Pain’s scars and the difficult hope they demand

The tension of pain and hope is hard-wired into the human condition.

Trystan Owain Hughes

Trystan Owain Hughes is a theologian and vicar based in Wales.

A close up of the face of a bruised and bloodied cyclist with a large bandage on his forehead.

When I felt a twinge in my lower back at the age of 30, little did I know that this would lead to chronic pain for over 20 years and counting. Defined as persistent or recurrent pain that is present for more than three months, chronic pain can lead those of us who battle it to struggle to carry out daily activities or to socialise freely. Research shows that up to 15 per cent of the UK’s population live with pain that is moderately or severely disabling. Whether discal, muscular, arthritic, or related to auto-immune or other conditions, medical researchers inform us that we are facing a silent epidemic of chronic pain in our society.

In the past 20 years, pastoral work has opened my eyes to the fact that those of us who face the ignominy and anguish of chronic pain cannot claim a monopoly on suffering. No stranger to significant hardships himself, psychologist and Auschwitz-survivor Viktor Frankl suggests that all suffering should be taken with utmost seriousness, however brief or minor it proves to be. The “size” of suffering, after all, is relative. It is, he claims, like releasing gas into an empty chamber – it doesn’t matter how much gas is released, it will fill the chamber completely. In other words, it does not matter how great or small our sufferings are, they will always hold the potential to darken our hearts completely.

Behind even the brightest smiles and the most cheerful demeanours are the scars of a thousand cuts.

Suffering and struggle have been particularly marked in our society in recent years, with the twin-tribulation of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis leading to so much grief, illness, depression, loneliness, poverty, and isolation. Some years back, I undertook hydrotherapy at the local hospital. With each patient having endured various injuries, many quite serious, I was struck by the plethora of scars in the pool each week – on backs, shoulders, arms, knees, and ankles. The many years of struggle and pain in that pool was all too visible, but, as I undertook my aquatic exercises, I recall thinking to myself: if we could peer into the souls of those around us, how many more deep-seated scars would we notice? Behind even the brightest smiles and the most cheerful demeanours are the scars of a thousand cuts.

Neither should we fall into the trap of believing suffering merely impacts us as we age. While it is true that there is a correlation between age and bereavement, illness, and disability, the dark hand of suffering is not partisan to age or circumstance. Many children and young people go through all manner of serious trauma and illness, often hidden to those on the outside. Research is showing a sharp rise in chronic pain in young people, for example, while teachers bear testament to the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of so many of their pupils. Moreover, when I was a university chaplain, I saw how deeply young people were affected by incidences and events, even those that, to others, may have seemed trivial. Younger generations are certainly not immune to life’s struggles.

Like that tenacious and resilient tree breaking through the harsh concrete, we witness hope and promise shining out of the pages of his letters.

Christians, of course, have always been aware of the philosophical questions surrounding the existence of suffering. The book of Job in the Old Testament details one of the earliest attempts to consider theodicy, while numerous scholars down the ages have grappled with the “problem of pain” (C.S. Lewis) and the question of “where is God when it hurts?” (Philip Yancey). Their musings are well documented and discussed, but, as a Christian with chronic pain, I have become less interested in the “why?” of suffering and more concerned with the “what now?” In other words, I am increasingly interested in how faith responds when confronted with the crippling and dehumanising personal impact of pain, grief, illness, disability, relationship break-ups, depression, loneliness, poverty, or anxiety.

During a particularly acute flare-up of back pain recently, I took short walks around our immediate locality. We live in a concrete jungle – there are houses, streetlights, cars parked down both sides of the road, and vehicles driving up and down, especially at school drop-off time. In my pain, I was struggling to see any hope in the incarceration of a city. Then I noticed something on our road that I’d walked past on many occasions. It was a small, solitary tree, which is about twice my height. For a brief moment it lifted my heart and I thought to myself how wonderful that someone had planted that tree, just to give some greenery to this urban sprawl. But then I noticed that this beautiful little tree had not been planted at all. Rather, it had broken through the hard, unforgiving concrete, desperate to reach up to the sunlight and take in the oxygen in the air. That small tree is, in many ways, an apt metaphor for the Christian response to personal suffering.

From the book of Acts and his letters in the New Testament, it is clear that St Paul had walked the gruelling path of pain and struggle. He faced prejudice, persecution, and prison, not to mention his battle with a personal affliction, which he called a “thorn in my flesh”. Scholars posit this may have been an illness or a disability, such as blindness. Yet Paul does not allow his letters to become dark, depressing diatribes of fear and hopelessness. Like that tenacious and resilient tree breaking through the harsh concrete, we witness hope and promise shining out of the pages of his letters. Here was a man who knew suffering, but, through his vivid encounter of the person of Jesus, he had also grasped the profound meaning of hope. When we attend a funeral or a wedding, we will quite often hear uplifting passages of hope and joy written by him. Discussions around the tension in Paul’s epistles between “flesh” and “spirit” are well worn, but, when I read his letters, especially in light of the life and death of Jesus, it is the tension between “suffering” and “hope” that is most conspicuous.

