Friday, June 27, 2008

handle with care



"You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff." Bono


I've always had a tough time with the idea that a person is only given what they can handle. To me, this falls into the same category as being told "it was meant to be," when someone you love has died. What a pompously dismissive unfeeling attitude that simply shuts off the empathy valve. All conversation screeches to a halt. I mean, how do you reply to this?



"Yeah, the sorry bastard. I guess he picked the shortest straw in the game of life and resilience. Thank God he has only been given all that he can handle."


Suffering may be the place where we grind out our best growth; it may be where our wounds turn into a thing of beauty, but it seems to me that some people are given way more than their share of what they can handle and some seem to BREEZE through life with only a few nicks. Sometimes a person's suffering is more than they can carry. They are so enveloped in pain.......pain so debilitating that they are simply a heap on the sofa, pain so wielding in power that they don't have the capacity to pull themselves up off the floor to seek help, forgotten about by the people who walk by their door yards without a blink of an eye........because, well.........those sorry bastards are only given what they can handle. They'll figure it out, and will learn big things from the experience. Besides they deserved it?


Whats the lesson here? Well, the person has learned that they have a limit to what they can handle. Or maybe that God is pissed off with them? Can't this have been taught in a different manner? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does one believe in a God who holds grudges? I certainly don't.



We all have a tipping point in the game of suffering. Whether we are one of those who is offered the view from that precipice or whether we are one of those who never reach it depends on Karma? I don't know. Strip away strength. Strip away resources. Douse the flame too many times and most of us buckle under the burdening weight of not having the capacity to cope with it all. Then what?


Some people in our lives, particularly the difficult ones, and certain experiences we happen to encounter seem more predestined as means for us to learn big personal lessons. Carl Jung believed, "everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."

Could it be that self-awareness and the stripping of our own layers of ego defenses occur most dramatically under these circumstances? Still, how many layers do we have to shed before our skin is too raw for even the tenderest of touch? Where does Grace enter into the picture? Maybe it's when we allow the internal struggle between sense and nonsense to rest in the cradle of genuflective reverence. Sometimes it the only place where we are helped with our balance.

(this post was inspired after a homevisit a couple of weeks ago. I met with a beautiful woman who has to spend most of her days on the couch in pain......life has thrown her a boatload of lemons.....her physical pain was very real, and it was manifested by years of abuse. She was gracious and open to share her story with us..... Her optimism despite her struggles was humbling)

12 comments:

Kate's Typewriter said...

oh yes... the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... we so want to be able to explain why things happen, want some kind of assurance God would never "give us more than we can handle"...

But He does, doesn't He? wouldn't we all testify as much, from some time or other when we were certainly in far over our heads? surviving a horrible experience doesn't mean you were qualified to handle it. we humans are really so fragile, so very fragile... we carry such scars, all of us, don't we??? from times it was more than we could handle?

and the interesting thing is, God doesn't exactly teach us to handle it...

Bar L. said...

amazing post, D. me...having a hard time even believing in God these days.

Marja said...

You describe what I question lots of times. It is complicated.
I like the idea of reincarnation and karma only because than it makes at least a little bit sense.
Some children in my home haven't done any wrong, are not bad but have such a baggage that you wonder why. Some are very intelligent but of course believe the opposite or their anxiety is too high to concentrate and learn.
Than I know kids and families were everything is provided, everything runs smoothly and they are not even nice.
Than it is still luxery suffering when you think what happens in e.g. Africa. God's ways are a bit uncomprehensable.

Karen said...

It really hurts me when I see some people get blow after blow dealt in their lives and they are such decent people that you can't help wondering why. Then there are others who you would gladly see pulled down a peg or two and yet nothing bad ever seems to touch them.

Life is really just a crap shoot sometimes. Some are blessed with the luck of the Irish while others must feel truly cursed. There never seems to be any rhyme or reason for it.

kenju said...

I don't think God gives us "things or situations to handle". We choose them in advance, by dint of karma earned (for good or bad), because we know they will help us learn the lessons we are supposed to learn in this life.

awareness said...

Kate....no He doesn't teach us to handle it. He gave us brains and will and hope. he also gave us hearts and listening ears to help others when they are in pain.
I find it so judgemental when someone sweeps other's pain under the carpet with such cliches like...."it was meant to be...."

Layla....you know how sometimes when you are looking hard for something...high and low and you just can't find it....? Sometimes when we stop looking it appears magically. :)

Marja. I'm with you. Most days, I find Him incomprehensible....so much of our world makes no sense....even the miracle sunrise stuff.....not just the terrible injustices. I figure (and hope) that faith is a gradual accumulation of a life lived and that by the time it's my turn to kick the can, I don't find the Big Guy as incomprehensible.
What always strengthens my beliefs, and I can unequivocably state this .... when i meet people like the woman whom I was thinking of when I wrote this and see her optimism, hope AND faith shine through in her whole being.
I also think....I have Nothing to personally complain about.

Gypsy....it does seem like a crapshoot sometimes. I think we all know individuals and families who seem to have grey clouds following them wherever they go. it's a strange and awful phenomenon and there is no explanation whatsoever.
A book I read years ago which tried to explain this was Harold Kuschner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People. If you havent read it, I recommend it. he has many books published, but that one deals with his own journey to understanding this.

Judy.....I do believe we choose most of the events that we find ourselves in, but then there are catastrophic things that happen with no semblance of sense.....a sick and dying child, a horrific car accident and loss, war all around where you live...famine, poverty, and then I wonder....they didn't choose to be born in a country where war is commonplace. They didn't choose to have a child only to suffer inconsolable grief.

awareness said...

WE choose how we respond, and we do the best that we can with our own personal abilities to handle a situation.....but there are so many events/incidents when we have no control over the onset or how it unfolds.

urbanmonk said...

Great post Dana!!

Made me think of Dallaire again. A strong capable man. A General who can GET THINGS DONE and MAKE THINGS HAPPEN could not control anything. When you find yourself in such real living hells, karma stops working. the balance sheet gets blurred and stained with tears. When that happens, the only thing left is love:)

awareness said...

Monk....am so glad to see you here again....

Romeo Dallaire is an excellent example.....

perhaps when we are stripped down to the raw core, it is where we can expressed and feel love the most.

Open Grove Claudia said...

In my experience, and in my opinion, we cannot control the flow of life. We get in the way of things sometimes. For better or worse, we suffer. To me, this is the very nature of living on this amazing planet.

Thus, to me, Karma reflect how you deal with what is given to you. Good Karma? You manage to have the strength to endure what's on your plate. Bad Karma? You suffer tragic ego dramas and live in self manufactured misery.

This is where our choice comes in. Some of the most tragic stories have people who remain positive and grateful. Why? Because they know the secret - things can always be worse.

But I don't believe, not even for one minute, that anyone makes a soul contract to suffer or that God wants to give us challenges. The very nature of life is sensation - the opportunity to feel.

We suffer because we can.

They say that death is peaceful and silent, sensation free. There will be a moment or an ion, we will long just to feel again.

JP/deb said...

What an insightful post ... what profound inspiration you encountered in that homevisit. xx, JP/deb

mister tumnus said...

only thing i can think of in response is something else from bono:

'we're one but we're not the same, we get to carry each other, carry each other'

xx