'Deep Mysteries are Evident' or How to Take Out Soul Insurance

Pain Opens the Heart

What is self-evident is that my body got wrecked. What also is clearly evident is that precisely because I was struck down, I had to learn to live with intense pain.

But here’s the kicker: The pain is responsible for doors being opened in my heart. How strange it is to have something so brutal bring out so many deep changes in my life. There is, of course, a deep mystery at work here. The core understanding, I suspect, flows very much from wisdom that teaches that “by failing to accept your suffering, the pain you feel will be much more acute and harsh.” (Chesbon Hanefesh 76-77).

Implied in that teaching is that by accepting, something else will happen. From the beginning I simply accepted that where I am and was, was “meant to be.” Why fight accepting what had happened to me? I saw that as an extraordinary waste of time. Instead, I chose to accept where I am and was. The result was simply that by doing that, I found I could let go and be. It freed my mind up enough to pursue my healing. It opened new doors to the spiritual realms; new doors to contemplation and meditation.

But again, it is a hell of a way to discover things lying deep in the soul. Still in all, there is a deep connection between “broken-ness” and Spirit. When we suffer, it is not just the body that gets broken — so, too, does the heart. It is never easy looking at life and seeing dreams vanish, hopes disappear, or even life events and plans get more than put on hold. The flip side of being helpless is that there are only a few avenues open to you. As I lay in the hospital, everything I was accustomed to was gone. No plans, no dreams, no visions of what I was going to do and be next. Believe me, I am a very driven person and to have all of that just pulled away was startling. And I could not do a thing about it. I, the helper, was now turned into the “help me” person. In a moment, my life totally changed.

Was that sad? You bet it was sad.

Was it simple to process? No way! I have been on a life track for a lot of years and to have it all vanish left me floating in a void of sadness.

Was that a good place to be? I think so.

To change, I knew I had to let go. To be fully in the present and attend to my needs, I had to drop everything I had thought about what I was going to be doing with my life. I was attached to that and letting go was sad — sad and poignant. But it was not depressing. The pain was depressing, but not this. I welcomed it once I understood that what I needed to do was find a new dawn in my heart. There were times late at night, as I lay in the darkness in the trauma ward, where I found myself quietly marveling and chuckling at my predicament. For years I have given so much advice about these kinds of matters to so many folks, and now I had to find out if I could take some of my own advice. I found a lot of humor in that — a wonderful role reversal. I also found a lot of truth. Bottom line? If I could summarize a spiritual aphorism that goes with all of this, I would say that Rabbi Scnhuer Zalman said it pretty clearly when he wrote: “A broken heart is not the same as sadness. Sadness occurs when the heart is stone-cold and lifeless. On the contrary, there is an unbelievable amount of vitality in a broken heart.”

And that is the truth. There is and was — in all this pain and sadness —a lot of vitality. There is a lot of spiritual juice in all of this. Why is this so? Well, what else is there to do in circumstances like this but to turn your life over to God? Dependency here opened me to the recognition that I was dependent on God. Where else could I hang on?

The ancient understanding that suffering opens one to God certainly is on my mind. I do not claim to have fathomed the mystery. I just know it is a good mystery. This mystery includes, after all, the story of my life.

And the irony is that I appear in this little section to be the protagonist. And even better, that I don’t have a clue as to the story’s ending. But I am not free from trying to fathom the meaning and preparing myself at every turn in the road to accept what comes my way.

Be Prepared to Let the Meaning Flow

Along the way I have been comforted by some wisdom words that have kept me in focus, especially in the really rough times. I try as much as I can to remember to keep my eye on matters at hand. I see this like a spiritual Boy Scout mantra. You remember the motto — “Be prepared.” I have found it is truly important not to run from challenges in life. This certainly is one of the bigger life lessons here. Not running away is useful for anyone who tries to flee from their lives. Bottom line — when you think about it, how can you run away from being you?

But when I got whacked, nearly “bought the farm,” and finally gathered my wits together, I truly saw how this accident — or, in fact, any major big-time life event — does get one’s attention. I vividly kept recalling the teaching that says, “When you find yourself in a difficult situation, the first thought to focus on is that the situation is a test and challenge.” (Chochmah Umussar, vol. 2 p. 62)

I now see that teaching in a new light and try to hold fast to it. Just so we are all clear on this — it takes a lot of grit to hold on to things like that in the house of pain. But let me tell you, it is a hell of lot better thinking and meditating on meaning and purpose than lying in a cesspool of suffering 24 hours a day. To know for a fact that there is something to be learned in the middle of crisis is a whole lot better than being totally lost in a world devoid of love and meaning.

I do want to keep all this spiritual stuff in perspective. God forbid, someone might think the growth curve is upward, exciting, and continually revelatory. Well, it is not. Life is not that way. Growth is not that way. Spirituality certainly is not that way. I would avoid anything that tells you differently. When I think about my crash, though, it still almost stops my heart. The paradox between the crash and what has happened since then stretches my mind taut. My hands still get cold and clammy. My eyes still sting when I shut them. Occasionally, my hands get cold and clammy. It’s true — there are great mysteries in life, things we can feel but not completely understand and see.