January/February 2004
By Donna Miesbach
No doubt we all have defining moments in our lives, moments that force us to take a better look at things, to dig a little deeper, to trust a little more, or perhaps even to question what we had always taken for granted. Often as not, it is pain that thrusts us into such defining times. Of course, joyous moments change our lives, too, but not with the same piercing intensity that comes with that which causes us pain.
Defining moments occur for us individually and collectively. I think I can safely say that September 11, 2001, was one of those collective moments. It was a wake-up call, if ever there was one, and it showed with glaring clarity that what one person does affect us all. More than that, it illustrated the age-old truth that whatever I do to you, I do to myself. Truly, we are our brother’s keeper, and our own as well. Certainly that message cannot now be denied nor will it soon be forgotten.
On that fateful day, we saw what raw pain can be like, and we were all visited by pain’s unwelcome cousin, sorrow. Unwelcome as they may be, both pain and sorrow bring lessons that have not been learned in other ways. At least, that is how it has been with me, and I expect it has been that way for you too. I don’t know why this is, but I have found that when one or the other comes knocking at my door, a lesson always awaits.
I’ve never gotten to the point where I could really welcome pain, but I have learned to accept it when it does come calling. I’ve learned that it won’t go away until I find the gift that lies hidden somewhere within its shadow. Finding that gift is like turning on the light. Whenever a light goes on, the darkness simply goes away. That is what happens with pain and sorrow too. When their purpose has been served, they leave as quietly as they came.
So why do we look the other way when pain comes calling? Why can’t we look it in the eye and see it for what it is? I don’t have that answer, but I do know that pain serves an important purpose. Without pain we would become complacent, perhaps even lazy, unchallenged. Pain is the stuff that makes us grow, that forces us out of our comfort zone and into the arena of life. Seek as we will, when pain comes calling there is no way around it. We must go through it if we are to move beyond it. That process of “going through” is what ignites our courage, our compassion, our understanding of what others must also bear. It illumines our “common lot” and defines what being human is all about.
Pain is a fact of life. There is no escaping it. We need to learn to be present to our pain, to accept it as a healthy response, to acknowledge its presence in our life. How can we understand what others are experiencing if we’ve not already been there? Only through embracing our own pain, through coming to terms with it, can we find the depth—the capacity—to understand the pain of others.
We can sympathize with others, but we cannot alleviate their pain. We can comfort them, we can support them, but we cannot remove their pain. It is difficult to live with this knowledge. We’d like to be able to step in and fix it, but to do so would also remove the gift. It would delay the growth that would enable them to move beyond their pain. We must all learn to do this. Pain and sorrow are an inescapable school, an unavoidable part of life, but a part that can produce a depth of understanding that reveals a higher purpose.
I dare say that in the aftermath of recent events, we may all be searching for a purpose, a reason, behind what has occurred. Over the course of my studies, I have heard it said many times that events which mold and shape our human destiny are but the representation of our collective consciousness. In other words, nothing happens that our collective consciousness does not allow. By the same token, that which does happen is the result of our collective frame of mind.
This may seem like a difficult pill to swallow in view of the immensity of the events we have all witnessed, but if we were to look at this picture much like a puzzle, with each of us being a piece of that puzzle, what would we find? One of the teachings that is consistent with almost every philosophy found in this world is that peace begins within us, as do love, compassion, tolerance — all the noble qualities. But how can there be peace in your world or mine if my heart is full of fear, or prejudice, or hatred, or anger? The old saying is true—the only place you can experience peace is inside yourself. If it is not present in your heart, it simply is not present in your life.
If we were to try to separate the world’s population into those people who have peace in their hearts and those who do not, what would we find? And what does that tell us? Do we all contribute or not contribute to the measure of peace there is in the world simply by how we live our daily lives? That is something we each must decide for ourselves, but it is a question that cannot and must not be ignored.
We live in a strange world. There has to be darkness for there to be light. If there is to be an up, there has to be a down. And if there is to be joy, there must also be sorrow. We tend to want to dwell on the high end, even to deny the existence of the polar opposite. Give me happiness, but don’t let me be sad! And so we disengage from the very cycles that not only give meaning to life but that give life itself. If there is birth, there must also be death. We all know that, yet we view death with fear and trembling. But is there really such a thing as death? Isn’t death more a birthing into another form of existence?
Life itself does not end, and neither do we. When so many are taken from us at once, we may find this truth difficult to accept, but those who have witnessed the journey through death’s door assure us that this is so. No longer is this premise simply a hope held by the fortunate few. They have seen it. They have been there. And from that experience comes an assurance of the continuity of life, and of the soul, that they do not and cannot question. They know it to be true. At some deep level, we know this, too, but it is a wisdom that awaits our conscious recognition, a wisdom that only experience can teach us. That wisdom oftentimes is born in the shadows of life, where we are challenged to confront—and accept—what we cannot change. That kind of wisdom tears away the illusions and the facades on which we have been building our life, revealing the mystery we have been living all along.
The vastness of that mystery can never be fathomed in one short lifetime, but if we can gain even a glimpse of it, perhaps even just a taste of it, then all the pain and all the sorrow will have been a small price indeed for such a magnificent gift. In the process, we just may find we’ve become a bit stronger, a bit more able, a bit more whole.
As I’ve watched recent events unfold, I’ve had a sense of something magnificent that is beginning to rise out of the ashes of destruction, something that perhaps we could not foresee in the tumult of the moment but that bears the promise we all have prayed for for so long. Here and there I’ve heard whispers that have started to surface—whispers that we must all work together, that we must consider our neighbor as we do ourselves, that indeed we are all family—a human family—and that we can transcend and even celebrate all our differences through the simple act of compassion.
For too long now we’ve been living our complacent lives, maintaining the patterns we’ve established, not realizing that if ever “things” are going to get “better,” these patterns must change. We must change. It is the age-old pattern of creation, maintenance, and dissolution at work again. If this truly is the time of dissolution, then we can celebrate indeed, for here we are being given the priceless opportunity to create something new, something more wonderful than what we knew before. Like the phoenix rising out of the ashes, humankind is being given the opportunity to experience, perhaps for the very first time, the heights to which our shared humanity can reach.
Let us all pray that it will be so.
Only Love
Let there be only love
In this, my life,
For then there will be only love
In this, my world,
So that no matter
What I see
It will all be love to me
And, too, no matter
Whom I meet,
It will still be love I greet.
Oh may the day never begin
Without the simple prayer within:
Let there be only love
In this, my life!
Donna Miesbach has been a Unity student since the age of seventeen. A poet and an essayist, her works have often appeared in Unity Magazine and Daily Word. In addition, her poetry has been published in Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul and in Gleanings, A Bi-monthly Discussion of Life Issues. She is a contributing author to Wise Women Speak: Twenty Ways to Turn Stumbling Blocks Into Stepping Stones.
This article is from the January/February 2004 issue of Unity Magazine.