BRIEF AND SHOCKING STUDY OF SATAN IN THE BIBLE

A BRIEF SURVEY STUDY OF SATAN FROM THE BIBLE

ONE GOD IN MANY FORMS

In the world generally, especially in the so-called 'Christian' world, there is the idea that Satan and God are locked in some sort of eternal combat over the souls of people. This is not a new idea; it is not even an idea only limited to Christianity. The Babylonians believed there were two gods, a god of good and light, and a god of evil and darkness. This view holds that the two supernatural Beings are locked in mortal combat.

This was also the standard religious view in Persia when the Jews were in captivity around 550 B.C. That is why Isaiah the prophet told Cyrus, the great King of Persia, "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me...I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create chaos: I the Lord do all these things" (Is.45:5-22). God creates peace and He creates chaos. God is the author even of catastrophes in this sense.

SATAN AS A VERB

The Hebrew word, 'shatan,’ is a verb which means 'adversary’ or ‘opponent,’ or one who blocks the path of progress. We see this in Numbers 22 where the Hebrew prophet Balaam rides his donkey, in opposition to God’s will, to prophesy against his own people, Israel. The story says that the Angel of the LORD came to block (satan) the path of Balaam:

“Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab. But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the LORD stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, she turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat her to get her back on the road.”

The phrase, ‘to oppose him’ is the Hebrew verb ‘shatan.’ Notice that it is God who is doing the ‘shataning’ or blocking. At this point in the Bible, there was no clear war between a Good God and an evil Satan. God was the author of all actions.

In the New Testament, the word ‘devil’ (diabolos) is used to describe actions by human beings. In 1 Timothy 3:11, Paul writes that the church leaders and their wives are not to be devils (malicious talkers):

“The wives of elders are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers (diabolos)…”

Similarly in Titus 2:3 Paul warns that the aged women in the church should not be "false accusers" or 'devils.’ He told Timothy that, "In the last days...men shall be...false accusers (devils)" (2 Tim.3:1,3). This does not mean that human beings will turn into superhuman beings or that they are possessed by the devil, but that they can commit acts of opposition.

ONE POWER, ONE PRESENCE, GOD THE GOOD

The Hebrews saw One God expressing in ALL of life:

“The Lord said to Moses, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” Exodus 4:11

“Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?” Lamentations 3:38

“I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.” Isaiah 45:5-8

The Hindu Bhagavad Gita takes a similar view of the One Power they called Brahman. In chapter eleven, the great God Vishnu in his earthly avatar named Krishna is teaching the righteous General Arjuna about spiritual reality. After several lessons, Arjuna begs Lord Krishna (Vishnu) to reveal his true divine form beyond the physical limitations. Krishna obliges and the heavens fill with multiple faces and forms of the One God. Arjuna sees the totality of God and says:

Arjuna: "O Lord of lords, O refuge of the worlds, please be gracious to me. I cannot keep my balance seeing thus Your blazing deathlike faces and awful teeth. In all directions I am bewildered. All the sons of Dhritarashtra, along with their allied kings, and Bhishma, Drona, Karna—and our chief soldiers also—are rushing into Your fearful mouths. And some I see trapped with heads smashed between Your teeth." Gita 11

Arjuna is shocked to see that Krishna is not only life, light and order, but also death, darkness and chaos.

In another intriguing instance in the Old Testament, one story is told from two points of view. The story is about King David taking a population poll for military and taxation purposes. But notice what appear to be glaring differences in the same story:

“And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.’” II Samuel 24

“Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the army, ‘Go, number Israel…’ ”I Chronicles 21:1-2

Which is it? The LORD (JHWH) or Satan? Either the Hebrew authors made an error of cosmically colossal proportion, or they saw the two archetypal personifications somehow working in tandem.

The Hebrew Book of Job goes so far as to call Shatan one of God’s sons:

“One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it." Job 1:6-7

It might help to know that in the ancient world, every powerful monarch had his ‘shatans’ or what we would call ‘secret police’ today. Their function was to spy on potential enemies and let the king know what was really going on. In this Hebrew literary drama, God is imagined as having his own secret agent who spies on and tests people to make them stronger. Please remember, this is not a literal theology, but rather an ancient poetic attempt to make sense of suffering in a world ruled by One Power and One Presence, God the Good, Omnipotent.

