Pain that cannot be shared

Be forewarned that this is not likely to be a witty, or perhaps even insightful, post. Yet I am sharing this for two reasons. First, it might lead some one of my readers to not be ready with 'all the answers,' and to realise that smug (if well intentioned) responses do not facilitate communication - they only chop it off. As well, the particular example that I am going to cite is one poorly understood, and perhaps this post can cause someone to think twice.

It is 26 years this week since I was forced out of convent life, against my will. I shall never forget receiving that horrible letter: "Easter is coming. New dawn, new resurrection. You will be going home, and can rejoice in knowing God's will for you." Charming, is it not? It was several years before I could meditate on the resurrection (previously, and later, a favourite topic) without chills and tears. Granted, there is no kind way to tell someone "we don't want you," but to imply that one expects the other to be 'rejoicing' in such knowledge is about as crass as it gets.

I am a very private person, and am not about to share all of the heartbreak which followed. Yet it was an especially intense, dreadful pain because it could not be shared with others. Friends and family were delighted that I was 'out,' and thought I had come to my senses. (One Roman priest, who saw me shortly afterward at a funeral for a mutual friend, had the gall to say to me, "Oh, you left - oh, good! Keep the veil off, honey, you'll have a lot more fun." I shall reserve comment on what that might indicate about his attitude towards his own vocation.) I had hoped that religious Sisters would be compassionate (one or two were), but the usual attitude from that camp was either that I should be relieved that God had not willed my religious life, or that 'all these new lay ministries' (of which I knew plenty - I'd filled many of them) were replacing religious life, or that some 'new theology of marriage' meant that celibacy was passé and that "God might want you to be a married woman."

By far the most painful, and common, response was along the lines of "with how they need people today, what did you do that they would dismiss you?" (My own father insisted "there must be something you're not telling us.") I suppose I was lucky - today, those dismissed from religious life are probably assumed to be criminals. Yet I have known many in the situation who are of impeccable moral character, devotion and so forth. People can be dismissed from religious life for any reason and no reason. It is based on a superior's (not God's!) assessment of whether one 'fits in' to the life, agenda, whatever.

Why do people love to hear details of others' pain? Here, I am not referring to compassionate listening, but to a love for 'the dirt.' Ask anyone who has been a victim of a crime, or suffered through a painful divorce, or who was sacked from a job. Those who hear of a death want to know all the details (they'll ask the widow at the funeral), and half of them also will decide what the deceased did 'wrong' to be such a failure, as if death could be avoided. On the other hand, the fools who want to have all the answers (either shrugging it off with 'everyone has problems,' or 'God's will,' or 'you're just feeling sorry for yourself - or the mega-fools who think everything can be cured by therapy, doctors, nutritionists, self help groups, or exercise) just make one want to hide, rather like a hedgehog.

It is a denial of another person's pain! Smug, silly ego games - because we fear having situations we cannot handle, and it helps to think this cannot happen because we know what everyone else should be doing. The uncertainty of life is frightening to everyone. All of us know that any misfortune can be round the corner. In our fear of this, we want to believe that we have all the answers. Anyone who had misfortunes did something 'wrong' - and we would know better, or would never let it happen to ourselves.

The rarest of gifts, I believe, is to truly listen and to have compassion. God grant us this.