I read somewhere recently that physicists believe that 60% of the universe is made up of dark matter. Some even suggest an even greater percentage if you add the dark energy. The same is true of the human psyche. It is pretty much agreed among psychoanalysts that the greatest percentage of the human psyche is subconscious (if you are Freudian) or unconscious (if you are Jungian). Jung spent a great deal of time studying and writing about the Shadow, that dark, mysterious and important component of the human makeup. It’s like an electric current: you need both the positive and the negative for power. All positive with no negative is harmless and useless. Good and evil, darkness and light and their relation is a profound mystery that we would be wise to investigate.
George Grant, the great Canadian philosopher, wrote:
Philosophy is for those who have moved beyond any simple certainty. It is for those who have come face to face with the mystery of existence and who have seen how profound a mystery it is. Philosophy is the attempt to fathom that profundity- that is, to find the wisdom which will enable us to live as we ought.
Now the sense of mystery arises for people in two ways; first from just plain wonder at the world around them, and secondly from the anguish of their own lives.
I am suspicious of anything that doesn’t have the undercurrent of anguish. The hyper-faith positive thinkers ring false because of the noticeable absence of the reality of suffering and evil that personally touches our lives. This is one of the things that is very difficult to teach in our community. Some people feel the need to believe and feel positively about everything all the time. To give them permission to be honest about the perpetual pain in their lives, to me, is a profoundly important step on their way to becoming fully human.
The fine art photograph with the beautiful contrast of darkness and light, is the creation of my friend Howard Nowlan.
Check out my tees HERE. I’m growing my inventory all the time. And check out my art HERE.
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.
David Hayward is a pastor artistically stripping to the essential.
“To give them permission to be honest about the perpetual pain in their lives, to me, is a profoundly important step on their way to becoming fully human.” (NP)
Agreed…without pain we might not know true joy. Without pain – we might not know true hurt. The absence of the ability to feel a certain way introduces mental problems across the board – firstly with we are lying about how we feel and then snowball onwards. It’s not very healthy to do.
I, for one, like the fact we can feel pain and hurt – it gives us the best ability to empathize. How can you care for something you know nothing about…easy…you don’t. That’s why recovering addicts make the best counsellors – they know the struggle and pain involved – do they live in it? No…but they remember it and life’s lessons…and went deep into the human condition to pull that out.
That George Grant quote is AMAZING, NP! THANK YOU for sharing it. i have experienced great anguish in my life and i really get what Grant and you are saying.
i lost my favorite grandfather from leukemia at age 9, my father from cancer 3 weeks before my 17th birthday, his parents and grandmother nearly 3 months to the day after my dad were killed in a fire in their home, i experience existing with chronic illness, i was suicidal at some points in my life, i dealt with emotional and physical abuse from my father, and am queer and deal with certainties and hatred from others, most often from the body of Christ.
So yea, i REALLY get this. No one can tell a person they did not experience something. Each person’s story & experience is their own. They are free to share it or not. No one can take it away.
EP
wow existential punk. quite a story of trauma. you’re a survivor i see.
So true. I find churches that don’t acknowledge this fake and boring. I must state however that this relationship between light and darkness is true only from pshycological and not a theological point of view or what would you say David?
Gabriel: I would say both. If it is true psychologically and philosophically, then it is true theologically.
Your thoughts seem to mirror my own a lot lately. Recently I was talking about conciously delving into the darker side of the human condition with my friends and how there can be beauty and deep truth in it. It’s not somewhere one would want to dwell but to actually acknowledge it and dissect it a bit is profound to say the least. And gives a wonderful sense of freedom and release in my opinion.
<3
Whether or not the negative and dark things are necessary, the word seems to assume these things are here as part of this world and life. However, there is in Christ the capacity to bear the hurt and pain, and not only not be crushed by them, but know true peace and have a genuine love for others. It is grace to endure sorrows while suffering unjustly, according to 1 Peter.
NP said:::Some people feel the need to believe and feel positively about everything all the time. To give them permission to be honest about the perpetual pain in their lives, to me, is a profoundly important step on their way to becoming fully human.
——You are telling me I am not “fully human?”
——”Perpetual pain” equals “fully human?” I CHOOSE half-human then.
fishon
fishon: Maybe I wasn’t clear. I don’t necessarily mean perpetual physical pain. I may not even mean pain. I may mean “anguish” or “struggle” or “suffering”. I used the word pain because I can always get in touch with the pain in my own life.