God: The Creator of Chaos (sometimes translated Evil)

The Bible abounds with examples of God bringing "chaos" into people's lives and into this world. Amos 3:6 says that if there is evil or chaos in a city, God has done it. Micah 1:12 says that "evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem.” In the book of Job we read how Job, a righteous man, lost his health and wealth; Job recognized immediately that "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away" (Job 1:21). Job does not say 'The Lord gave and Satan took away'. He said to his wife: "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not (also) receive evil?" (Job 2:10). At the end of the book, Job's friends comforted him over "all the chaos that the Lord had brought upon him" (Job 42:11 cp. 19:21; 8:4). Thus, according to the Bible, God is the source of what people have termed "evil" or “chaos.” In the Hebrew Bible, their God is in control of literally all things.

This is in alignment with the other polytheistic mythologies of the world, except that the Hebrews try to unite all earthly phenomena into a single deity rather than a group of deities. But the effect is similar in that all human experiences can ultimately be traced back to numinous or divine origins. This is an archetypal perspective.

From these few sample passages we see that the Hebrews regarded God as the Source of All. The normative Jewish idea of Satan has always been that he/she/it cannot be viewed as an independent agent. In the great Babylonian Talmud, Rabbi Levi asserts that "everything Satan does is for the sake of heaven." When another rabbi preached a similar idea in his town, it is said that Satan himself came and "kissed his knees." The 2^nd century Christian theologian, Origen, said that Satan was God’s most beloved angel who volunteered to be the antagonist in the soul-making drama on earth, that humans might grow into their divinity.

This is akin to the Taoist notion of darkness and light being distinct yet unified, teaching that this earthly existence contains a larger purpose than simply experiencing perpetual happiness and success, specifically teaching that life is a mixture of light and darkness, good and evil, peace and war, and all opposites. The artist and poet William Blake called this the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and wrote, “Without contraries is no progression.” The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said the same thing, “Strife is the father of all that is.” These are all ways of affirming soul-making through spiritual isometrics. Satan is a human term for an eternal pattern, a mythical construct for an infinite archetypal Being. At this level, the debate over whether the Devil is a person, an internal impulse, a symbol of free will gone bad, etc. is moot. These literal designations and symbols all contain truths, yet none captures the eternal Essence completely.

SATAN AS AN ADJECTIVE

The term ‘shatan’ is also used as an adjective that describes a quality rather than supernatural being. For example, the words satan and devil can refer to the actions of ordinary human beings. In the following passage Jesus calls Peter ‘Shatan’ because Peter stands in the way of Christ’s mission:

“At this time, Jesus began to reveal to his disciples how he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the religious leaders, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. But Peter took him aside and began to correct him, saying, ‘Put this nonsense away, Lord: that is not your destiny.’ But Jesus turned, and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan; you are becoming my obstacle, for you are not aware of my God-given destiny, but are looking through the limited eyes of a mortal man.’” Matthew 16:21-23

GOD’S GYMNASIUM

The New Testament letter to the Hebrews teaches that problems are exercises, or a kind of spiritual isometrics designed to move people toward a more clear sense of what is ‘right’ or more Real:

“Have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children? My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline, but don't be crushed by it either. It's the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects. God is educating you; that's why you must never drop out. He's treating you as dear children. This trouble you're in isn't punishment; it's training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God's holy best. At the time, discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it's the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God. So don't sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet! Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!” (The Message Bible, Hebrews 12:4-13)

This New Testament letter teaches that the difficulties in life are sent by God to promote spiritual growth. It does not say that the devil is a Being Who gets one over on God now and then. If there is a moral dualism in the Hebrew Bible, it is one set up by the One God for a purposeful end. The Idea (Presence, Person, Energy) called Satan always acts in accordance with God’s ultimate authority.

