"Putting it in Context"

Every human being knows very well that life is full of moments of suffering. Man or woman, adult, or child, gifted or average, rich or poor; life is full of moments of disappointment, moments of loneliness, times of illness, moments of despair and times of crushing sadness.

When we find ourselves experiencing these difficult moments, we usually ask ourselves the age-old question: Why? Why is there pain and suffering? What did I do to deserve this? I’m a good person. How come bad things always seem to happen to me and not to bad people? Why am I facing this terrible situation?

These are all good questions and there is no easy answer. So, what do the world religions have to say about this? Here are a few thoughts:

Tribal people’s past and present suggest that bad things happen to you because there are external causes brought about by a demon or evil spirit. Hindus explain that the ills you suffer in this life are the result of negative actions you engaged in, in a previous life. The bad things that happen to you are the results of Karma which is the cause of what you are going through now. Karma is the result of good and bad actions you engaged in during previous lives. Because of samsara which is the notion of reincarnation, a person lives through a long succession of rebirths, and must work through karmic episodes to reach the other shore – the place of enlightenment.

Buddhists suggest something similar and take things a step further by proclaiming the four noble truths. The first noble truth is that every life always involves suffering. The second noble truth suggests that suffering is the result of a person’s desires. People desire things that will always exist only briefly. This causes every person to suffer because nothing lasts forever. No matter what gives you pleasure now, it will ultimately disappear. Everything is impermanent. The third noble truth says that suffering can be eliminated by ceasing desire. The fourth noble truth offers an eightfold path of actions that can be taken that will enable a person to stop desiring and hence prevent suffering and eventually obtain enlightenment which includes the cessation of suffering.

The western religions of Judaism and Christianity contend that people experience suffering in all its myriad forms because of every human being’s imperfect nature which results in sin. It is sin that causes us to suffer. And suffering may not be just about our own actions but it is because of the imperfection of other human beings, particularly the original sins of Adam and Eve. In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul said, “just as sin came into the world through one man (Adam), so sin and death are spread to all.”

Islam also infers that suffering is the result of human sin (as demonstrated in the story of Adam and Eve) – but Islam also see suffering as a divine test, a way for God - Allah to test a person's faith. People are tested by God sometimes as a means to purify one's soul which will bring them closer to God, and ultimately allow them the reward of heaven.

Finally, there are atheists and nihilists. Atheists have a couple of answers for suffering. Some think suffering is proof there is no God because why would a God allow suffering? Others say it is just the way it is. There really is no reason.

Nihilists believe there is absolutely no meaning and purpose to the universe or to an individual human life. Human life is senseless and empty they say, so suffering just happens and is proof there is no meaning and purpose in life. (Not a very uplifting viewpoint in my mind).

So – there is a wide variety of views among religions and non-religious people as to why suffering exists in the world. I know of no person in the world who has never experienced suffering in some form. We all have and we all will. Yes - I have known some people who seem to suffer a great deal – over and over again for no apparent reason. And some of these people are really good people. Given this, what can we do in our lives to deal with all the pain and suffering we experience?

Well, I think the first thing we must do is to realize that human suffering is relative. What is suffering to me, may not be suffering to you and vice versa. Let me give you some examples.

I don’t think there is much doubt that someone who is seriously ill is in a place of suffering. Nor do I think people would suggest someone who is experiencing abject poverty is not suffering, nor those living through the horrors of war or natural catastrophes or having lost loved ones. These all seem pretty obvious sources of suffering – but what about others?

When I was a teenager, I had a handy-man business where I would offer my services to people by cleaning houses, mowing lawns, washing cars, even cooking and washing dishes at dinner parties. One of my regular clients every week was a young woman who lived in a very nice and very large house. She had three children. Her husband was a lawyer and he came from wealthy parents who lived in Manhattan. She herself came from a lower middle-class family.

This woman had a live-in maid, a gardener and an au pare to watch the children. Despite this, she always had things for me to do so I would go to her house every week. After visiting from New York a few times, her husband’s parents insisted they move into a much larger house in a very wealthy neighborhood. They said they would buy an appropriate house fit for someone of their son’s station. And so, they did.

One day when I came over to the woman’s house for my regular appointment, I found her in tears. She was sobbing and crying almost in hysterics. When I asked her what was wrong, she exploded. “I was at the interior decorators this morning picking out wallpaper for the eleven bathrooms in the new house and I forgot my luncheon appointment at Rive Gauche (which was a five-star Washington DC restaurant) – and worse, she said, I forgot to pick up the tickets from the travel agent. We’re supposed to go to Bermuda this weekend.

