Читать книгу Facing Sufering - Roberto Badenas - Страница 6

Introduction:

An Ever-Present Enemy

Few human experiences are as universal as pain. It is almost impossible for us to go through life without suffering from a health problem, without having an accident, without a friend or spouse, failing us, or without a loved one dying.

We only have to exist to suffer and cause pain. From Adam to the most recent newborn, from Job and Jesus, to the most uncelebrated soldier from the most forgotten war, the shadow of pain darkens the lives of everyone. We are not safe from suffering, regardless of how well we plan our lives. We are all exposed to suffering in one way or another, from our first baby teeth to the last aches of old age. Disease, decrepitude, remorse, existential angst, heartache…. If someone claims never to have suffered, that person has lost his memory. In a myriad of forms, be it acute, violent, dull, excruciating, or persistent, pain wears down the body and oppresses the spirit. It abounds in the life of the poor and ruins the life of the rich. It makes a child cry, disfigures a young person’s body, mars an adult’s face, and slumps the shoulders of the elderly. From the cradle to the grave, our suffering is relentless. Work and pleasure, dependence and freedom, virtue and vice, love and hate, all can make us suffer. Pain is part of our human condition.1We could say that we are no longer children when we realize that a mother’s kiss cannot take away all of our sorrows….

We only have to open a newspaper, walk down the halls of a hospital, or visit any cemetery to prove that this is the reality of life. Suffering haunts us and plagues us.2 In the last years, while I was writing this book, twenty people I know well have gone through some sort of intense suffering, and ten of them have since died. One of them was my father….

In the face of this unforgiving reality, our first instinct is to rise up and rebel in a thousand ways. Any twinge of pain puts the sensitive defense mechanisms of our bodies on alert. Like Ponce de León,3 we seek the fountain of eternal youth or of happiness in pleasures, medicines, therapies, treatments, and a thousand other practices…Like Ponce de Leon we fail to find it. The risk—and the certainty—of suffering and dying dominate our naive dreams. We attempt to avoid or fight both realities, but ultimately resign ourselves to accept them when we have no other choice. The question of suffering is so vast and complex that it would be pretentious to try to cover all of its dimensions ––medical, psychological, social, philosophical, and spiritualin a single book. Thus this book only addresses some of the more practical and existential aspects of pain in our daily life, from my personal perspective of believer. Despite millennia of reflection and research, the realm of pain has yet to be completely explored. This book attempts, in all modesty, to help us face suffering with dignity and realism.

Part One of the book, which is of an informative nature, outlines an awareness of the complexity of the issue and its various implications. Part Two presents a series of theoretical and practical reflections regarding the ultimate why behind suffering and attempts to understand its meaning. Part Three, with the layman in mind, provides simple resources to face suffering with compassion, effectiveness, and tact. The goal is seeking to avoid pain in the first place, and when that is unfeasible, to alleviate it.

The ultimate objective of this book is to help face and cope with the reality of pain as much as possible.

I am not an expert on the subject of pain. I have no doubt that many of my readers, through personal or professional experience, know more of the subject than I do. I write only as a witness, almost as a “suffering subject.” If my optimistic nature tends to dodge pain, my philosophical training, and above all my personal and pastoral experience, have made me quite sensitive to the subject.

This book has been much more difficult to write than my previous books, and undoubtedly it would never have come to fruition without the collaboration of an excellent group of especially dear people. First I would like to thank my physician friends, José Manuel Prat, Miguel Gracia Antequera, Marcelle Lafond, and Caleb Mercier, who were kind enough to review these pages from a professional point of view, and who have provided me with much invaluable advice beyond their respective specialties. My gratitude also goes to my dear colleague Roberto Carbonell, hospital chaplain, who daily confronts suffering and death, for generously sharing his personal testimonies with me; to chaplain Dr. Mario Ceballos, for his helpful contributions in bibliography; to Dr. Angel Manuel Rodriguez, for his useful theological insights; to Dr. Herold Weiss for his intelligent and sensitive thoughts on the subject; to my young friends, Ramon Junqueras and Guillermo Sánchez, for sharing the priceless contributions of their creative talents with me; to Juan Fernando Sánchez, for his tireless and competent editorial assistance, and again, to Marta Prats, for her valuable literary advice and unconditional support.

I write this book out of solidarity with those who suffer, out of a sense of duty, I would almost say “in self-defense,”4motivated by my own rejection and powerlessness in the face of our common experience. This book seeks to answer the following questions:

To what extent is it possible to avoid pain? What can we do to understand pain or learn to control it? How do we transcend pain in order to put this minion of death to the service of life?

As Leon Gieco sang:

“I only ask God

That I not be indifferent to suffering,

That skeletal death does not find me

Empty and alone, without having done enough.”

The Author

1 . «The most basic human experience is pain: “Human reality by nature is doomed to suffering” (Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, London: Routledge, 2003 (1958). “Let us imagine a number of men in chains, and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of men” (Blaise Pascal, Pensées [Thoughts], § 199). Cf. Eugene C. Kennedy The Pain of Being Human. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997.

2 . See Paul Heubach, The Problem of Human Suffering, Hagerstown (Maryland, USA): Review and Herald, 1991, p. 4.

3 . Juan Ponce de León (c. 1460-1521), conquistador from Spain, was the first governor of Puerto Rico and the discoverer of Florida (USA). According to legend, he sought the Fountain of Youth in his travels.

4 . See Ronald Dunn, Quand le ciel est silencieux [When Heaven is Silent], Marne-la-Vallée (France): Farel, 2003, p. 23

Note on Bible versions used: While writing this book, the author simultaneously used three different versions of Scripture: the New International Version, the NASB, and the Message. As the content of the biblical texts cited above is essentially the same, the reader is invited to consult his or her preferred version, even if it is different from the versions mentioned above. The author turns to other versions only on rare occasions (as outlined) or to his personal translation.