Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire

July 23, 2006

“The Broken Cup: Suffering and Hope”

Rev. Kathy Duhon

This weekend we went to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in Hillsdale, NY, and one of the singers introduced a song she’d written with a wisdom story. I’d heard variations of it before, set in different religions, but in this version, the central figure is just an older man. He lived on a hilltop and loved to watch the moon, night after night, in all its phases. One night a robber came, asking for his gold and silver, and the older man tells him where to find it, adding that the robber should also take the vase on the mantel, as it is quite valuable. In the morning, neighbors come over who’ve also been robbed, and noticing the missing vase, sympathize with him and express their anger at the break-ins. But the man says, “I only regret that I couldn’t give him the moon as well.”

The man was not broken by the robbery, though others had experienced break-ins and brokenness in trust and security. Instead of suffering a robbery, the older man had freely given away his valuables. Instead of anger, he compassionately wished the robber could love beauty, nature, and simplicity as he did. His spirit was so large that it was not broken, when others were. If one freely gives away possessions, pride, all attachments, then there’s not much of a way to break the cup of one’s life with suffering, however, this holy path eludes most of us who do experience brokenness in many ways.

Some time ago I read a startlingly painful poem by Mary Oliver, which I actually loved, called A Bitterness. It begins, “I believe you did not have a happy life.” The poem coldly slogs through lines and lines directed at someone about the awfulness of their existence. “I believe your busiest enemies were anger and depression.” On and on to the bitter end: “I believe you lay down at last in your coffin none the wiser and unassuaged,” and it finishes with the image that your grave will have “the wild, amoral, reckless, peaceful flowers of the hillsides.”

The poem is painful because it ruthlessly paints a desolate, broken life, one seemingly not worth living. Can you think of anyone for whom you would write such a searing pronouncement? I wonder if to write such a poem, or to resonate with it, means that you are yourself bitter about a person for whom this poem, A Bitterness, applies.

Surely for most people in our lives we would find a glimmer of hope with and for them, and we would describe their bitterness, their suffering, their pain, in temporary terms, and with deep compassion. No, Mary Oliver’s writing seems amoral and reckless, but somehow, the naming of the bitterness of someone else, and therefore the acknowledging of our own inner, hidden bitterness, is both a wild, revealing ride, and ultimately peace-making.

Suffering, pain – for all of us the cup of our life is broken in some way. We are torn asunder by forces of all kinds, some internal, some external. We are guilty or betrayed, afflicted or conflicted. We know despair and fear and loss. We are bitter sometimes, and unassuaged.

The Buddha began his teaching of wisdom with suffering, and what a gift to the world, what a blessing to name and acknowledge it. Sadly, we in this culture tend to try to hide suffering, deny it, control it, oust it, but not accept it. Truly, the beginning of wisdom and peace is the simple, paradoxical blessing of knowing that we all suffer, at least all of us unenlightened beings. Suffering and pain is all around us, is within us, is part of life. As the Buddhist story we heard concludes, “none of us is passed over.”

Jack Kornfield tells the story of a father who is away from home when robbers come, set fire to the house, and kidnap his young son. When the father returns, he sees the ashes of his home and believes that his son has died. He is a broken man, grieving, suffering for a long, long time. The son, meanwhile, eventually escapes his abductors, and struggles to make his way home. When he arrives, he knocks on the door and cries, “Papa, Papa,” but the father refuses to open the door, thinking it is a neighborhood child taunting him. Eventually, the son leaves, never to return. When we are broken, we tend to hold on to the suffering, even to the point of illusion, of not naming the truth, the reality in one’s life, including the good, the love, the hope, the impossible possibility of joy.

So what do we do with our suffering if we don’t want to take it to the grave, and if we are not yet ready, as the Buddha taught, to give up on desires? How can we let got of its hold upon us and our hold upon the pain, and face the truth?

Some turn to meditation and prayer. In meditation, we let go of the pain and center on breath and peace, but that is often beyond the possible for those who are broken, especially if they have not had such a practice before. A skillful person in meditation can accept pain and not be attached; let go into peace.

In prayer, we give voice to the problem, and to the longed for healing. I am amazed how often I hear people, including strangers, spontaneously refer to their prayers and faith during daily challenges. Many of the psalms, like the one we just heard, are full of naming the pain, complaining about the suffering, and asking for help – actually, demanding it. For thousands of years, the psalms of lament and outrage have been the perfect example of how to pray when you are in a rough place.

