After The Work

We often associate the word “terminal” with airplanes and illness. Finality of life and the end where the plane is loaded. Associating with the word “unique” is a relatively new term in comparison. It means that one’s problems are too unique for anyone to relate to. There is a kind of ego attached to the idea that we are so special that no one has seen the trouble we’ve seen. Nobody knows our sorrow.

Truth be told, we are all unique in some way. Our experiences are different and perceptions of the world are filtered through our own lens’. It is when our unique perspective refuses to meet another’s perspective to we fall into the trap of terminal uniqueness. Thus a pinch of humility and willingness are needed to meet someone else in shared experience.

Terminal uniqueness is isolating. We can take a perverse pride in our trauma, perhaps to take control of it in some way, but it leaves us alone. When we can look up from our pain and recognize it in another person, then we are finally moving towards community. In the end, we all want to be understood, but sometimes looking at our pain is too much and we recoil from others if we see a hint of our brokenness.

From a spiritual perspective, the God of the Universe has the capacity to know us fully. That is one great part of the incarnation of Jesus, that the God of the Universe walked among us and knows human suffering intimately as any human. Our part is the humility and awareness that God knows us, for better or for worse. Our conscience won’t allow ourselves to avoid it forever, nothing is hidden from him. Accepting this is terrifying as it is freeing when we learn that God just wants us to be aware of ourselves as he sees us.

Paul wrote about love in 1 Corinthians 13 in the “love chapter” often read at weddings, but the ending is some of the best of it “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” Seeing love in our lives and in others is but a glimpse of God’s love extending into us. When we can face are darkest shadow we also encounter the fullness of God’s love and forgiveness for us. It transforms us from a terminally unique sufferer into a freed member of the human race.

Every “sinner” is bound in the self, or the flesh. We find release from the self when we encounter God and enter a world where not only are there other people around us, but they too suffer from one thing or another. The longer we stare into the lives of others, the greater we understand them and eventually relate to them.

It takes some imagination, it is a gift from our Creator, after all. When we imagine our pain being too great that no one could possibly understand, we misplace our creativity to conjure up excuses and rationalizations of many kinds to deflect from our issues. When we can enter into another’s experience, however, we can apply our imaginations to consider what it might be like to walk in their shoes. You may not have the same exact experience, but we all know sorrow, sadness, and isolation in some form.

We may see dimly the light of God in our life or in others, but know that we are “fully known” and God still loves us. The compassionate Christ came to bring us this gift. It may not be easy, but if we put ourselves in willing posture spiritually we are more and more open to understanding ourselves as God understands and thus willing to see others as God sees them as well. He was willing to give up life itself for us to learn this lesson: to love and be loved as God loved us first.