Pain and Suffering

I have never given much thought to the difference between pain and suffering. My physical pains have been few, relatively speaking. My emotional suffering has also been limited to the normal ups and downs of life, situations that, I have come to believe, make a person strong.

In my work as a teacher, I occasionally met students who were "suffering," though I didn't always recognize it - like one teenage boy who pulled out a knife to cut himself in my English class.

"Miss, ... has a knife!" a fellow student shouted out. I stopped mid-sentence. In my mid-20's, I had never encountered a situation like this before.

Annoyed that someone was interrupting the flow of my carefully crafted lesson, I walked over to the young man's desk and demanded: "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to kill myself," he replied.

"Not in my class, you're not," I said firmly. "Put that knife away."

To my amazement, he did.

As soon as the class was over, I marched over to the office - and a guidance counselor quickly came in to talk to the young man and help him with his problems. To my knowledge, his threat to kill himself never recurred.

Unlike teachers, priests are often called in to deal with pain and suffering. It is a regular part of their job. So it's not surprising that former parish priest, Barbara Brown Taylor, comments on it in her book, An Altar in the World. Here is what she says: I learned that there is a difference between pain and suffering... Pain originates in the body... You can find the place that hurts and press it, eliciting a howl...

Suffering, on the other hand, happens in the mind. The mind decides what pain means and whether it is deserved. The mind notices who comes to visit and who does not. The mind remembers how good things used to be and are not likely to be again...

Her conclusion? Suffering is often worse than pain.