I’ve been preparing to teach an integration course this winter on Spirituality for Clinicians, in the hopes of helping future therapists prepare themselves for the personal and professional wholeness required of them in facing the rewards and vicissitudes of life as a caregiver. And it occurs to me that we don’t encounter joy and love without pain. In this life, one part comes with the other.
I’ve had the pleasure of studying Hebrew with a few biblical scholar-friends while I’ve been on sabbatical at the pastor retreat house in Northern Arizona, and they were kind enough to indulge me in a reading of Job, since many of my students have to regularly confront questions of theodicy (“the justice of God,” as in questions like, how can all-loving, -knowing, and powerful God allow such suffering in the world?) In seminary, I took exegesis of Job twice: once in English and again in Hebrew (thank you, Professor Jim Butler). Each was illuminating in its own way, but something I’ve carried with me ever since then is that the word for Job’s “blamelessness” (tam/tamim) can also rightly be translated as “integrity” – his “maturity” or “wholeness.” Job is whole, as he accepts both the good and the bad from God. (Even the word baruch refers to both blessing and curse in the Book of Job.) Notably, some therapists from an object relations perspective understand maturity as developing a capacity for ambivalence—to recognize and accept both the good and the bad in our lives and relationships.
…Which leads me to share with you a favorite Advent tradition in my household: A listening of the theatrical performance of Shadowlands by playwright William Nicholson, recorded by L.A. Theatre Works. It’s a rendition of the love story between C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham. In it, you can hear echoes of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Four Loves, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, A Grief Observed, and probably many more allusions that were lost on me. Through their real love, bringing Lewis’ theology and theodicy from the abstract to the concretely lived, he is encouraged by Joy to embrace the pain that is part of all love in this world.
Treat yourselves to this performance of Shadowlands in your holiday travels, and as you prepare your own hearts again to fully receive our God incarnate, who felt joy, love, and pain immensely in His deep, full humanity.
Merry Christmas to you!