I’ve landed on a thought that I find troubling. It has to do with pain, and how we relate to it individually and in our communities. I know in my heart that not all pain is the same. As with offenses, there is a spectrum.
And yet the only way I see to work through the pain we all have been through is to count it all of equal value. Pain is pain. If we can say that, then we can get to the task of dealing with the pain, sitting with it with one another, working through together, healing from it, and teaching others what we’ve learned as we all emerge from it.
If we can’t count all pain as being of equal value, then we get caught in the mire of comparing others to our own. We’ll tell ourselves, “Why are they crying, or angry, or depressed? Especially since I’ve gone through worse and haven’t done any of those things.” No. This is fundamentally divisive. It kills the opportunity to engage. If we want healing we have to move in a different direction.
Pain is pain. Now we get to work.