William Stringfellow
on Pain
Fr. Tony’s Mid-week
Message
January 17, 2018
William Stringfellow
(1928–1985) was an Episcopalian lay theologian, constitutional lawyer, and
social activist who is now honored in many places in the church as a
saint. He sheltered Fr. Daniel Berrigan after he fled
arrest by federal authorities for acts of civil disobedience against the
Vietnam War, was active in racial justice and reconciliation work, was part of
the Protestant lay monastic Sojourners’ House, and defended Bishop James Pike
from charges of heresy by his fellow Episcopal Church bishops (saying that they
were motivated by a political agenda to “make nice” with conservatives and White
Southerners in the Church). His writings
are broad and many, some written with his long-term living companion, Anthony
Towne. He had a profound influence on
such theologians as Walter Wink, Bill Kellerman, John Dear, and Rosemary
Ruether. Stringfellow saw his calling as a commitment, bestowed upon him in baptism,
to a lifelong struggle against the “powers and principalities,” the systemic evil
sometimes called in the New Testament “the power of Death.” For him, faithfully
following Jesus meant declaring oneself free from all spiritual forces of
death, destruction, and negation, and to submit whole-heartedly to the power of
life and affirmation.
Stringfellow was
afflicted with, and finally died from, an aggressive diabetes that often
obstructed his circulation and caused great pain. Reflecting on the pain he suffered, he wrote
the following, which I believe is wise counsel to any of us who suffer chronic
or acute pain, or wonder about the morality of the current national debate
about health care:
“I am familiar with some of the temptations that attend pain… I know, for instance, how preemptive pain can be—excluding practically everything and everyone else from its victim’s intelligence or consideration… [P]ain agitates vanity and, most specifically, sponsors a false sense of being justified by suffering… I am haunted by questions: Why is this happening to me? And Why is it happening now? Or, Is this some cruel or perverse accounting for my past sins and oversights? And If I forebear to blame myself for my pain, who is left to blame but God? Again, Is my suffering of pain consequently related to the massive default and multiple failures of commercialized medicine? Is pain thus an injustice? And is its essence more an issue of politics than of medical practice? On the other hand, Can this endurance of pain somehow be edifying? How is it related to the gospel?“…I have no settled answers to any of these questions (some of which truly rank as conundrums). I just live with such issues, as I live with the pain. And I trust the Word of God until the latter day, when all of created life, myself included, gather at the throne of judgment of this world and when the deposition of these questions and that of all questions whatsoever shall become notorious. Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us; Lord, have mercy upon us.“Meanwhile we are all called to live by grace—that is, concretely—to live in a way (even in pain) that trusts the judgment of the Word of God in history… I realize that some … would prefer a book on “spirituality” that pronounced some rules, some norms, some guidelines, some rubrics for a sacred discipline that, if pursued diligently, would establish the holiness of a person. I do not discern that such is the biblical style, as admirable as that may happen to be in the worldly sense.“All I can affirm … is that pain is not a punishment; neither is pain a justification. There are no grounds to be romantic about pain. Pain is a true mystery, so long as this world lasts. Yet it is known that pain is intercessory: one is never alone in pain but is always a surrogate of someone else who hurts—which is categorically everybody. I consider that this is enough to know if one does trust the Word of God in judgment” (A Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings of William Stringfellow [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994] pp. 110-11.)
Grace and Peace.
Fr. Tony+
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