Merton on Suffering

Sometimes blogging feels more like bringing wisdom written long-ago to the attention of others, rather than coming up with anything new.

I had been kicking around some ideas for a post on the avoidance of suffering and the pain it causes when I came across this from Thomas Merton. He just captures it perfectly:

  "Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture."

~Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain, p. 91

Tortured by little and trivial things...how convicting.

Fear of being hurt...I realize this truth from time to time, and then I lose it again.

When I was sitting at my father's bedside in ICU and expecting him to die soon, a friend reminded me by text (see, even texting can be redeemed) not to run from my suffering, but to gently sit with it. Not to allow my fear of being hurt to chase me away, but to allow my mind and heart to be fully present in that dark moment. It was great advice. I wish I could remember to do it in the daily moments and not just the big, scary times of life.