A close relative and I talked to him on the phone late into the night. I could offer support. My relative could offer much more. When he was young, he too had suffered crippling depression and anxiety, had been unable to work, and at one point had spent time in rehab. He'd been at the bottom of the pit and arisen from it. He was living proof and living hope for our friend that even when we human beings think that there's nothing left for us but darkness, a light still shines. With courage and the help of God, we can recover, live, love, and prosper again.
Life is change. Life is a series of deaths and resurrections to new ways of living and being. And when we have undergone a death and a resurrection, our greatest pay-back for our gratitude is to help others who are wounded in the same way that we've been, who are suffering the same kind of dying, - to let them know from experience that there is hope and there is light and there is love to carry us.
If we're honest with ourselves, we know that it's downright humiliating to be at the bottom of any pit. We blame ourselves for being there. We feel like a failure because of our loss of control. Our identity and self-worth have taken a hit and we don't know if we can ever like ourselves again. Or, if we are grieving a death, we have taken a hit that's shattered our hearts, and we don't know if we even want to live. Yet there can be a gift in suffering, a healing in spite of and because of the wounds. When we can no longer help ourselves, when we have discovered humility, we can reach out and find the God Who is always waiting for us to need Him and Who can carry us into a new world of hope.
Bill Wilson, Co-Founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, wrote a Christmas letter in 1944 to members of AA, a letter that contains insights for all of us:
"The world of AA (is) where thousands dwell happily and secure. Secure, because each of us, in his own way, knows a greater power who is love, who is just, and who can be trusted. Nor can men and women of AA ever forget that only through suffering did they find enough humility to enter the portals of that New World. How privileged we are to understand so well the divine paradox that strength rises from weakness, that humiliation goes before resurrection; that pain is not only the price but the very touchstone of spiritual rebirth."
The Big Book of AA also teaches that in order for a recovering alcoholic to fully benefit from and fully incorporate Twelve Step Spirituality into his or her life, there needs to be payback: helping others, especially helping others who are having the same struggle. "Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery. A kindly act once in awhile isn't enough. You have to act the Good Samaritan every day if need be."
The same is true of all of us. Fr. Richard Rohr, who helps others through his teaching and preaching, says that it is only through teaching and preaching that he has understood and incorporated the depths of his faith for himself:
"In my attempt to communicate something, I usually found that I'd only scratched the surface of understanding it myself. In sharing, in giving it away, you really own it for yourself and appreciate more fully its value, beyond what you ever imagined."
Paradoxically, sometimes the only way we can recover from a death wound is to allow ourselves to be re-wounded. When I was asked to share my experience of grieving the loss of my son with parents in a religious education program, I said "yes" but inwardly shriveled up and curled back into a fetal position. The idea of talking about this was akin to walking back into the most claustrophobic concentration camp of suffering I've ever endured in my life. Yet I knew God wanted me to share this wound with others.
The first thing I did was ask the audience if they'd ever suffered the death of a loved one. Almost every hand went up. We shared together how grief feels as if a carving knife has been stuck into your heart. We nodded together and cried. We discovered together the universality of suffering that binds us into brothers and sisters. We rejoiced together in how we are now more loving, forgiving, and compassionate people - through the help of God. We had each learned the incredible value of that one lost life, and the privilege that it is to be able to love another.
Undergoing suffering makes us more alive to others' suffering, no matter what "kind" it is, and also makes us much less judgmental. About thirty years ago, when the majority of gays were still hiding in closets, a young man, a dear friend of ours, opened up to my husband and me about his struggle with his sexual identity. Because of the time we lived in then, I went into denial. He couldn't possibly be gay! He told us that he surely didn't want to be gay; yet ever since he could remember, he'd been attracted to males, not females. His attempts to date girls, to have sex with girls, ended in disaster. He said bitterly "Who would ever choose to be gay!"
As heterosexuals, we couldn't possibly understand his own particular anguish. But we continued to let him know that we loved him - and that we were grateful that he had trusted us with sharing his deepest thoughts and feelings with us. Over the years, we've watched him grow secure in his identity as a homosexual, and learn to love himself for who he is and the way God has created him. We have had many discussions with him about Catholic Church teachings. For the Church, homosexual orientation is not wrong because, as our friend discovered, we don't "choose" our sexual identity. We have discussed with him the moral choice of whether to be homosexually active or not. He has chosen to marry another man. He is a man of prayer. How he chooses to live his life now is between him and God. He is still our dear friend.
In the thirty years since then, we have acquired many gay and lesbian friends. Which is why today's mass shooting at a gay bar in Orlando has struck me very hard. I keep picturing the beautiful and unique faces of my gay and lesbian friends, picture them lying in pools of blood, grieved for by their families and closest loves. I also picture the face of another young, vulnerable, teenage friend of mine whose parents screamed at her recently that she is going to hell because she is dating a girl. We know both girls. The two girls truly care for each other as individuals. Those parents might just as well have unloaded the rounds of an AK 47 into their daughter's heart. We try to love her and heal her by our acceptance of who she is. Human sexuality is on a spectrum, with "straight gay" at one end and "straight hetero" at another. We all fall somewhere on that spectrum, and sexuality is especially fluid for young girls.
Pope Francis (who, by the way, has said that we should not judge homosexuals), has said that the Church should be a field hospital, "a Church that goes forth toward those who are wounded, who are in need of an attentive ear, understanding, forgiveness, and love." When we make field hospitals of our lives, we not only lift up the fallen, restore the broken, and heal them, we also continue our own healing and redemption. We have learned that pain, and helping others carry their own pain, is not only the price but the touchstone of our own spiritual rebirth. By Christ's wounds, which we help heal when we heal others, we are healed.