The gift of suffering

My legs move up and down, my feet round and round as I pedal on the exercise bike in our little makeshift backyard gym. The sun is licking the floor through the glass doors, on the other side the birds are singing. Riding to nowhere, I am listening to an On Being conversation between Krista Tippett and Joan Baez. Krista has started, as she always does, by asking her guest about their religious experience as a child. My feet pedal faster and suddenly I find myself somewhere, I am sitting with Krista, her question now posed to me. I ponder my answer as I pedal and breathe. Pedal and breathe.

Growing up, going to church every Sunday was an expectation. Krista, it was not a choice. So, of course, I resented it. I disliked being squeezed onto those pews each week with my brother and sisters, jostling for elbow room. I did not enjoy the hardness of the place, while the priest spoke for what seemed, in the time of a child, like an eternity and more. I distracted my boredom by finding ways to make my older sister laugh, this often resulted in stern looks and a scolding from my mum. I stared at the statues, and let my mind wander beyond their eyes, and out the stained glass windows to the wonderful places of my imagination. I could not be contained.

The divine found me in the bushland, which wrapped around our neighbourhood. I felt spirit filling my being every time I walked among the trees, rode my bike on the dusty tracks, or floated in the muddy waters of the river, looking up at the blue sky above holding me still and calm. Nature was where I felt deeply connected to the mystical and magical, and the spiritual and peaceful ways of the world. The sermon of the cicadas a joy. The offering of the birdsong a delight. The communion of the gum leaves on the sand, a blessing.

And yet, even though I hated church, sitting there during the homily it gifted me the opportunity to cultivate the witness within. I would feel the breath in my body, let the sound of the priest's voice move to the outer layer of my awareness and I would simply sit and observe those around me. I would, without judgment or trying to analyse anything, observe. Watch. Notice. Church gave me time and pause to simply be with what was in front of me in the eternal present moment. The back of the head of the person in front of me. The woman with a curved spine, who sat in the same spot each week, in the front row. I watched the people sitting in silence. All breathing together. All being together. Church, like being in nature, gifted meditation to me, again and again. For this I will always be grateful. Church also showed me what a community coming together could look like, and the elated feeling of people singing together. It gifted me a relationship with boredom, and of not being fearful of doing nothing. To find peace in simply being. 

I was lucky to have a gentle childhood, where the things forced on me, my 'suffering' in my early years, was no more than going to church, piano practice and boiled potatoes. But these small 'sufferings' taught me something nonetheless, and thankfully, they helped me be prepared for bigger and more significant suffering to come.

Suffering is often an object of our hate in the moment we are firmly lodged in it. Understandably, it is all encompassing and, therefore, difficult to appreciate its gifts. Perhaps, knowing deep in our hearts that our suffering may hold gifts for us in the future can make it more bearable. Perhaps not.

What would happen, if we did not run from our suffering? What would happen if we turned towards it instead? We cannot outrun it anyway, and perhaps, in our attempts to flee we miss the treasures it holds dear for us.

We are bound by the suffering we face in this world, and we are bound even further by the beauty we find beyond it.