The Apostle Paul teaches that all things are under Gods control when he writes, "all things (in life) work together for good to those who love God and understand His purposes.” (Rom.8:28) Notice that Paul qualifies his controversial all-inclusive statement of ‘all things’ by saying ‘to those who are called in accordance with His purposes,’ meaning that those who are unconscious of an all encompassing, purposeful Soul-making Universe will find the notion repulsive and awful. Most people are conditioned to associate the word ‘God’ solely with feeling good, peaceful and happy. I call this the problem with exclusive monotheism. That is why most cultures developed multiple equal deities or polytheism.

SATAN NEEDS PERMISSION

Jesus had the typical Hebrew view of an all encompassing Higher Power when he tells Peter that the Divine aspect of the One he calls Shatan or the opponent, has asked permission to test Peter in order that Peter might become a great teacher:

Jesus said, "Simon (Peter), Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back (changed), strengthen your brothers.” But he replied, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” Jesus answered, "I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.” Luke 22

JUDAS GOD’S AGENT AND THE DEVIL

In the Gnostic Gospel of Judas, Jesus tells Judas that he is the wisest of all of the disciples because he has seen the necessity of turning Christ over to the religious authorities that the Christ might shed the lower Jesus-self that is keeping him from a higher consciousness:

“But you, Judas, will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” Gospel of Judas

In the Gospel of John, Jesus said, "Have not I chosen you twelve (disciples), and one of you is a devil? He spoke of Judas Iscariot..." Jesus was referring to an ordinary, mortal man. He was not speaking of a personal, supernatural being with horns. The word 'devil' here simply refers to a wicked man.

The Hebrew world view teaches that ‘evil’ or suffering is included within the scope of an all powerful and all encompassing Higher Power, therefore the followers can pray to that Higher Power to do something about the problem. If this all encompassing Higher Power doesn't remove the suffering, then the follower knows that the obstacles are sent or at least permitted by their Higher Power for spiritual or soulful improvement. But if one believes that there is some independent evil Being called the Devil or Satan who thwarts God’s will and causes problems, then there is no way of viewing them as ultimately purposeful. Without an all encompassing view of a Higher Power, then disability, illness, sudden death or calamity at some point have to be blamed on a Devil, human sin, human unbelief, or bad luck. If the Devil is an independent power, then humans are helpless and hopeless victims when suffering arrives. Any theology that affirms an all powerful God, who is occasionally baffled and beaten by the Devil, has lost the all powerful God.

That being said, this doctrine causes many people to be troubled. Some just cannot or will not reconcile a Good God with acts of evil, illness and suffering.

WALT AND THE SMITING GOD

I had a friend named Walt while I was in seminary. He came by my house one afternoon and told me he was dropping out of school. His last words to me were, “If God is the author of all of the pain and suffering in this world, I have two words for this God, ‘F%@K You!’” I don’t know where Walt ended up, but when I last saw him, he was smoking pot everyday and bitterly angry at the world.

Many Westerners understandably have problems with this idea of a personal ‘God’ who smites people, or allows the holocaust and other horrific tragedies. This is especially true when people have been trained to see only with literalist, rationalistic, materialistic eyes. Modern Westerners make two assumptions the Hebrews did not make:

That God was like a limited human.

That comfort and happiness in this life are most important.

First, the Hebrews experienced God as a Living Source, but not as a human being limited in knowledge and power. They, along with other ancient cultures, submitted to the phenomena of earthly existence as they showed up - the good, the bad and the ugly. And this was before penicillin and toilet paper. To be ‘made in God’s image’ did not refer to their human physical form, ideas or emotions, but rather to their unique consciousness of the numinous or sacred in ways that plants and animals could not. God was a Source beyond human evaluation and explanation, but it was fine and even necessary to engage in the attempt. It would have to be, this Higher Power made us capable of arguing with ‘what is’ in order that we might expand our small limited selves. Eternity infused finitude through engagement with It, and sculpted larger Souls by doing so.