To say the least, I was rather incredulous. Even at a young age, all I could think of were all the poor people struggling to figure out how to feed their children and pay the rent, so why was this woman so distraught? But the truth is, in the world of this woman, she was in complete crisis and in her limited view, her suffering was just as great as someone much less fortunate than her. She could see no perspective. Sounds incredible but it is true. Over the course of my life, I have seen similar situations. People who you would think would acknowledge all the wonderful things they have in life often do not see them and they are unable to put their life in context with others – even those much less fortunate than themselves. It is as though they live in a separate universe.

During my pastoral internship as a new minister in a Washington DC hospital I remember speaking with an elderly woman who was dying from cancer. Based on discussions with her middle-aged children, this woman had led a rather happy, long, and full life and yet she was bitter and angry. “It’s not fair,” she would say. “This shouldn’t be happening to me.” The fact that she had led a long life didn’t seem to occur to her. The fact that young people and even children in the same hospital were also were dying of cancer mattered not. To her, her suffering was “just not fair.” Again – she did not place her situation in the context of others.

In a way this is normal. When a person experiences pain and suffering in life, it is normal to automatically feel that “it is not fair” or to ask the question “why me? Or to think, “this shouldn’t be happening to me. I’m a good person. This should be happening to bad people.”

As with me, all of you have met or know people who tell you that they are suffering in some way. Sometimes what they are experiencing is really terrible and you feel compassion for them. But sometimes when you hear a person’s story - that which seems so monumental to them just sounds to you that it is not that big a deal because you naturally compare their story to others.

Yes – some of what we do when we experience pain and suffering is due to a little selfishness – which is normal. But really selfish people believe the world revolves around them and any bad thing that happens to them is taken as a major assault which they believe “they do not deserve.” “The world is against me,” they might say. Here again, these types of people do not place their life in the context of others much less in the perspective of all the good things that may have occurred in their life. (Dave and the story of his father – “He hates you too.”)

Actually, people sometimes do this in relationships too. In books, in movies, on television, in songs and even social media for those who follow it, we are bombarded with the ideas of perfect relationships. We hear and see people blissfully happy people in seemingly eternal love. What this does to some people in a relationship that becomes difficult is they may begin to think of those perfect romantic relationships they always read about or seen in movies or on TV. Unfortunately, this can lead some people to end a relationship or marriage for the wrong reasons because they feel they are suffering. Now – this is NOT to say that some relationships shouldn’t end. The fact is there are cases where people do not grow together or one person changes and the other does not, or a person becomes abusive, or people get into a relationship for the wrong reasons or because they are infatuated with someone and this clouds their judgement. In these cases, ending a relationship can be a very good thing – really for both people.

But the fact is that love is a difficult thing. There is no such thing as a real relationship or marriage that does not have its challenges – sometimes great challenges. But too many times, I have spoken with people who claim to be suffering in a relationship because they imagine the grass is greener on the other side – that they can find that perfect mate they’ve seen in the movies. And, in some cases, I have seen people change relationships over and over again because they are always seeking that perfect relationship – which, frankly, does not exist. They are not putting their search for love into perspective because they just don’t seem to understand what real love is.

To me, a secret to happiness is to always put your life and everything you do into perspective – to look at the grand picture. There is no one in this world who does not suffer in many different ways, for a myriad of reasons. But I believe a way for a person to overcome suffering is the try to place it in the perspective of the whole world – if not the whole universe.

Many years ago, I had a good friend who was a college football coach. At the time he was 48 years old. He had a new wife and a baby boy they had recently adopted from a poor country. In fact, to get the baby from the adoption agency, he had to fly to the country, pay ten thousand dollars in cash and bring the baby back to the U.S. He was one happy man after he did this.

Only a few weeks after I was ordained as a UU minister, my friend called me on the phone and said me he needed to see me right away. I could tell by the urgency in his voice that something was very wrong. When I got to his house, he was curled up on his couch crying. Knowing he was the model of a tough, macho, football coach, I was stunned and knew something was very wrong. “What is wrong?” I asked him. “Chris, I am going to die,” he said. It turned out he had just been diagnosed with a very rare fast-moving cancer for which there was little hope of recovery.

