proscribe such an experience on others.
And perhaps that’s the key to this chapter, and why the topic of pain is so important (it is a universal part of human experience) and yet so fraught (it is unique to each individual). The most important sentence in this chapter is probably the one on p. 169: “No one who is not in pain is allowed to give advice to someone who is.” However, I do think it can be healing for each of us to tell our own particular stories of pain.
II. Application
Quotes from the chapter that warrant further thought:
Pain is provocative. Pain pushes people to the edge, causing them to ask fundamental questions such as “Why is this happening?” and “How can this be fixed?” Pain brings out the best in people along with the worst… p. 156
I learned at least two things about pain during all those years. One was that after a while there is no reason to talk about it. When pain is as ubiquitous as air, why comment on it? Better to go where the pain leads, down to the ground floor where all the real things are: real love, real sorrow, real thanks, real fear.…
The second thing I learned is that there is a difference between pain and suffering. Pain happens in the flesh. Suffering… happens in the mind. pp. 160-161
One night of real pain is enough to strip away your illusions about how strong you are, how brave, how patient and faithful. p. 164
Once, when I was confined to bed for the better part of a week, I spent hours watching the sunlight that came through the slats of my wooden blinds move down the white wall of my bedroom… This may sound boring to you, but it was not. It was beautiful. It was reassuring. It gave me a place outside myself to go. I did not have to do anything to make the light change… If I did not like the way the light looked at any given moment, I knew it would change. If I loved the way the light looked at a given moment, I knew it would change. pp. 171-172
III. Questions for Discussion
Exercise: Draw the life graph described on p. 157. To what extent do times of personal pain match up with times of growth on your graph? What do you make of this?
Have you ever had “one night of real pain” like BBT describes on p. 158? What, if anything, emerged from that experience for you?
How do you understand the difference between pain and suffering? Is it possible to have pain without suffering? When and where have you experienced this?
BBT describes two things she has learned about pain. What are your “two things” you have learned about pain, whether based on your own experience or walking alongside others in their pain?
BBT explores the book of Job in an extended section beginning on p. 164 and climaxing on pp. 168-169. How would you respond to her assertions, that Job “sounds frankly relieved to be put back in his place… Job does not look beaten to me. He looks like someone whose pain has broken through everything he thought he knew—about himself, about life, about God—to deliver him to a new threshold of being.” Do you agree? Why or why not?
IV. Closing
Hymn: There is a Balm in Gilead
An Altar in the World, Chapter 11: Reflections and Discussion
The Practice of Being Present to God
Prayer
Leslie A. Klingensmith
Barbara Brown Taylor’s confession of being a “failure at prayer” made me feel liberated enough to be truthful about my own shortcomings in this department. I am an extrovert, and have always had a difficult time being silent and listening for the voice of God. I can write prayers for worship, and I can read/pray lovely, moving, poetic prayers that someone else has written. As far as the more internal forms of prayer, sometimes called “meditation” or “contemplation,” I have never had a whole lot of success with these. I either doze off or find my mind ticking through my endless “to do” list.
Facing up to my weaknesses in prayer has, at long last, given me some freedom to find ways to pray that fit more naturally with my personality and lifestyle. My 2009 Israel pilgrimage taught me the value of having set time each day for reflection and prayer. Each afternoon of that trip, we had at least a couple of hours to ourselves to process what we were seeing and experiencing. Sometimes I took a walk, enjoying the strange sights and sounds and smells. Sometimes I took a nap. Every day I wrote at least a few sentences in my journal, usually more. One afternoon in Galilee I sat at a sidewalk café and watched the highly diverse people pass by, and considered each one of them as a child of God. In intentionally prayed for each person, that God would be present in their lives and heal the wounds that were unknown to me but known to each of them and to God. One morning in Jerusalem, I visited the Garden Tomb and eavesdropped on a large group of Pentecostals worshiping complete with speaking in tongues and fainting. Even though speaking in tongues is not my thing, I realized that the Spirit is real and alive to our Pentecostal neighbors in a way that I feel She is not to us more reserved mainline Protestants. Even though I doubt that their worship style will ever be my cup of tea, I long for that sense of presence and immediacy that is so evident in them.
I have begun to understand that these types of experience, characterized by awareness and a sense of connection with God and other people, can constitute prayer. Oddly, as I become more attuned to these less structured and less definable forms of prayer, I find my own contemplative life maturing as well. I have kept journaling on a reasonably regular basis following the Israel pilgrimage, and have learned to use music and other meditation aids to help me focus. It is still all too easy to get caught up in the tasks of daily life and push prayer to the back burner, but we are all a work in progress.
II) Application
Quotes from the chapter that warrant further thought:
“Prayer is more than saying set prayers at set times. Prayer, according to Brother David, is waking up to the presence of God no matter where I am or what I am doing. When I am fully alert to whatever or whoever is right in front of me; when I am electrically aware of the tremendous gift of being alive; when I am able to give myself wholly to the moment I am in, then I am in prayer. Prayer is happening, and it is not necessarily something that I am doing. God is happening, and I am lucky enough to know that I am in The Midst (p. 178).”