Second, the Hebrews saw this earthly experience primarily as a means to develop character. They did not superimpose a metaphysical value system or set of metaphysical expectations on God or the manifesting Universe. They looked at the Universe as it showed up, and tried to make sense of the experiences they encountered. Death as well as life was simply there, as was disease, natural disasters, accidents, poverty, old age and all other unpleasant phenomena right alongside the pleasurable phenomena. There was either a God Who was ultimately in control of a purposeful Universe, or a humans left to their own devices and self serving theories.

BUT I THOUGHT GOD WAS LOVE AND PEACE

This notion of a Good God being the Author of evil gets tricky when we come across Bible passages that specify “God is love,” and “God is peace,” “God is healing,” or when we read that God is going to do away with war and heal the nations. So which is it? Is God all that is, or is God just the light and love part? The Hebrews troubling answer is yes to all of the above. It is akin to the physicist who says light is made of particles and waves, and then speaking of just ‘light waves’ and how light goes around corners.

I personally keep a mental image when parsing these metaphysical conundrums between GOD as ALL and God as just the Good:

Just as we have a variety of words for water in its many forms and functions (liquid, lake, river, brook, rain, dew, wave, foam, steam, ice), it should not trouble us that the word ‘God’ has so many forms and functions. Most of the World’s Religions do the same thing. Hinduism calls the ‘All’ Brahman, and the good Vishnu. Christianity speaks of the GODHEAD as the Source of all, and God the father, son and Holy Spirit as the good. Islam speaks of Allah as ‘Us’ or ‘We’ when referring to His Providential control over all situations, including good and evil.

CONCLUSION: AH, WHAT’S PUZZLING YOU IS THE NATURE OF MY GAME?

This brief study shows that the biblical idea of Satan cannot be understood apart from the One all powerful Hebrew God and a purposeful Universe. The first well known Christian ‘theologian,’ Origen (200 A.D.) was his name, told a story that said Satan was God’s closest and most beloved Angel. When God asked for a volunteer to bring opposition and chaos to the soul-making earth, Satan stepped up out of love and took on the role.

The aim of this class, and this study, is to ask the student to enter into the fray. You have likely experienced some ‘Satanic’ mental activity as you read the paper – that is, you have met mental obstacles, challenges to your current beliefs, unanswerable questions and other such troubling issues. In that regard, let me conclude with Mick Jagger’s lyrics from Sympathy for the Devil,

“Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah…”

Who, What, Why is Satan?

I recently spoke with a friend who had left the traditional Christian movement, partly because she could no longer believe in a literal Satan. She said she had no problem with an all loving, all powerful, good God, but couldn't handle Satan. She said that she now believes 'Satan' is just a symbol of her own poor decisions. She went on to explain that because humans have free will, we are able to choose things that can harm us. Case settled. Or is it?

Imagine that a friend calls and to tell you that her four year old boy was recently bitten by a rattlesnake and is in the hospital clinging to life. You ask how it happened, and your friend says, "He went out into the back yard to play this morning, I heard a frightful cry and ran out to find him holding his leg as a three foot long Diamondback rattler crawled away." You reply, "How awful!" Your friend then says, "Yes it is awful, but he chose to play in the yard, so ultimately it is a case of free will." Pondering the cavalier explanation, you then ask, "But you have a fence out there, I wonder how the snake got into the yard?" The friend then says, "Well, we keep a snake in the yard to eat the insects."

To some, this little parable seems ludicrous - no good parent would keep a poisonous serpent in a yard where the children played. Yet we humans are in a similar situation when we say that we have free will in a world filled with potential tragedies, and believe in a loving, all powerful, good God. If a loving parent would not intentionally place a venomous snake in his child's play area, why would a loving God place so many potential horrors in the human world?

I will tell you right now that I do not know 'the' answer. No one does, and many have addressed this issue over the centuries, dating back to the biblical book of Job and other ancient and modern works of philosophy and literature. But I will tell you that the 'free will, Satan is a symbol of bad choices' theory provides me no answer at all. Honestly, I prefer the traditional Christian answer, yet I find neither satisfying.

