The Value of Pain

Pain is not a pleasant subject. Yet it is something every one of us faces, hopefully with breathers of relatively painless living. Pain is something we all must learn to live with. Sometimes the pain is short-lived, other times pain becomes pretty much permanent, as in the “learning to live” with arthritis, or the death of a loved one.

There are three interwoven dimensions or areas of pain: physical, psychic and spiritual. The first has to do with bodily pain; the second concerns the inner pain of the soul; the third focuses on the pain generated in relationships.

Why is there pain? The meaning of pain is somehow in the pain itself. Pain awakes us to reality, if nothing else. And why do we suffer? If you can tell me why there is joy, I will tell you why there is pain. It appears we cannot have the one without the other. The selfsame nerve endings in our bodies which produce pleasure, produce pain as well. If you lost your capacity for pain, you’d also lose your capacity for pleasure. Like the poet said, “Who knows but that the angels envy us our pain.”

I have asked those suffering grief at the loss of a loved one: “If I could take away your grief right now, you would let me?” The answer is invariably “no.” To do so would also mean to take away their love, and the memory of their loved one. Grief is just as much about learning how to hold on, as to let go.

Regarding pain, as life itself, it can always be said, “This, too, will pass.” Pain is only for a time, only for this life. Perhaps we will not really understand pain’s purpose until the world to come, when we see what pain has helped to mature us into.

The most beautiful prose poem I’ve ever read about pain, comes from Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet:

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit much break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so much you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity though the winters of your grief.

“Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.”

Finally, I add what I have learned, and written:

“Much of your pain does not reach consciousness. Be thankful that from your depths the full agony of growth is not to be felt.

“Pain is a hidden miracle. For its fingers shall hollow a small cup into a hallowed chalice. And when the wine comes, you shall but pity those whose cups are easily filled. They will not know your ecstasy. Yet they too will be fulfilled.”