Rev. McKinley L. Sims, M.Div.

I’m sitting on a bus to Philadelphia to visit KP. This of course, led me to really grapple with the idea of suffering in our post modern society. Yes, suffering. That word that few of us want to struggle with and fewer of us want to acknowledge. So much of advertising and Ted Talks and life hacks encourage us to suffer less, to work smarter not harder, and to work to eliminate any and all suffering in our lives. Don’t worry, be happy.

I want to offer up that suffering can be good.

Yes, that’s right, and it’s not totally borne out of Christian guilt and misinterpretation of the Holy Scriptures that some have taken to mean that all suffering is good because it’s part of some kind of atonement for original sin, or it’s purifying off the impurities of our human condition…no, no. That’s not what I mean. I mean that suffering can have a purpose, but it’s not the suffering itself that is good….

It’s the fact that we can suffer, that we do suffer, that suffering is inevitable. That’s the good part.

Stay with me here. Our East Asian siblings have long acknowledged the Buddhist supposition that life is suffering, and suffering is life. If this is news to you, take a moment to let it sink in. It’s not that life is only suffering. There are good things in life, too. Bowling alley nachos and state fair funnel cakes and the first signs of bluebonnets in spring. These are all wonderful and tremendously beautiful aspects of life. But there is also suffering in life, and that is a fact, try as we might to Silicon Valley app our way out of it, to medicate and put on a brave face and refuse to burden others with our “insignificant” problems. I am prone to this show of humility in the face of suffering. I don’t want others to know that I’m struggling, and I put on a face of “It’s all good.” I put on a mask that refuses to acknowledge my suffering to others, and in some ways to me. My grandfather taught me that Cowboys don’t cry, and if you have to suffer, you should do so privately and in should be between you and God.

That’s why we apologize for crying at funerals. How wild is that?

WE APOLOGIZE FOR CRYING AT FUNERALS.

In the saddest days of our lives, we feel the need to not burden others with our honest and real emotions. As my Grandad would also say, that’s bass-ackwards.

We don’t do suffering well in this culture. This American culture, this white American culture, this white American middle/upper class, Protestant/UU culture. We don’t do suffering well.

I wonder if we don’t suffer well because we lack a theology to explain it. For those of us who have given up the idea of God as relevant to our lives, I wonder if we lack a spiritual explanation for why suffering happens…and most importantly why it happens to us. We categorize suffering as something to be avoided at all costs. Don’t talk about it. Don’t ask about it. Don’t show it. Don’t think about it.

Life is suffering, y’all. To live is to have to suffer, at least sometimes. That doesn’t make the suffering good all by itself…

But the fact that we can suffer, that we do suffer, that to suffer is fundamentally human…..that is a good thing.

Hang with me here! The ability to suffer is the ability to feel pain and hurt. It’s the ability to feel sad and to cry and to question this world. It’s the ability to be engaged in the fundamental reality of what it is to be a human being. It’s the ability to do theology.

You know who doesn’t suffer? Sociopaths and robots. And sociopaths suffer without knowing they are, and that’s what makes it so potentially dangerous.

So robots, then. Robots don’t suffer. They don’t love. They don’t feel. We do. Silicon Valley can App its way to building self-driving cars, drone delivery of milk, and build a colony on Mars…..but they can’t build a robot that can suffer the way I did when I lost my father and my grandfather in the same year.

They can’t build an app that replicates the look in someone’s eyes when a doctor tells them their child’s lungs won’t develop and there’s nothing more they can do.

They haven’t found a way to synthesize heartbreak, fabricate faith, or replicate tears of anger.

Nope, only we can do that. We, imperfect, suffering beings who cry and apologize and yell and love and laugh and live…and die. To live is to suffer.

Ain’t that some shit?

That’s what I’ve been thinking about this week, as I wade through the ever-depressing evening news and the horrors of what Twitter is going to show me happened while I was sleeping, and my family members battle incurable diseases and my right knee swells to the size of a grapefruit every night…I am thankful for none of this. None of this is something I would label as “good.” Even with all of my relentless positivity and optimism as a young person and a minister and proponent of finding joy in even the smallest and darkest places, I would never tell anyone that you’re suffering for a purpose and that your suffering is going to produce some greater good, glory to God, hallelujah.

Nah. Suffering sucks. It’s the worst. And yet it is a part of who we are as a people. There’s a line in the movie Wedding Crashers that goes: “Crabcakes and football, that’s what Maryland does!”

Well, thinking and suffering: that’s what humanity does. It’s what makes us us. That’s what theology is. Doing theology is to think and suffer and question and search. It’s human to do so. And for my part, I don’t want to give up something that makes me human. I would love to have less suffering in my life, for sure. I would love to have more weddings than funerals….but that’s a privilege, and not a right. And to be honest, weddings wouldn’t mean as much to me if they weren’t tempered by funerals. The sunshine doesn’t mean as much in Southern California as it does in the Pacific Northwest. The good things are only sweet because we know the sting of suffering.

I recognize this most in my relationship with KP. She’s the best part of my life, because I remember the times when I thought we wouldn’t be together. I’m reminded of a story my professor once told me of a young man and woman sitting in his office for the requisite premarital counseling. The young man was fidgety and you could tell he needed to say something. The pastor waited and looked pointedly at the young man, who finally blurted out, “I can’t do this!”

There was, obviously, a healthy dose of expectant silence after this pronouncement, and as the young woman opened her shocked and hurt countenance to speak, the young man followed with, “I mean. Wait, I’m not talking about you. I love you, I never want to be without you. That’s what I mean. I can’t stop thinking about what it might be like if we weren’t together. This marriage is becoming to real and ’til death does us part’ is freaking me out!”

Totally understable, for me at least. I don’t want good things to ever end. I wanted the Harry Potter series to keep going and going. Finishing the Lord of the Rings is always a little sad. The end of football season brings that expectant silence.

I miss friends who’ve passed away. I don’t want those good times to end.

But they will, said the pastor. So let me tell you this: 100% of marriages end in failure, either through divorce or when one of you passes on. You can’t be together forever. That’s not how it works. Suffering is a part of life. So get that out and let that go, because you’re not going to be together forever.

Tough…but true. I think about this often when I’m with KP. I value every single minute of our time together. Because I’m human, and I know what it means to suffer.

And because I know what it means to suffer, I know what it means to love. I know what it means to be joyful. I know what it means to be look up at the stars and wonder aloud why the universe is so breathtakingly beautiful. In short, I know what it means to do theology and ponder the deepest questions of our hearts and minds.

Life is suffering. Because I know what it means to suffer, and I know what it means to really live. And that, friends, is good.