The provisional answer to date, for me, is that we live in a world of soul-making. Before the world began, before the Big Bang started our cosmos, before humans were created, hatched, spawned, crawled from the Primordial ooze or however we got here, there were Eternal Patterns or Blueprints for this reality we call our existence. Those patterns may be called energies, persons, forces, vital essences or any number of names we assign them; no name or image is adequate, but they were in existence before this Cosmos burst into existence and will be there after the universe contracts back into a final Black Hole.

All mythologies and religious theologies, all art and literature, all music and ritual, and everyone of your personal beliefs or theories about everything, always ultimately lead back to them. Every one of our explanations is provisional and satisfying for only as long as we don't try to think back too far. Because when we do trace any of these theories back, we are left with the inexplicable 'Eternal Patterns,' or what Carl Jung called 'the little people.' Most of us would rather stop with the current provisional explanation, seriously believing or pretending that we have actually solved the mystery rather than struggle with the implications of not knowing.

Whether you call Satan a real Person or a 'symbol of free will,' you are still left with the problem of explaining why a Good God put him or it in the back yard. What we are left with is the basic phenomena of reality - we know there is something Good, and we are capable of choosing, being victimized by and doing some unimaginably horrific things on this planet. In fact, the whole universe continues to roil about in darkness - crashing, smashing and colliding as it did from the initial violent mega-atomic blast called the Big Bang.

So we can either ignore the actual phenomena and hide in our provisional explanations, or admit that we are children, playing in a wonderful yard, with a rattle snake in the back yard, placed there by someone we call a loving parent. Those are the facts of existence.

My provisional 'explanation' is what I call Spiritual Isometrics. <-----Feel free to click and read what keeps me from giving up when the snake has sunk its fangs into my leg in the middle of a perfectly good day of play.

Soul-making as Evidence for Immortality

Theologian John Hicks on Soul-making, or what he calls 'person-making' as the aim of life, and as an evidence for immortality of personal consciousness:

“The broad picture of man and his place in the universe on which the present speculation is based is teleological, presenting our life in time as a movement towards a goal. The telos to which our existence is directed can be formally described as human perfection, man’s full humanization, the total realization of the potentialities of finite life or, in the daring language of eastern orthodox Christianity, man’s divinization.

We can only experience the nature of this human fulfillment as we come to participate in it; but we have anticipatory glimpses of aspects of it, under the special conditions of this world, in the lives of the great saints of the various religious traditions [and mythologies]. Life, then, is a soul-making or person-making process. We exist in order to grow through our free interactions with a challenging environment towards a human perfection which lies far beyond our present state.

It is evident that such a completion is very seldom (if ever) achieved in the course of this present life. Generally the varied experiences of life bring some growth in understanding in oneself in acceptance of others, in willingness for sacrifice, and some expansion in the capacity to love and be loved. Very often, in these ways men and women take in the course of their lives a smaller or larger step towards their full humanization.

But too often people are so treated by life that they never have the opportunity, or sufficient opportunity, to develop their properly human potential, and end their lives as hard, selfish, embittered personalities who have turned their back upon the possibilities of human fellowship.

Or worse, men become possessed by evil and perhaps live and die violently as enemies of mankind. Thus in this life a few men and women advance a great deal and may come to be recognized as saints; most perhaps advance a certain amount; whilst yet others fail to advance at all, or even degenerate towards a sub-human condition.

Accordingly, it seems clear that if we do indeed exist under the aegis of a cosmic person-making purpose, that purpose must hold us in being beyond this present earthly life.”

Death and Eternal Life, John Hicks, pp. 407-408

Mirror Christianity and the Bible

MIRROR CHRISTIANITY

I have a friend who is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Often, when he meets someone with a problem, he tells them that his A.A. Big Book contains the secret to all of their troubles. When the person asks him for the secret, my friend opens his Big Book and holds it directly in front of the curious onlooker. Glued on the inside of the front cover is a thin mirror. The observer sees only his/her own reflection. My friend then says, “There is your problem, and there is your solution.”

