Suffering

I've been reading books by Toni Morrison this holiday season. I guess I wasn't in the need for cheer. Her books paint a very clear picture of how people have suffered. We have hurt and maimed others, and then we each turn on "our own" and cause pain. When that is over, we turn on ourselves.

There really isn't a way to measure suffering. Bullying comes in a rainbow. My kids have suffered. My husband and I have suffered. Ours has been big enough suffering. I don't know how the slaves managed to bear up and keep on. I don't know how Ghandi's followers kept their strength. I don't know how people manage to heal from deep damage done by those who would dominate over them.

More than anything, how do we let go of the pain? It's clear that if we don't let it go, we will pass it on. I say that talking about it, writing about it, is a powerful way to let it go, let it be, but not have to relive it inside of us. In teaching us to read and write, our earliest teachers were helping us to know how to heal ourselves from the inevitable suffering.