But our suffering is both a Tomb AND a Womb. It's the darkness of a tomb because we feel "dead" inside. We are surrounded by unyielding walls of sadness and loneliness that isolate us. We feel suspended from life, no longer the person we once were. Our identity is gone. We no longer know how to act or to feel or to belong.
If we're grieving, we're grieving the loss of our identity as a wife, or mother, or daughter, or son, or friend to the person who has left us. If we're suddenly in a wheelchair or hospital bed, we're grieving the loss of the healthy body we once had. If we're in clinical depression or suffering the onset of mental illness, we're grieving the loss of mental health. If we're suffering over someone else's burdens, we're also grieving over our sudden helplessness in this situation. In other words, we no longer know who we are or where our life is headed; our life may even feel temporarily over.
Fr. Henri Nouwen paints a poignant picture of a suffering friend entombed in "deadness" who felt as if he'd lost his identity. He relates,
"I was invited to visit a friend who was very sick. ... When I came to him, he said to me, 'Henri, here I am lying in this bed, and I don’t even know how to think about being sick. My whole way of thinking about myself is in terms of action, in terms of doing things for people. My life is valuable because I’ve been able to do many things for many people. And suddenly, here I am, passive, and I can’t do anything anymore.' As we talked I realized that he and many others were constantly thinking, “How much can I still do?” Somehow this man had learned to think about himself as a man who was worth only what he was doing. And so when he got sick, his hope seemed to rest on the idea that he might get better and return to what he had been doing. If the spirit of this man was dependent on how much he would still be able to do, what did I have to say to him?"
But - when we're in the dark Tomb of suffering, we don't realize that our suffering can also be the dark Womb preparing us for a new life, a new sense of who we are, what our capabilities are, what our life can become. The times when you feel the most numb and deadened can be the times that, in the darkness of your unknowing, your whole being is starting to secretly bloom with new life. Fr. Richard Rohr says, "In order to live your soul into the world, you must continuously loosen your beliefs about who you are."
Just think about the amazing life of a baby growing in a mother's womb/uterus:
"A baby gets all of his food, as well as his oxygen and water, from its mother's bloodstream. The baby's waste products (like C02) are disposed of in the mother's blood stream as well. It is a two-step process. In the placenta, the mother's blood flows in to a network of blood vessels and capillaries. Molecules in the mother's blood like glucose, proteins, fats, oxygen, etc. flow out of the mother's blood supply and are absorbed into another network of blood vessels and capillaries containing the baby's blood supply. The baby's blood then flows through the umbilical cord back to the baby.
"So when the mother eats a hamburger or a banana, the molecules of glucose, proteins, fats, vitamins, etc. are absorbed into the mother's blood stream by her small intestine. The molecules flow to the placenta, are transfered to the baby's bloodstream and flow to the baby through the umbilical cord." (from "BrainStuff.")
The mother nourishes her baby; her blood, filled with nutrients, eventually reaches her baby's blood. Our spiritual Mother is our God. God's rich, nutrient-filled Life of Love is continuously secretly cycling into our bodies, minds, and hearts in the darkness of our unknowing through the umbilical cord of God's Spirit so that we continue to grow and mature. At the same time all our "waste products," our sins, failings, and doubts, are being disposed of through God's blood stream of ongoing, flowing Grace.
And - no wonder we call God the Breath of our Life, our Oxygen, and our Living Water: the bloodstream of God's flowing Life provides us with spiritual oxygen and spiritual water so that, instead of perishing, we can continue to live and flourish during the most terrible times of suffering.
But God also contains the Body of Christ, a whole other network of blood vessels and capillaries which feed, oxygenate, and hydrate us through relaying the flow of God's Life into us. One glance at Facebook can give us a bird's eye view of the Body of Christ at work. A friend of ours lives in Hawaii, on the Big Island, where the volcano Kilauea's eruptions have caused over a thousand people to be evacuated from their homes. Many have already lost their homes. Our friend has been evacuated and waits, agonized. Lava is boiling on the hill above his home and land; he is suffering, waiting to see if his much-loved home and land will be engulfed and destroyed. Many of his friends have already lost their property, and he grieves for them.
