on suffering

Earlier today I had the following stream of conversation on twitter (read bottom to top),

Here is my reply.

Let me first lay the context of the original statement, which is actually a stolen quote from Rowan Williams’ book. He is talking about Sonya, the character from Crime and Punishment, who Dostoevsky creates as the one who will bring Raskolnikov to reconciliation and salvation. She can be said to mirror Christ in the fact of being the suffering servant, aiding all those around her. So the above comment speaks of the meaning of her actions; they aren’t meant for self aggrandizement or as a means of control. They also aren’t the expression of her powerlessness; it isn’t that she is suffering at the hands of an brutal master. She suffers to imitate Christ’s suffering and self-giving action; she suffers in the aiding of another.

So how does that relate to personal suffering, from loss or illness? I think it is easy to say that it doesn’t. They don’t relate, but that gives license to a certain attitude towards personal events. Let me try to unpack this. When we have an attitude towards our sufferings where we think of them as somehow above and separate from the suffering of others then I think we are sliding into certain kind of selfishness individualistic perspective.

Christ calls us to mourn with those who mourn and celebrate with those who celebrate. I don’t think this means some kind of hollow emotional response, but actually complete empathy—complete acceptance of the emotions that they are feeling, as if they were your own.

So this brings me to the link, suffering for another involves a certain attitude—a Christ centered one. This attitude causes us to connect with people we would not otherwise connect with, do things for those who would never speak to, loving those who we want to hate. Suffering for another causes us to hold them up as greater than ourselves, to lay ourselves down as lesser. The layers of isolation between ourselves and others & also between ourselves and God is broken down through this whole process.

Here is the key, that same isolation can be built or broken down with our own suffering from loss. The suffering can also be a means toward transformation or degeneration. I would say that the suffering can go either way, depending on one’s attitude towards it. You will either fall onto God or curse him for it. This will work itself in either of two ways; you will either pull into yourself, isolating yourself from others falling into depression and/or anger; or you will turn outward, attempting to transform what has a desire for the negative into something positive.  One example of this would be safety regulations, I would say 99% of safety standards are in place as a result of the misfortune of someone; then someone taking the initiative to not let someone’s accident be in vain.

I feel somewhat dissatisfied with this answer; it seems to be very much something found out of a Sunday School lesson plan. But I also feel that this issue begins to get to the edge of what language can speak about. There is simply only so much one can say about it, though one can always say more. Hopefully this at least allows for a clearing for the truth to be revealed.