“I tell God what I want. I’m not strong enough or smart enough to do anything else, and besides, there’s no time. So I tell God what I want and I trust God to sort it out (p. 182).”
“The meaning we give to what happens in our lives is our final, inviolable freedom (p. 182).”
“I give thanks for even the semi-terrible things that have happened to me, since they have shown me what is really real. They have quashed all my illusions of control, leaving me with no alternative but to receive my life as an unmitigated gift (p.184).
“There are real things I can do, in both my body and my mind, to put myself in the presence of God. God is not obliged to show up, but if God does, then I will be ready (p. 190).
III) Questions for Discussion
Do you have an idea of what prayer is and how it should be “done”? If so, how flexible is this idea?
What most prevents us from giving ourselves wholly to the moment we are in?
Have you ever experienced a clear answer to a prayer? Have you ever figured out an answer to a prayer in retrospect?
What are some of the “real things” we can do to put ourselves into the presence of God?
An Altar in the World, Chapter 12: The Practice of Pronouncing Blessings: Benediction
Scripture:
Genesis 27:30-40 (Jacob steals Esau’s blessing)
Genesis 32:22-32 (Jacob wrestles the angel at Peniel “until you bless me”)
Psalm 103 (Bless the Lord, O my soul)
Revelation 1:3 (Blessed is the one who reads. . . .)
I. Reflection
Have you seen the reality TV show “Hoarders”? As viewers we follow an intervention into the life of someone who has the problem of hoarding. The show is heart-wrenching. Hoarding has taken over the person’s life, there can be no doubt about it. A person might be standing thigh-high in debris but he or she is often unable to part with any items. Usually, by the time a person has reached this stage, something very precious is at stake: a marriage, a relationship with a child, the possession of a home, bankruptcy. Yet, it is immensely painful for people to let go of “stuff” and the interventions often fail.
As I watch, I ponder the connection between hoarding and blessing. To a hoarder, each item is precious. If you treat an empty plastic cup with the same attachment as an antique vase, does that bless the item or trivialize the notion of blessing?
The Bible is certainly full of blessings, and they are a mixed bag, something that Barbara does not spend much time describing. The Jacob and Esau story is a tussle over blessing. The identity of the people of Israel is founded on the notion that they are more blessed than other people groups.
Yes, the concept of blessing is rife with the problem of particularity.
Or not! To many people, blessing is something to pursue with an easy stride, a word to toss into the air with the ease of Gesundheit. Blessings!
II. Application
Quotes from the chapter that warrant further thought:
“I think it is a big mistake to perpetuate the illusion that only certain people can bless things.” (p 193)
“Start with anything you like. Even a stick lying on the ground will do. The first thing is to pay attention to it.” (p 194)
“I am not sure that you have to believe in God to pronounce a blessing. It may be enough to see the thing for what it is and pronounce it good.” (p 199)
“Matter matters to God. The most ordinary things are drenched in divine possibility.” (p 201)
“A blessing does not confer holiness. The holiness is already there, embedded in the very givenness of the thing. … The heavy boy at the airport does not need you to place him in divine custody, suggesting that perhaps while he is there he could lose a little weight.” (p 203)
III. Questions for Discussion
1. Do you pray a blessing prayer at night? If you have children, what are/were your rituals for nighttime blessing prayers?
2. Do you usually bless your food before you eat it? Why or why not?
3. Barbara describes a house blessing. (pp 199-201) Have you ever participated in a house blessing? What especially struck you about the experience?
4. Barbara says: “The next time you are at the airport, try blessing the people sitting at the departure gate with you.” (p 202) Have you ever tried to bless strangers? What happened or didn’t happen?
5. Christians often close a letter or email with the word “Blessings” instead of “Sincerely” or “Love.” What do they mean by using this word? Do you sign letters “Blessings”? Why or why not?
6. Have you received a blessing from your parents? Have you conferred a blessing on your children? How would your life change if you could answer yes to these questions?
IV. Closing
“The Light Is Honeyed” a pantoum by Ruth Everhart
(I wrote this poem after cuddling with my almost-adult daughters, blessing them silently.)
The light is honeyed, sparked with gold
I do not know how long we’ll lay
I dare not break my daughters’ hold,
to shift my weight I barely pray
I do not know how long we’ll lay
While tick-tock-clock the world goes round,
to shift my weight I barely pray
but shut my eyes to block out sound.
While tick-tock-clock the world goes round,
And terror comes and kingdoms fall,
but shut my eyes to block out sound.
For in this room, this bed, is all.
And terror comes and kingdoms fall,
And time spins round, more light to show
For in this room, this bed, is all
right now, it’s all I care to know.
And time spins round, more light to show
I dare not break my daughters’ hold
right now, it’s all I care to know.
The light is honeyed, sparked with gold.