Suffering Without Despair
Finding in Hell what is not Hell
St. Silouan the Athonite, an Eastern Orthodox monk of Mount Athos who died in 1938, had a vision of Jesus in which he asked him, “Lord, how can I become humble?” The Lord replied, “Keep your mind in hell and do not despair.”[1] This seems like a paradoxical response, but it is consistent with Jesus’ teaching that the way of the Cross is the way of love.
Contrast Silouan’s vision with another, quite different, dialogue between Jesus and his disciples, John and James.[2] John and James are interested in glory – riches, honor, and power. Silouan is interested in humility. Jesus’ response, however, isn’t so different. In both cases, he points to the reality of suffering – both his own and that of others. Jesus will suffer. That is the cup he will drink, and the baptism with which he will be baptized is crucifixion. He will descend into hell. And so will James and John. But that is not cause for despair.
How not to despair in hell? For Jesus, the key is service. The suffering that Jesus is talking about is not the love of suffering; the cultivation of suffering as if it were valuable in itself, or something that we must embrace to earn God’s favor. George Gurdjieff called this stupid suffering. Jesus is not talking about the love of suffering. He is talk about the suffering of love.
The power of love is such that it compels us to embrace suffering in the service of life. We do not need to seek out suffering. We only need to love, to seek the good of the beloved, and suffering will find us. I don’t know why this is so. And if I did, any explanation I could offer would be of little consolation to you. Suffering is part of what we undergo when we love others. The wider the circle of love, the more you seek to be the servant of all, the greater will be the compass of suffering.
The suffering of love enters into hell and focuses on repair rather than despair, on the simple acts of care – care of self, care of others, care of the world – that redeem our days. In her poem, “Why Write Love Poetry in a Burning World,” Kati Farris writes,
To train myself to find, in the midst of hell what isn’t hell. The body, bald, cancerous, but still beautiful enough to imagine living the body washing the body replacing a loose front porch step the body chewing what it takes to keep a body going – this scene has a tune a language I can read this scene has a door I cannot close I stand within its wedge I stand within its shield Why write poetry in a burning world? To train myself, in the midst of a burning world, to offer poems of love to a burning world.[3]
What poems are you writing, not in words necessarily, but in the love you share with a burning world? Do you recognize the doorway, the shield, that the simplest acts of care provide for us even in hell?
Suffering is not a test we have to pass, and it certainly isn’t a punishment meted out by God for our sins – our sins are quite capable of rebounding suffering upon ourselves without God’s help. Suffering can be the measure and refiner of our love.
The writer Gregory David Roberts was an escaped convict. When his marriage dissolved and he lost custody of his young daughter, he spiraled down into heroin addiction and armed robbery to afford his habit. When he escaped from prison in Australia, he made his way to India, and sought to disappear for a while into a slum in Mumbai.
The slum was one half mile by one half mile of the smallest, barest shelters housing some 25,000 people. On his first day there, as he was putting his bag in his tiny hut, people gathered outside his door began to cry out, “Look, there is a fire.” The slum was burning. The men began to run toward the fire to put it out. Gregory looked at the rapidly moving wall of flames and thought, “I’m out of here.” He quickly gathered up his bag, but some items fell out. He bent down to pick them up, and when he looked up, he could see the women and children staring at him. He could read their minds, “Here is this big, tough foreigner running away, while our skinny Indian guys are running to the fire.”
Gregory dropped his bag and raced to the fire to help his new neighbors. 12 people died and about 250 were injured; some severely. After the fire was out, Gregory returned to his hut and broke out his comprehensive first aid kit. He started treating the injured. He could hear people mumbling, “Doctor, doctor.” He finally fell asleep exhausted about midnight. The next morning, when he awoke, three of his neighbors were squatting staring at him. “What is going on he asked?” “Your patients are waiting to see you,” they replied. A long line of sick and injured people waited outside his hut.
Gregory did not go into the slum seeking to serve. He went seeking to hide. The new role he discovered as a medic did not come from him, it came to him, and it slowly became his vocation and the means of his redemption. He kept his mind in hell, but he did not despair, because what he discovered in hell was a tremendous capacity for love. People in the slum survived only because they loved each other and helped each other in countless ways, large and small. Their love freed Gregory from the hell of his shame and isolation, and restored him to life in community. Reflecting on his experience, Gregory says, “The contours of our virtue are shaped by adversity.”[4] This is the suffering of love that keeps us humble and gives life to the world.
Humility and service are the means by which we can keep our minds in hell – refusing to turn away from the pain of the world – without despairing. St. Silouan also said,
“Understand two thoughts, and fear them. One says, "You are a saint," and the other, "You won't be saved." Both of these thoughts are from the enemy, and there is no truth in them. But think this way: I am a great sinner, but the Lord is merciful. He loves people very much, and He will forgive my sins.”
Suffering is not a sign of our righteousness (Look how much I suffer for Jesus!), or of our punishment (What did I do to deserve this?). Some suffering just comes with being alive. And then there is the suffering of love. That is the cup that Jesus invites us to share with him.
[1] Bishop Alexander and Natalia Bufius; translated by Anatoly Shmelev. The Life and Teachings of Elder Siluan. Missionary Leaflet #EA17 Holy Trinity Orthodox Mission, 466 Foothill Blvd, Box 397, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011.
[2] Mark 10:35-45.
[3] Quoted in Christian Wiman, Zero At The Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2023), p. 145-146.
[4] Gregory David Roberts, talk recorded at
. His powerful novel, Shantaram, is loosely based on his life story.
This sermon really spoke to me, especially the Two Thoughts at the end.