The Power Of Pain

"Only scarred lives can heal."

This is a quote from the most important sacred book in my life after the Holy Bible.  The book is called "God Calling."  It was put together by two anonymous English women in the early 1930's and their friend, AJ Russell as a result of the two women receiving messages from God.  The messages were edited and compiled into one for each day of the year.  Now, it could be considered a moot point as to whether the messages were indeed divinely inspired and if you are an atheist, and a particularly close-minded one of the ilk of Richard Dawkins (for which reason I would really wonder why you are reading my blog) then you are going to dismiss the very notion as so much theistic poppycock.

Christians tend to be divided about the authenticity of these writings.  The women, also known as the Two Listeners, were respectively an Anglican and a Catholic.  Nothing else is known about them.  They insisted on anonymity, wanting the glory to go to God.  Generally the more fundamentalist, or the more liberal you are, the more likely you are to dismiss these writings.  Which rather suggests that the further left, or the further right you go, you eventually end up on the opposite end of the spectrum.  Those who have a personal experience of God's presence in their lives are generally receptive to these writings.  Here is the link and you can read it online and discern for yourselves, Gentle Reader: https://twolisteners.org/

I have no question as to the authenticity of these writings and I have read selections from this book every day for the last thirty-four years.

Now, there are two reasons why I have picked this title, "The Power Of Pain."  Yesterday, on the radio, I heard an interview with a physician who said that the reason many parents don't want their children to be vaccinated is because they don't want their little darlings to experience pain.  I phoned in a comment to express my dismay with this kind of thinking.  For all her lack of parenting skills in some areas, one thing my mother did teach me was courage.  In the face of any unpleasant experience, such as getting a vaccination, she would encourage me to be brave and I inhaled her encouragement like fresh, bracing clean air.  I have learned from such experiences to accept pain as a fact of life, to face it, endure it and overcome it. 

As well as toughening me this has also taught me compassion and empathy for others.  My own experiences of pain, hurt and trauma have scarred my life, in some ways permanently, but I otherwise would never have learned how to understand, patiently listen and simply be with others in their suffering.  By denying your children a full experience of life, by hovering over them like neurotic helicopters there to shield and forever shelter them from all the hurts and buffets of life you are cheating them and facilitating a lifetime of feeble self-absorbed wankers incapable of compassion, empathy or responsibility.  You are raising a generation of pathetic, spineless weaklings and our world will only suffer because of them, and by extension, because of you and your lousy parenting skills.

This morning, on the bus, I noticed while looking out the window a bundle of blankets and sleeping bags with a human form underneath on the sidewalk at the corner of Granville and West Tenth Avenue, one of Vancouver's most prestigious shopping districts.  There have been homeless men camping out there for years, I suspect the same ones.  They are, of course, casualties of the welfare "reforms" instituted by the BC Liberal government some fourteen years ago, the government that brought wide scale homelessness to British Colombia, the very government that I hope will one day be required to stand before the World Court in the Hague for committing human rights violations, in this case against the rights of the poor.

I noticed various pedestrians this cold morning passing the human bundle.  One man looked, concern etched on his face.  No one else seemed to notice.  Either they didn't see this person, or they simply didn't "see" because really they didn't want to look.  The pain that this poor individual has to live with, for any number of reasons: mental health, addictions, government irresponsibility, community neglect, a life of bad luck, an abusive childhood, is on display for all of us, whether we like it or not and we have to face it and we have to swallow it, even if we choke on it, because this is the pain that we all share in common, it is the pain of our human condition and we have to start sharing in one another's healing since we already share in one another's pain.  It is simply a matter of us pulling our heads out of our asses and accepting that we are all in this together and yes, we are all responsible for one another.  Call this communism, call it socialism, call it anarchy, call it whatever the fuck you want, but I am calling this basic human decency for which we all have a capacity even though we are too afraid of the pain of facing ourselves and one another.

Time to act now because it is beyond too late!