The Problem with the Problem of Pain

Ow. My hand.

There are many writers who talk about the oft-cited "problem of evil" or the problems of suffering or pain upon which hill many atheists have died.

Someone we generally revere, C.S. Lewis, wrote that “Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say 'My tooth is aching' than to say 'My heart is broken.'"

C.S. Lewis was indubitably more intelligent than I (except for in his daft failure to convert), and certainly suffered his fair share. Indeed, I'm sure that he probably has said before - in one way or another - what I am going to say, which is that there is not so much a problem with pain.

Incidental pain is exceedingly bearable. For instance, I am going to have between 20 and 30 titanium staples removed from an abdominal incision next week. I'll set the date, experience the discomfort, and move on. It will happen, but then it will be over.

The problem of pain - and I'm referring to physical pain - is when it is chronic. Lewis says that "Mental pain [...] is less dramatic than physical pain", and he's not wrong, allowing that chronic physical pain (and/or disability) can cause more mental pain than you can handle (side note: I'm a firm believer that the platitude "God won't give you more than you can handle" is the worst kind of bullshit).

I've experience more physical and mental pain than I can handle, so much so that the "frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden". Someone says "I'm glad to see you feeling better!", and my mind goes blank in a battle of rage and - at the same time - an understanding of why one might think that, and I'm unable to respond. I just smile vaguely and go about my business.

Why do we try to hide our pain? And I don't mean the pain of your grandmother dying or your dog or your great-aunt being diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Those are, in a sense, natural inevitabilities with which we can all empathize, surely, but they are explainable realities that don't torment the reason.

Why am I hiding my pain from you? Am I trying to protect you? From what?

I'll tell you one thing for certain. I hide my pain and my suffering to some degree because I don't want to be considered a person who victimizes himself and who wallows in self-pity.

I was strong, see. My marker sat high on the American Success Meter. I was intelligent, accomplished, a high-income-earner, even by my late 20s. I didn't need anyone's commiseration. That hasn't changed about me. I don't need pity, or sympathy, or someone to cry with. I'm actually stronger now - emotionally, intellectually, spiritually - than I ever was as the "high performer".

Ricochet. This is the ricochet of the chronic-pain psyche: I must hide my pain because the natural response of others - although honorable, charitable - to my pain is not desired, helpful, edifying, or even commensurate with my experience. This rebound of rationalization leaves one in greater mental pain. With whom can I share my pain who: 1. completely comprehends the magnitude, 2. has experiential similarities, 3. can offer insight?

Is there a spirit of pride in this? There can be, but, more often than not, it's just a desperate desire for a companion on a lonely pilgrimage. 

All chronic-pain sufferers, we the chronically ill - we are hiding from each other while scouring every inch of the earth to find each other. Suffering needs company to have meaning. (For whom am I suffering? Why am I suffering?)

"The divine company of Christ is fairly obvious", you might say, and you'd be right. We enter into the Ongoing Act of Divine Creation, in our way, by bleeding and rotting into the ground and becoming the food for worms that is extremely fertile shit (and I mean it). Flowers spring forth from the worm shit.

We chronic-pain sufferers are the decaying composting loam of the Church Militant, hidden from view by a nice rose-bush upon which, from time-to-time, some other of the Faithful may prick himself and fondly recall the Passion of the Christ on his way to meet friends for dinner. Our soldier's work is letting our fallen corpses rot and send perfumes up to Heaven.

I'm well aware that the reality of my suffering is simply a delicious theological nugget for others to devour alongside a glass of single malt and a cigarillo. I'll sit and write this blog about it because I can't very well do anything else, and that's no exaggeration.

And this, my friend, is the problem of pain. Pain is not the problem, certainly. The conversation is a facile intellectual exercise. The real problem is that real pain is the only way that you or I will get out of here with our heads. We have to deal with it. If you do not deal with the very real experience of ongoing suffering (and that it will come your way or it will destroy someone you love or do not love, know or do not know, and that it will destroy them for your very own sake), then, in that attempt "to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, [...] you find that you have excluded life itself" (Lewis, TPoP).

It is not so easy as grasping the concept that God "permits evil", nodding, smiling, and feeling sure of one's doubted-but-now-stronger faith.

It is not so easy, but thank God for that.