
There is some inexplicable connection between suffering and joy. One of the greatest graces of this existence is that we are able to experience joy in the midst of suffering. We might not be able to experience happiness. You can’t in the midst of suffering, but there can be moments of great joy in the midst of the worst suffering. I take that to reveal that these two things are raveled up in ways that we don’t understand, but which are essential to our existence.
—Christian Wiman, Everything Belongs podcast
In conversation with CAC staff members Mike Petrow and Paul Swanson, Father Richard Rohr shares his deepening understanding of the relationship between tragedy, tears, and joy:
I keep being more and more convinced that tears are an appropriate response to reality. I think they always will be, yet I don’t equate that with modern depression or cynicism. It’s the acceptance of what we cannot change that normally makes people cry: He’s dead forever; I’m never getting well; the church I love has never been perfect. The part of us that can surrender to that reality is somehow bright. Remember, God is always present in reality as it is, not merely as it should be. When we meet people who can smile in the presence of sadness, there’s a brightness about them—a clarity, a truth, and a freedom.
Mike Petrow shares wisdom from his spiritual director that he received during a time of deep grief:
She said, “The people I’ve known, the great teachers, the great mystics who’ve suffered and worked their way through it, find that the suffering carves a space out in your heart. In that wide open space, you can feel not only your pain but the pain of others and the pain of the world.” You are quick to tears for the rest of your life. “But,” she said, “that same space also holds joy. The people I know who’ve really faced suffering and tragedy are the quickest to tears, but also the quickest to laughter, and the quickest to joy.”
Richard explores how facing the reality of our individual pain opens us to carrying the pain of others as well:
The act of solidarity somehow lessens the pain. We’re able to say, “I choose to carry it with you.” It’s really an alchemy. It lives differently in our hearts. We don’t love it, but we have the grace to tolerate it. Not with resistance, but with yes. That doesn’t come in a moment. It comes with time and maturity.
I experience this brightness as a new clarity. The light is illuminating it better. That’s what sadness often offers us: a new clarity about the tragic sense of life. It’s what Jesus had to accept on the cross—the utterly tragic sense of life. It’s not inappropriate—it’s clarifying, it’s bright.
Reference:
Adapted from Mike Petrow, Paul Swanson, and Richard Rohr, “A Bright Sadness with Christian Wiman,” Everything Belongs, season 1, ep. 10 (Albuquerque, NM: Center for Action and Contemplation, 2024), podcast. Available as MP3 audio download and PDF transcript.
Image credit and inspiration: Nah, Untitled (detail), 2018, photo, Iran, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Dancing with a Divine Partner is an intuitive dance: step by step we learn when to take initiative and when to receive, when to sway, when to breathe, when to pause.
Story from Our Community:
This year’s Daily Meditations theme of Radical Resilience has touched me deeply. Some people describe resiliency like a rubber ball being forced underwater bobbing back to the surface. I see resiliency like a diamond revealing its brilliance after being subjected to intolerable pressure. I’ve heard the saying that God never gives us more than we can bear, but I don’t believe that’s true. In my experience, it is exactly the crushing experiences that force us to shed old, ineffective ways of coping with life. Resiliency is the ability to emerge from fire, a little closer to the person God created us to be.
—Christina V.