“I have seen the light – it flickers on and off like a badly-wired lamp”.

Andrew Motion

This tension, of course, is not just prevalent in the Christian scriptures. It is hard-wired into the human condition. Just take the years of the pandemic, when people were either isolated, lonely, stressed, and anxious themselves or were journeying alongside others facing illness, grief, worry, and fear. During that period, I was a parish priest and would regularly visit people, standing socially distanced on their doorsteps. Yet, despite suffering seemingly being omnipresent during the pandemic, people did not generally regale me with their miseries. Rather, they wanted to inform me of moments of uplifting hope that had broken through their difficulties – the beauty of nature on their daily walks, the tireless care of the NHS workers, and the joy of meeting with friends and family, on zoom or outside in the garden. They seemed naturally aware that hope and suffering are inextricably linked. This fact is at the heart of our Christian experience – its recognition is one of those things that define Christians as Christian. After all, the very symbol that has come to represent the Christian faith – the cross – is both an emblem of torture and suffering and a symbol of liberation and hope.

Not that opening our eyes to moments of hope, love, and wonder is easy when we are going through difficult times. In the dark moments when my own chronic pain seems overwhelming and utterly debilitating, I am inspired by the words of the former poet laureate Andrew Motion: “I have seen the light – it flickers on and off like a badly-wired lamp”. There will be times when Christians will see God’s light clearly and its beauty and glory will dazzle daily. But there will also be times of doubt, grief, depression, anxiety, and physical pain. During those moments, we can learn to be sustained by the occasional spark of hope that will come to us, even in the very ordinariness and humdrum of our daily lives.

And so, in travelling through life’s dark moments, Christians recognise two powerful realities. One of these has long been championed by preachers and spiritual teachers – it is the presence of a kingdom to come in a heavenly future where there will be no more tears and no more suffering. The other one, though, can speak powerfully into the present predicament – it is the presence of a kingdom all around us now, breaking through the harshness and bleakness of life, like that small tree bursting through hostile concrete. Theologians refer to these two realities as “inaugurated eschatology” and they can also help us to recognise profound moments when transcendent hope breaks into our lives. Opening our eyes to compassion, beauty, wonder, and awe can help us transcend our suffering, which so often seems all pervasive, and can lead us into a strange new world of God’s providence.

In the soil that the broken concrete had revealed were little green, sprouting shoots. Hope had begotten hope.

So, Christians hold onto the hope of the “not yet”, confident in the hope of life after death. But, as the old Christian Aid advert put it, we also believe in life before death. However dark and long our journey seems, hope is birthed when we take time and space to notice strange and uplifting moments of beauty, grace, and guidance breaking through our daily lives now. In these, Christians find, in the words of theologian Karl Barth, “indications, intimations and parables” of the coming reign of God.

After 20 years of daily struggle, I have made peace with the fact that I am likely to battle chronic pain for the rest of my life. However, I have also come to recognise that hope is not all about smiles, sunshine, and flowers. Hope is often difficult and demanding. It is about delicately holding the joy and challenge of life in a wonderful balance. For the Christian, it’s about both recognising God’s kingdom in the beauty, awe, and wonder of his created world and glimpsing it in our very earthly, wearisome, and draining lives.

But there was also something else about that small, resilient tree that was breaking through the hard and unforgiving concrete. On another walk, a few weeks later, I noticed foliage growing around the base of the tree. In the soil that the broken concrete had revealed were little green, sprouting shoots. Hope had begotten hope. And it is certainly true that the more we open our lives to recognising hope, however brief it may be in our struggles, the more it can inspire us to bring moments of light and comfort to others. And thus we live out, in the words of Karl Barth, so many “little hopes”, and, by doing so, we scatter seeds of new life and resurrection as we go, trusting that God will water them and bring his “hope, faith, and love” to fruition in the world around us.

Explainer

Creed

Development

8 March 2024

6 min read

Flourishing a way out of poverty

Is it just for rich people who have nothing to worry about other than feeling a bit happier?

Jane Cacouris

Jane Cacouris is a writer and consultant working in international development on environment, poverty and livelihood issues.

Beside a shack in a rubbish dump, a man wearing a black shirt and bare foot sits on a stool and looks around.

Bill Wegener on Unsplash.

Humankind stands at a crossroads today. Still emerging from the aftermath of a global pandemic, the world is faced by monumental environmental, social and political challenges. Extreme weather events, floods and food poverty are no longer only on our screens affecting poor people in countries far away; screens that we in the global North were able to switch off after a momentary sigh of compassion before getting on with our lives. Some of us are starting to feel the impacts of planetary change and have financial struggles too. But they haven’t really affected us that much yet. We still have the time, space and luxury to ponder how we can improve our emotional and mental wellbeing – perhaps carve out some more “me time” or go on more walks in nature or keep a daily journal.