I was actually a philosophy major in my undergraduate work. I had so much fun in all of my classes. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I have found that a foundation in philosophy is a great help in delving into any other field. Of course, when I studied philosophy, I already had had many years of access and exposure to the Scriptures. I liked looking at the different philosophical paradigms through the filter of the Word.
“Undercurrent of anguish”? What if someone has anguish on the surface with an undercurrent of joy? Would that make you suspicious?
i almost said something like that but wanted to focus on something that seems to prevail in my parts, and that is a syrupy positivism.
I think that fred may be right too.
just one or the other is dangerous..
I like joy better than than happiness, I’m not a generally happy person, but that’s just a feeling. I’m learning to be joyful, but you have to stop being selfish. When you stop worrying about how you feel, that’s the best. Except it’s hard not to worry.
Here’s something my friend told me
Jesus
Others
You
And maybe it’s possible to have pain and joy at the same time too?
Honesty about perpetual pain. A demand and a hope.
“Syrupy positivism”–that’s why I hate southern gospel.
Great post man, this part of the quote is just so profound!
“Now the sense of mystery arises for people in two ways; first from just plain wonder at the world around them, and secondly from the anguish of their own lives.”
It reminds me of Kierkegaard.
But I think you need a correction with your use of the “subconscious” and “unconscious.” Freud himself is not known for the “subconscious”, but his theories on the “unconscious.” The unconscious are the thoughts that are repressed since we were children and that we aren’t aware of. The subconscious meanwhile, though similar, are thoughts that are simply, vaguely floating around in our minds; they are things we can easily retrieve from our minds if we focus or concentrate. For example, something unconscious may be latent romantic feelings one has for his mother or father; but subconscious is more like remembering a phone number or past event.
David,
I understood what you meant.
If I understand your statement::Some people feel the need to believe and feel positively about everything all the time. To give them permission to be honest about the perpetual pain in their lives, to me, is a profoundly important step on their way to becoming fully human.
—–You are saying to become fully human people need to embrace their ‘pertetual’ “anguish” or “struggle” or “suffering”.?
—–I guess what I am trying to understand is what seems to me to be a concept you are driving at is that ALL people are in “pertetual” pain, etc. Surely not!
Fred, I like what you said.
I also like what Victor Frankl said, “There is one thing you can never take from me, and that is my freedom to choose how I will react to whatever you do to me.”
I might add, I also try to live with an addition to that: “What happens to me.”
fishon
A point to think about.
Caleb came back from the spying trip to the promised land full of vision and dynamic expectation. He was rejected, and he had to spend the next 45 years trudging through the hot and dusty desert with (mainly) a load of jerks.
45 years later (at age 85) he was still full of vision and dynamism.
How did he do that?
Fishon:
Great quote by Victor Frankl.
Yes Victor, I agree. Frankl and Caleb had learned how to be joyful in the midst of suffering. That’s something I’m still trying to learn.
Another wow! post- I may just cut and paste large sections of that. Thanks!
As a Christian as I was ’saved’ by U2 in the 90s- in the midst of external and internal Christian pressures to smile and say ‘Everything is just fine and dandy’- they taught me how to real. Now I’m suspicious of any kind of music that doesn’t have ‘the undercurrent of anguish’- I don’t get on with much CCM stuff for that reason.
Thanks for the insight- off now to conduct a standing room only funeral for a man I knew- fit, active, healthy- looking forward to a great future with his wife and 14 year old son and collapsed and died at a football (I guess you would call it ’soccer’) match. Today of all days your post rings true…
fishon
David is right about the pain idea and you are right about the suffering part. We do get some sort of pain daily as we do get the opposite also. So here is a good quote that works for both of you.
“In life pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”
Graham:
So sorry for the loss of your friend.
Perhaps the lesson for all of us to learn when one dies before a long-lived life is that we should always be ready to meet our Maker. The thought of it does little, I know, to ease your loneliness and loss.
May God be with you in an overt way during this time so that you will be comforted by His actual touch and not just faith in His presence. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Well written article.
thanks kuniko
love this…
Jesus is “A man of sorrows, and aquainted with grief”
the most incredible thing is to find the presence of Jesus in the midst of pain
“if I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, even there your hand will find me…”
God is not afraid of pain, nor is it an indicator of right and wrong, like we think it is…