Reflection

Theme: Suffering
By May Hong
When I was preparing for this multifaith service, the theme “suffering” came to my mind. But I
was a little bit hesitant to choose this theme because suffering itself carried the dark and
negative image. I wanted to choose the themes that were more bright, positive, and hopeful.
But I couldn’t think of a better theme than suffering. That theme was stuck in my mind and
stayed for a while. So, I decided to talk about suffering today.
No one wants to talk about suffering willingly and actively even though it is our reality that we
are experiencing now. Hospital is full of physical, mental, and spiritual sufferings but it is not
easy to bring up the issues that make us suffer and go into this topic deeply.
To be honest with you, when I think about hospital, the most dominant image that comes to my
mind is suffering. When I close my eyes, the image of hospital leads me to another place in my
mind. It is wilderness. Most people, if they are real human beings, encounter the moment that
they have to go through the place of wilderness during their lifetime. Some people call it life
crisis. Some people call it suffering. Others may call it God’s test. I also had a moment when I
felt like I was standing alone in the wilderness. It was so cold, and I was so lonely. There was no
one around me. It was badly quiet. This extreme quietness and unbearable loneliness naturally
led me to the question that I had never asked myself before. “Who am I?” I asked this question
again and again, “who am I?” But it seemed like there was no answer to this question within
me. With this realization that I was too weak, too incapable, and too unwise to answer this
question “who am I”, my spiritual journey of searching for God had begun. My desperate
question “who am I” changed into a humble prayer “God, please let me know who I am.”
Two weeks ago, I visited a patient in his 80s. He used to be able, independent, and very
responsible person before being hospitalized, but he found the totally opposite self who was
weak, incapable, and dependent in this hospital. He felt sad, miserable, and hopeless.
Definitely, he was going through the wilderness of his life. But when he realized and
experienced the human helplessness and incompetence to the fullest, his spiritual quest began.
As soon as I introduced myself, he said this. “You know what, I started thinking about God more
in this hospital rather than I did at home.”
For some people, being in hospital is like going through the wilderness in their lifetime. In this
hospital, we find ourselves totally naked. Social positions and materialistic possessions no
longer make us feel better or proud. Here, we naturally come to focus on ourselves and ask
“who am I?” We feel like we are incomplete and we feel like we can do nothing with our own
power. Sometimes, we talk to ourselves, “I am nothing.”
When we are going through the wilderness, when we are going through the darkness, and
when we feel like there is no one around us, that is the time that our spirits are awaken and the
search of the meaning of life and suffering begins. When we are lonely, when we are alone, our
conversation with the Creator is the most active and intense. You sometimes argue with your
creator. “Why are you testing me?” “Do you even care about me?” “Why are you so silent when
I am suffering?”
In our first reading, we listened to the meaning of suffering from a man who went through one
of the most terrible and miserable sufferings in human life. Victor Frankl got a doctorate in
medicine and became a psychiatrist, but he was taken to the four different concentration
camps, including Auschwitz during the World War II, and he had to observe the death of his
parents, brother, and pregnant wife at concentration camp. After going through this
unbearable suffering, he said, “If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in
suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and
death, human life cannot be complete.”
I don’t know what the meaning of my suffering is and I don’t know what the meaning of your
suffering is. But the thing that I know is that there must be a certain and clear meaning in my
suffering and in your suffering as Victor Frankl said. It is impossible to understand the cause, the
reason, and the nature of suffering but, suffering makes us mature, and suffering makes our life
complete. We cannot change suffering or control the suffering, but we can change and control
the way of how to respond to our suffering. The Islamic reading also says, “being alive as a
human means to be in suffering at stages of life and suffering make a full human person.” In
Judeo-Christian reading, the writer of Psalm 119 testifies, “It was good for me to suffer, so that I
might learn your law. The law you have revealed is more important to me than thousands of
pieces of gold and silver.” You cannot buy spiritual and divine wisdom with money, but you can
learn and experience the divine mystery and truth by going through your suffering. Christian
reading says, “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they
help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character
strengthens our confident hope.”
As human beings, we all may agree that our life cannot be discussed without suffering.
Biographies and autobiographies without narratives of trials or sufferings cannot be popular or
attractive. Who want to read the story that is filled only with happy and joyful episodes in the
entire book? Even children’s story books such as Cinderella or Snow White contain suffering
parts of human beings. How can we discuss human life without suffering? We all know that
suffering makes human life difficult but makes human life beautiful. Suffering makes humans
humble, mature, and even sacred. This is why we can have quiet and inner joy in the midst of
suffering.
As a spiritual care provider, how can I discuss spirituality without suffering? Spiritual darkness
and wilderness bring us to the spiritual centeredness. No pain, no gain. We cannot expect
spiritual maturity without suffering. So, if you have pain, that means you are growing. Suffering
leads us to the deeper understanding of who I am and who our creator is. Suffering awakens us
to see the real beauty of life.