Some like it gentler. Here is a prayer from a Catholic sister, Miriam Therese Winter: “Helper of all who are helpless, we call on you in times of stress and in times of devastation. Pick up the broken pieces of our hearts, our homes, our history and restore them to the way they were, or give us the means of starting over when everything seems lost. O God, our help in ages past, we place all our hope in you.” Some folks, some of the time, are able to be gentle and pray with such a calm and trusting supplication.

Prayer presumes the belief in a God, which is not possible for everyone, especially for some who are in desperate times. The belief in a good, loving God is often the first thing to be tossed out, when life gets hard, along with faith in a just world. Most prayers could be addressed, though, to the greater power of the universe, and the universe can help us – not magically, but if we seek that power of truth, forgiveness, hope, and love, we often find it – deep within, among our loved ones, and beyond the known. As with prayer in general, appealing to the unknown greater than us has the cleansing effect of naming the pain, and the healing effect of trusting that the pain is not the final answer. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus said, “You will have pain (be sorrowful); but your pain (your sorrow) will turn into joy.” (16:20) Blessed assurance, indeed.

What is the opposite of appealing for help or trusting in positive change? It is holding onto the suffering and the bitterness, as the father did when he closed himself off to a world that could bring him healing in the form of love, even the love of his lost son. The positive power of love in the universe, greater than us or our pain and bitterness, is available to those who are open.

Still, appealing to the universe, God, love, or the inner light, and trusting that things will change, is just not helpful for everyone, especially those who are suffering the most. What can we learn from someone who has experienced brokenness at its most profound levels? Victor Frankl wrote about how to deal with such pain, from his experiences at Auschwitz and other Nazi camps.

I have just read Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, which I recommend – it’s a reflection on his concentration camp experiences, which surprisingly speak universally to everyone’s experiences of brokenness and meaning seeking. Sadly, Frankl does acknowledge that the intense suffering experienced by many around him, both prisoners and guards, broke their humanity and left them amoral, immoral, and lacking a reason to live. You die faster in such a desperate situation if you don’t have a meaning for living.

The only way to overcome suffering, to not allow the brokenness to completely break you, is to first be clear about its reality, Frankl explains. Even in a concentration camp, some people are in denial. Then, find meaning in one or more of a few ways: keep love alive, even for a distant loved one, as he did for his wife from whom he was separated; keep creative work alive, even if it’s only in your mind, unable to be written or expressed; keep gratitude and appreciation alive, as he did in finding beauty even in Auschwitz; keep the will alive, as he did in still making tiny decisions while in the camps, though they were rare; and finally, keep the soul alive by choosing responsibly how to respond to personal suffering – for how to handle pain in one’s unique situation is crucial to finding meaning and making it through to the other side.

Frankl wrote, “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.”

That’s quite a statement – suffering as part of our life and part of our meaningfulness. Frankl explains that instead of expecting something from life, life expects something from us. We are questioned by life and we answer by how we live, what we choose to responsibly do in the face of the problems that are ours. Each of us has a unique life and therefore a unique suffering, Frankl writes, which makes the courage to suffer an individual matter and mark of our existence as meaningful beings. Frankl was able to conclude “that human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, ….”

Another author on the response to suffering, Joyce Rupp, wrote, “Healing takes a lot of patience and much time. Like a deep wound in the body that heals from the inside out, so with our healing. We may not always readily see the steady healing occurring, but we need to believe that the mending is taking place.”

Rupp then names what is required for healing, from her religious understanding: believing, naming the pain, being compassionate toward ourselves and others, letting go of resistances, trusting and yielding to God, receiving support from others, extending and receiving forgiveness, taking good care of our body and spirit.

When the cup of our life is broken, from the most trivial but painful ways, to the horrors of brutality and degradation, we can repair the brokenness, or at least find meaning. If we think of a cup, we may live with a broken handle, just as we learn to live with some pain; or we may glue together some broken pieces, just as we mend from some of our suffering; or, we may use a shattered cup to create a beautiful mosaic, just as we use the really bitter experiences to write poetry, create art or discover a new way of being in the world. Often, that which was broken and mended in life is stronger that it was originally.

What do we do with brokenness? We have to name and acknowledge the suffering, seek help and healing through meditation, prayer, faith, love, creative work, appreciation, strong will, courageous response.

We can have hope in a future that grows beyond the broken cup of our lives. The universe is more whole than broken. So may we know that wholeness and believe that our pain will turn into joy. Amen.