Beginning the Journey

Leading pain psychologist– at one time my own psychology
lecturer– Professor Christopher Eccleston, wrote a paper called
A Normal Psychology of Chronic Pain. He began with the following
words, “Pain and suffering are fundamental to human being.
Indeed, we are born into pain, will likely die in pain, and we have
lives punctuated by painful experience.” With that optimistic
and jovial introduction, he reminded his readers that life
how ever much we might want it to be – isn’t always rainbows
and unicorns. It isn’t always the sausages on sticks, jelly and ice
cream party-food-moments of childhood. It isn’t always calm
holidays, full of laughter, where the sun shines and the troubles
of life vanish into thin air. We can try to numb it, medicate
it away, bury it deep inside and block it out, however life is
perhaps more often than not – painful and uncertain. Suffering,
in all its forms, is a constant companion. We experience losses,
injustice, discrimination, trauma, hurt to others and ourselves,
hardships, illness, fractures in our relationships, and see our
dreams, hopes and realities shattered. As M Scott Peck once
wrote, “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest
truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we
transcend it.”
Whether people of faith or no faith, our lives continue to echo
the journeys of the ancient pilgrims. Sometimes that journey
is taken alone, sometimes in community, but the relentless
challenges of our journeys, the year-on-year struggles to share
the complexity of our lives with others or even ourselves,
remains. Throughout the millennia people have turned to
poetry, to song and to prayer to express the experience of
life in all its technicolour or monochrome intensity. Many
communities have written and gathered together books of
prayers, intentionally setting aside time each day to stop, to
becomepresent andtovoicethroughprayer andsilence the full
spectrum of their lives and their emotions. Using the words
of others can be a springboard to uncovering our own deeply
hidden feelings or articulating the pain and suffering we face
and carry with us on our own journeys.
In 2020, with the world facing a global pandemic, with faith
communities unable to meet in person, with a growing fear of
the future and chaos and suffering very present, a friend and I
were drawn to the ancient words of the Psalms of Ascent. They
became a creative and prayerful focus, articulating for us both
and for the faith community we were part of at the time, the
stark reality of our lives. We also discovered, in that moment,
underneath the turmoil and pain, a belief that, as M Scott Peck
alluded to, once we truly see the truth that life is difficult, we
can transcend it, or at the very least face it and journey through
it with our eyes wide open.
As I’ve returned to the Psalms, I’ve been reminded that whilst life is difficult, there
remains not only valued fellow pilgrims with us on the path, but
also a loving presence alongside, who knows, more than anyone,
what it is to suffer and face injustice.
I offer the following prayers and reflections as a fellow traveller,
stumbling along the path, sometimes managing to put one foot
in front of another. (adapted from Pilgrim Prayers for the Journey Home)