The Pain Drain

Pain is addic­tive — espe­cially emo­tional pain. For all of its mis­ery, we choose to re-experience it. Maybe it makes us feel alive or feel at all. In time, it cre­ates a life of its own. Some peo­ple carry it sym­bol­i­cally on their slumped shoul­ders. Some try to bury it with a spoon or fork (try­ing to eat away some­thing that is eat­ing at us). Oth­ers sim­ply spread it around, thus increas­ing the pain in oth­ers.
The Gospel is not about liv­ing a pain-free life, but one of being able to turn the pain loose, so that it does not move in with us. You do not have to go far to find pain. There are dozens of chan­nels through which you can get your favorite fla­vor. From talk shows to the news, you can pick your next dose of hurt and rage.
Pain often man­i­fests itself in anger and alien­ates peo­ple. Have you ever won­dered about the rela­tion­ship between our country’s over­all anger and the way it man­i­fests itself in our per­sonal lives? Road rage is a symp­tom of the greater phe­nom­e­non. That and other angry behav­iors are the fuel for the ever-growing legal indus­try. (Do you real­ize how many lawyers would be out of work if a wave of for­give­ness hit this coun­try?)
“Turn­ing the other cheek” is the man­i­fested grace of peo­ple that have learned to let it go. They have found the for­mula for peace­ful non-resistance. Pain is not their mas­ter, nor is anger. The mem­ory of an offense may not dis­ap­pear, but it can be nul­li­fied. We sim­ply choose not to choose it.
How much more energy would you have today if you unplugged from your entire his­tory of pain?