C.S. Lewis wrote a brilliant exposition of Christian theology called, Mere Christianity. My friend’s book might be titled, Mirror Christianity. That might also be a subtitle for the Bible. It may be read as a book that reflects back to each reader the source of the problem, and the solution. I am asking you to look into the Bible as a mirror. Let it reflect those unconscious potentials that will cause your soul to expand. That is where the work must be done. I close with a verse from the New Testament that suggests how the early Christians thought the Bible ought to be encountered.

“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” New Testament, Hebrews 4:12

The Necessity of Subjective Suffering

Preface: I am not invalidating the following statement. I am providing a perspective that warns the reader to see them as proverbs, not laws.

THE NECESSITY OF SUBJECTIVE SUFFERING

One spiritual book said,

Suffering is subjective. Consider the following: One of the worst punishments inflicted on prisoners is solitary confinement. At the same time, some people from Northern California pay thousands of dollars a month for a similar experience but call it a “silent retreat.” The meditator enjoys the experience partially because it is voluntary but also because he or she knows what to do with the mind to create an opportunity out of the solitude, rather than a punishment.

-- The Heart of the Mind

This paragraph contains a perspective that is valuable. However, it runs the risk of negating the subject, of turning the human being into a spiritual cliche. It runs the risk of sacrificing the human experience to the spiritual platitude. Jesus was warning against this when he said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” In other words, spiritual times, spaces and maxims are objects in service to the human subject. When the above quote says, “Suffering is subjective,” it could imply to the reader that the reader is a dope unless he immediately conforms to the spiritual platitude.

Do you know why suffering is subjective? Because we are SUBJECTS! We are not objects, we are not spiritual machines. Soul moves human subjects from A to Z through life events. Such tired expressions risk making the reader feel there is something wrong with him/her for their ‘subjective suffering.’ Humans are elastic little subjective souls that stretch and expand by pain AND suffering. That is the way we are made. And that is what will and must happen, until it doesn’t. I call it spiritual isometrics – increase of soul through painful resistance.

BUT WON’T THIS MAKE US WHINING VICTIMS?

Some teachers are worried that the admission of suffering as valid, normal and legitimate will give people an excuse to remain victims and to linger in their suffering. But I have to ask, is the other extreme any better? Is it better to make them feel inferior, unenlightened, ignorant and failed because they are stuck in suffering? These sayings and quotes can be helpful, and sometimes that are not.

I think some of these teachers are escapists, using spirituality as a kind of drug, or alcohol. Some are incapable of being honest with themselves. They will not admit that in the privacy of their own minds that they are filled with self doubt, self loathing, fear of failure and worry. Rather than pay attention to the voice of the Gods in these ‘negative emotions,’ they chase them off like annoying vultures feeding on a rotting carcass. But instead of dealing with the symptoms, or rotting carcass, they keep chasing the birds of prey away.

To read more, click here: Is it true that pain is mandatory but suffering is optional?

Is it True That 'Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional'?

Preface: I am not invalidating the following statement. I am providing a perspective that warns the reader to see them as proverbs, not laws.

_______________________________________

“Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional.”

-- Sylvia Boorstein

This saying can be taken in many ways. It rightly recognizes that we have the option of nursing our pain and turning it into protracted suffering. We have the option of finding ways to channel the suffering into less painful or non painful experiences.

However, my concern is that people interpret this to mean, “If your suffering lingers, you are doing something wrong.” Or that all suffering beyond the initial moment of pain is bad, useless and ineffective.

WHEN DOES ‘PAIN’ BECOME ‘SUFFERING’?

Imagine that the Twin Towers in New York had human consciousness. Imagine the day after 9/11, a spiritual Guru standing before the smoldering rubble pile of the Towers saying, “Ahhhh, very painful, but suffering is optional.” When does the ‘pain’ end and the ‘suffering’ begin? As the fire smolders beneath the huge pile of debris for weeks, is that pain or suffering? As the firemen, policemen and volunteer workers dig through the rubble – is that pain or suffering. As construction-workers use wrecking balls to dismantle old walls, and use blow torches to cut and disassemble girders and twisted metal for weeks, is this pain or suffering? As the bull dozers and dump trucks load and haul away the wreckage, is that part of the pain or ‘optional’ suffering? As countless families, friends and citizens wait for body parts to be exhumed, and grieve the dead for weeks and months, is that pain or unnecessary suffering? Some of these spiritual maxims can come off as quite calloused and trite, dismissing the role of prolonged pain/suffering as necessary in the renovation of the psyche or soul of an individual.