The shift from considering poverty and wellbeing simply in monetary terms to a broader, multi-dimensional understanding of these terms is not new. It began at the turn of the twenty-first century with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which aimed to tackle material poverty but also access to health, education and water and sanitation - the first united global effort to eradicate world poverty. In 2015 the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) replaced them, going further and also recognising the importance of environmental sustainability in realising poverty goals, as well as their interconnectedness.

In theory this all made perfect sense and since the MDGs were established in 2000, global poverty was on a declining trajectory for a number of years. However, progress towards eliminating world poverty has been slowing down since 2013. And since Covid in 2020, progress towards the SDGs has stalled with most recent reports showing a rise in the number of people living in extreme poverty for the first time since records began. If present trends persist, by 2030, a staggering 575 million people will remain in extreme poverty and 84 million children will be uneducated.

A bleak picture. With the global machinery signed up to reduce world poverty (and that’s not even bringing the COP Climate Change talks into the mix), how have we got to this point? By diversifying our attempts to improve human wellbeing, have we taken our focus off eliminating basic, grinding economic hardship? Or conversely, is it too little too late? Did our historic focus on economic development rather than equitable human wellbeing sow the seeds of inequality and planetary disruption that we are now reaping? Should we actually go further? And as the timeframe to achieve the SDGs narrows, there are calls for the next set of human development goals to be more overtly focussed on human flourishing.

When you are doing your best to survive, perhaps thriving isn’t top of the priority list.

Human flourishing is the state of optimal functioning and wellbeing across all aspects of an individual’s life and their community. We flourish when we live with purpose; when we practice gratitude, forgiveness, and open-mindedness.

A group of experts from Harvard have proposed five sets of Global Flourishing Goals to lead on from the SDGs, including striving for meaning, purpose and life satisfaction, ending economic hardship, social and political cohesion as well as protecting biodiversity. Likewise, the Christian aid and development agency, Tearfund, has long been a proponent of viewing human wellbeing holistically. The Light Wheel is a tool to guide practical action that promotes seven different areas of wellbeing – such as material assets and resources, emotional and mental wellbeing, living faith, personal relationships - that in turn lead to whole life transformation and flourishing communities.

But what do the world’s poorest people think about this emphasis on flourishing? When you are doing your best to survive, perhaps thriving isn’t top of the priority list. Who cares about life satisfaction and fulfilment when you are struggling to feed your children a daily meal of rice and beans? Is the concept of flourishing for rich people who have nothing to worry about other than feeling a bit happier? Is this the right track for global human Development?

“Poverty is lack of freedom, enslaved by crushing daily burden, by depression and fear of what the future will bring.”

“Poverty means working for more than 18 hours a day, but still not earning enough to feed myself, my husband, and two children.”

These are quotes from a landmark World Bank study, Voices of the Poor; an unprecedented millennial effort to gather the views, experiences, and aspirations of more than 60,000 poor men and women across sixty countries. The study presented the realities of poor people’s lives through their own voices. How do they view poverty and wellbeing? What are their problems and priorities?

Although poverty is rarely about one thing, for the world’s poorest, the bottom line was and always will be hunger - the lack of food. As expected, human wellbeing without the basic building blocks for survival - food and water – is impossible. Better health and access to education were also priorities. However, it seems that having enough materially for a good life is asking for relatively little. “But at least for each child to have a bed, a pair of shoes, a canopy over their heads, two sheets—not to sleep like we do on the ground.”

But the responses were much broader than a desire for material and basic needs to be met. Many of the expressions of wellbeing were about relationships; social and emotional wellbeing were acutely important. Harmony within the family unit and wider community, close and reliable friendships, helping one another. Wellbeing also had important psychological dimensions for those interviewed, such as the desire for dignity and respect, to feel better about oneself, to maintain a spiritual life.

When people were asked to rank the institutions most important in their daily lives, local churches scored well because they offer spiritual support as well as material assistance in times of need, also serving to strengthen communication between the various groups in the community. Community cohesion matters to the poorest. And relationships are at the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So can you flourish your way out of poverty? If we mean the UN definition of extreme poverty, and if flourishing means wellbeing in all aspects of life, then probably no. The poorest people in the world, like the rest of us, need the minimum building blocks of life to survive before they can thrive here on Earth.

But from a Christian perspective the new Development discourse around flourishing is moving in the right direction. In John’s Gospel in the Bible, Jesus is clear that he came “that we may have life, and have it to the full”. When Jesus refers to a full “life”, he means the assurance of eternal life that comes through a faith in Jesus Christ. To truly flourish in our Earthly life, the hope of eternal life with Jesus is the critical aspect of wellbeing – it is what sustains and strengthens us as humans as we live our life on Earth. This is the great equaliser between the rich and the poor. The poorest people often see this far more clearly than the rich who have less need for God and an eternal life where – as it says in the Bible - there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain and all will be new.

“We may be poor in material things, but we are rich in the eyes of God.”(Voices of the Poor, 2000)

Of course it depends what weight you put on the spiritual aspect of flourishing, but perhaps on balance, those we consider to be the poorest on Earth are actually far closer to human flourishing – to having a “full life” - than we are.