Six months later, as he lay dying in the Sloan Kettering cancer hospital in New York I was with him. He smiled when I came into the room and in his booming but weakened voice he said, “Chris, I am the luckiest man in the world.” When he saw the look of puzzlement on my face the said, “Just look at my life Chris. It has been great. I have had a wonderful career. I found the love of my life and I have a new son too. Who could ask for anything more in this world we live in.” Then he asked me, “Chris, you’re from that “church of what’s happening now,” so what do you think will happen to me?”

I know my thoughts on this question have grown more complex but pretty firm in the ensuring years. All I could say at the time was, “you will see. Everything will be OK.” He died shortly after my conversation with him.

I will never forget this. My friend was not a religious person nor was he very spiritual but I think he somehow became so in the last few days of his life. I am still amazed at his final attitude. He had put his life in perspective. He was certainly sad about leaving his wife and son and, of course, he had wanted a much longer life – but somehow he was able to realize that in the scheme of things, what he did have in his life had made him a lucky person.

Not long after this, I was serving in my first ministry job as the summer minister with the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Shelter Rock – what I call the “Vatican of UUism because of its great wealth.” During my time with Shelter Rock that summer, I received a call from a woman who was not a UU but she asked if I could do a funeral at the church for her husband. “We were never religious,” she said, but I know he would have wanted something and your church is the only one he would have related to.

Of course, I agreed but wanted to meet the woman first. During our conversation she told me many stories about her husband – both happy and sad. They had been married for nearly fifty years. She told me he was often difficult but these moments passed. At one point because of the intense descriptions, she had given me, I stopped and said to her, “it sounds to me that you are more in love with your husband now than when you first married him. She smiled at me and said “Yes, you are right. I have been so lucky to have had him.” This woman had had a challenging relationship with her husband but she put all the difficult times into perspective.

So – in my view, there seems to be ways that can help all of us to deal with the challenges, the difficulties, the sadness and the suffering in our lives. One way is to try as best we can to put our lives into perspective – to look at all the positive things we have and have had in our lives. I’m not saying this is easy. In fact, in so many cases, it is exceedingly difficult but it is a way to help us cope with the bad times in our lives. It is natural when times are tough to think mostly or only about ourselves but if we continue to do this it will only mire us in greater pain.

In other words – sure, acknowledge that there are difficult times – that things are not going well in our life. But, at the same time, look around at the good things and the good times we have had. Look at the many gifts that we have. Focus on these. Realize that there are so many people in the world who have far less than we have or have experienced so much more suffering than we have.

Share your feelings with others particularly people you love – family and good friends. Realize that you cannot and should not go it alone. When you open-up to others when you are hurting, they will see your vulnerability and if they love you they will project their love to you which will help you through difficult times.

Try to find gratitude for all the good things big and small in your life that you look back on with happiness. Remember the good times. Remember those you have loved and those who have loved you. Remember the special moments with these people and remember the times when you felt exhilarated by events that happened in your life.

Perhaps the most important way to cope with sadness or despair is to reach into your spiritual center. Remember what I have said so many times. All of us exist in body, mind and spirit. Unfortunately, so many people do not find their spiritual nature. Without accessing it, it is very difficult to deal with pain and suffering.

Our spiritual self is that part of us that can help put our life into perspective. It is that part where we allow our mind to move beyond ourselves and reach not only into the world around us but into the vastness of time and space - to reach for “other” – that cosmic force that our UU principles suggest is that transcending mystery and wonder affirmed in all culture which moves us to a renewal of our spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life. When we reach for this, we put our life in perspective and it can help us deal with all the challenges and sorrows we face.

How we reach for this is really an individual process. It can be different for different people My suggestion is to find a sacred space, a sacred place and spend time in it – like taking a walk on the ocean, in the woods or somewhere in nature. And if you are unable to walk very well you can still do this. You can access these places on YouTube and even in your thoughts and dreams. And certainly, Cape Cod is filled with sacred spaces and sacred places.

However, a person does this, it is their attitude that is key. It takes courage – sometimes a lot of courage to move from a place of despair and find a place of hope, of perspective and a way to change our feelings and embrace love. But it can be done – if only we try.

We are each but a small creature in the vastness of time and space. It is sometimes hard to understand our life and to put it in perspective with all that is.

I think that Carl Jung had a point when he said: “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness and the word happiness would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”

Pain and suffering are realities of life and these are things we must all face. Let us all remember in this congregation to help each other when one of us is in such a place.

Reverend Christopher McMahon

March 16, 2025