A SEASON IN HELL

The Greek myth of Persephone is helpful here. Persephone was the virgin daughter of Demeter, Goddess of agriculture. One morning she strolled through a sun-bathed field picking wild flowers with her companions. Suddenly the earth shook, a chasm appeared in the ground and Dark Hades, the King of the Underworld, emerged in a charcoal chariot drawn by black stallions. He swept alongside Persephone and yanked her into the chariot, and disappeared back into the chasm. This is sometimes called the Rape of Persephone. This was a ‘painful’ event for both daughter and mother. The young girl was forced down into the dark Underworld where she ate a few seeds from a pomegranate, obliging her to return to Hades for a few months each year. What do we make of this story? Many have said this myth explains the seasons, and others say it describes the violent wedding rituals of ancient Greece where girls were forced to leave home and live with their husband’s families. But let’s look at it psychologically or soulfully.

One soul-making perspective would suggest that often painful events come upon us like a rape, unexpected and suddenly we are yanked from the sunny day into a dark depression. A painful moment becomes protracted suffering. This perspective would say it is not unusual to experience a great loss and know subsequent months of darkness as a result. Eating the seeds and being obligated to return to Hades for 4-6 months out of the year suggest that soul-making includes periods of sunny, florid days with companions, and periods of solitude and reflection in dark places. In other words, Persephone is in each of us, and suffering is not just optional, but required for depth of soul.

This is not a crusade for suffering or dwelling in darkness. It is a recognition that sometimes soul work is done through prolonged emotional affliction. Like the seasons, suffering has a course to run and work to be done; aspects of the old self to be torn down, rubble to be cleared away, renovating to be done at the invisible or unconscious levels of existence.

MY EXPERIENCE OF NECESSARY PROLONGED SUFFERING

When my son was killed in Afghanistan, spiritual platitudes about unnecessary suffering were most often annoying. The pain of Jason’s death persisted for months. The pain became suffering, pathos, prolonged agony and it wasn’t optional, unless I chose pharmaceuticals or escapist meditation techniques. There was necessary grief, anger, melancholy, apathy and a host of other emotional wrecking-balls smashing into walls of my old self that did not want to be torn down. I could feel the iron thoughts slam into my head and heart, crushing my assumptions and expectations of how life should look. You should not have to bury your twenty five year old son. I was sure I was having a nightmare and would sometimes literally shake my head to wake up. I resisted and argued with the twisted wreckage of my perceptions of ‘the way it should be.’ I sat in the debris piles of old photographs and grade school journals written by my dead boy. I replayed images of his final living moments, standing, fighting, being shot, falling – was it on his face or his back? Unsolicited images came, of him bleeding and dying in the early morning hours in a remote Afghani valley. I sorted through duffle bags and hauled away old clothes belonging to my sweet son, touching them, wearing them, smelling them, weeping over them as I put them into boxes to take to the Goodwill. Many of them I kept. After about eight months, the darkness and agony began to subside, but this is another story altogether.

Was this suffering a waste of time? Was it really ‘optional’?

No. It was as necessary as the year long demolition and clearing of the Twin Towers. It was required. In order to rebuild a new dwelling, it took time to clear away the old deconstructed Towers.

Before his crucifixion, Jesus was looking at the huge Jewish Temple and said, “This temple will be torn down and in three days be built again.” John’s gospel said Jesus was speaking of his spiritual body, not the literal temple. Soul destroys and rebuilds. “Three days” refers to the perfect amount of time of destruction and suffering, and only the one suffering destruction of self will know that. Soul often unmakes before it remakes, and this is uncomfortable for most of us.

To continue, click here: The Necessity of Subjective Suffering