Our friend's Facebook friends have been constantly posting, sending him messages of hope and encouragement, each from their unique perspective, their own "flow" of compassion. Perhaps in the darkness and numbness of his suffering, our friend cannot fully realize and appreciate the depth and breadth of the new life being transfused into him by his friends. One day he will. Other friends of friends have offered him a farm to stay at, with a whole new community of people who are constant support to each other. All of these people are feeding, oxygenating, and hydrating each other, sharing the ongoing flow of God's bloodstream of Love. Our friend sent us a note in the midst of his crisis:
"There is plenty of work to do on the land here and we all pitch in....There are wonderful animals and children here and I find myself comfortable living in community among friends. Maybe this will turn out to be one of the unexpected blessings of this natural 'disaster.'"
I think our friend has hit on the perfect way to encounter suffering, a way to catch a glimpse of God's creative Womb as we endure the Tomb. If we can only stay awake and aware, stay "alive" in the "deadness," we can sense the possibilities of our ongoing growth through unexpected blessings.
Instead of giving in to the "deadness" of bitterness over our new tragedies and weaknesses, can we choose to be alive to the unexpected blessings of family, friends, and neighbors who come forward to care for us?
Instead of spending all our energies on mourning the loss of our ability to be active, can we choose to be alive to our new time to pray for others - a spiritual activity which, through God, changes the lives of those we pray for?
Janet Gildea writes for the Global Sisters' Report for the National Catholic Reporter about her suffering encounter with ovarian cancer and the unexpected blessing she has received of a new relationship with God:
"Awaiting the last two cycles of chemotherapy in the first month 2016, I find myself in a place that seems to be the womb of God. I am held there in darkness, carried by the One who "knew me when I was being formed in secret, who knit me together in my mother's womb." (Psalm 139) It is dark and silent and I hold myself very still, waiting and wondering what God's hand is doing in me now.
"By this time in treatment, the effects of chemo are always with me and it is easy to lose sight of the goal. Some days it feels like a demolition project is underway. Numb fingertips and toes, fatigue, loss of normal taste, hoarse voice . . . "I have to adjust my expectations at every turn. I wonder what will be left when the wreckage is cleared away. I wonder if God ever says, "Oops! I got a little carried away with the sledgehammer there. . . ."
"Hope moves me forward through those moments and I start to imagine what God is remodeling in me. Maybe there are some upgrades in progress, like my hair that grew back grey and curly after my treatment in 2008. If I allow God the Creator to remodel me through this experience of cancer treatment, what might be the new possibilities for my life, my ministry, my community?
"Beyond remodeling, in this womb of God I believe that I am being renewed. I am not just receiving infusions of chemotherapy every three weeks. God is continually infusing my body, mind and spirit with divine energy, just as a mother's nutrients diffuse across the placenta to sustain the fetus. These months of treatment are a time of personal spiritual renewal, even on days when I am not able to be an active participant in the process.
"Through all these actions: demolition, remodeling and renewing, in the womb of God I am being re-created. How is this possible? I stand with Nicodemus and I ask, "How can anyone who is already old be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again and be born?" (John 3:4) What is happening here? Praying my way through the nighttime conversation between Jesus and the doctor of the law I feel that this is all too much for my little faith to grasp. I have no desire to figure it out. So I return to the psalmist and pray, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, far too lofty for me to reach!"
"Jesus draws me back to the Gospel as if to say, "Don't give up so easily!" I sit in silence and wait. The words rise up from within me, "For God so loved the world . . . that whoever believes might not perish but have eternal life." Love is recreating me in the womb of God. It takes time to absorb this truth, this light that shatters the darkness. That is why I must keep very still, waiting for the fingers of God to knit me together again."
The whole universe exists in the Womb of God, constantly fed, oxygenated, and hydrated by the blood stream of the Loving Life of God through the umbilical cord of the Holy Spirit. This knowledge gives us great Hope! Individuals, cities, nations, may appear to be dead, lying in tombs fashioned of power, greed, narcissism, and war, but the Womb of God promises that life never ends - it will always, always be transformed. Neither we nor the world are meant to stay in the Tomb of suffering. God is constantly secretly at work, promising us that our Tomb is, in actuality a Womb, from which we will eventually arise transformed, on fire with new life, renewed, rejuvenated, joyful with new growth, and above all a deeper capacity for compassion. We have discovered a new identity for ourselves, as a caterpillar suddenly discovers she is a butterfly. "For God so loved the world....that whoever believes might not perish but have eternal life."
As you suffer, remember to have Hope, and pray. For Love is recreating you in the Womb of God.