The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 26
The act of relieving pain is alluring to many of us. We see someone hurting and we want to provide some help, something that will take away the discomfort we perceive. In and of itself, this impulse is laudable. It has the potential to heal and comfort. But, more often than we care to admit, the impulse to relieve pain derives from our own self-interest -- to relieve our own guilt, our own discomfort, to meet some need within ourselves to be needed, helpful, effective.
If our lives are to become a source of true health and healing in the world, there comes a time when we must learn to distinguish between our interests and the interests of others. Until we learn to do so, we live under the delusion that all of our impulses to help are pure and all our motives to relieve pain are true. Under this delusion we have very little idea what effect our behavior actually has on the one in pain, nor do we really care, because we get what we need from the transaction -- the relief of guilt, comfort, the feeling of being needed, helpful, effective.
To act from within this delusion, our Father Benedict understands, is as insidious and destructive to community life as the faults that warrant excommunication. When I cannot resist inserting myself into a healing process that is being directed by a wise physician, I jeopardize the effectiveness of the cure. As Sr. Joan writes, "It is not supportive to take away a person's heart medicine simply because they do not like the taste of it. It is not supportive to fail to set a broken leg simply because the setting will be painful."
Br. Chad
Ego is an amazingly deceptive creature. On the one hand It is the obviously self centered, self aggrandizing, puffed up balloon of a being that we expect it to be. You know, the one we are ready for and attempt to control with affirmations or self deprecating language to show how sorry we are for being a show off or a positive phrase to show others that we are working on our true inner self. Hmmph!
ReplyDeleteThen there is the Egotist mentioned in the reading above. Sometimes we are aware of this side of ourselves and at other times we are really proud of ourselves for helping some poor soul through emotional or physical pain when "Nobody Else" would jump in and help or sacrifice their time for this poor soul in pain.
I had an experience with this very thing. There is a woman in a city in which i once lived that would emotionally use everyone with whom she came in contact. She was demanding and needy beyond what anyone could eventually tolerate. That is anyone except ME...The Rawleigh-ator. I was very proud that I could share time and experiences with her, when others had thrown their hands in the air and run away. A very subtle part of me saw myself as better than her and i was happy that I could help the lowly one.
My false humility and my tolerating certain behavior was a feather in my cap, and the recognition of my friends was the "Payoff" for being her "friend". As time passed, there came the moment that I could no longer put up with her either. Perhaps if I had loved her more sincerely or with greater integrity. Perhaps If I had been really authentic with her, we would be friends today. The thought of making amends to her, chokes me, even today. She often asks my friends for my phone number and I always say no. Where does her pain lie, mine? I am not certain. Brother Rawleigh
Thank you, dear brother, for your story. I appreciate your honesty and vulnerability.
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