A prayer for when the pain comes

Medicine to supplement the ibuprofen.

Dear reader,

I was born with a congenital kidney condition. It doesn’t make my body hurt or limit what I can do and most of the time I forget about it. But earlier this summer I had an occurrence of symptoms that brought on these waves of pain in my abdomen. The waves would come and go over the course of the day, gripping my attention, sometimes leaving me breathless. After 6 weeks, I was literally crying (that one time in the actual basement) for it to be over, done with, please kind God have mercy.

And then, it was finished. The pain disappeared as abruptly and mysteriously as it came. I’ve gotten some good support from my doctor (in addition to a few healers, and some of you, as well), and we have a working theory about what it was. Not life threatening, in short. And we have a better understanding of my options for if, or when, the pain returns.

One thing that came of it all was this prayer. I wrote it in the days after the pain moved on, still fresh from it all. I needed these words in my struggle, but couldn’t write them in the grip of the pain. They could only come after, in the sweet reprieve, that miraculous state we inaccurately call “neutral.” So here they are, for whenever I might find myself in the basement again. And for you.

Gently,

Andrew

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When the pain comes,

when it strikes in a way you can’t hide from anymore,

remember your belonging.

You are not alone,

even though it’s only you who has to feel this right now.

*

“I am not alone.”

Say that, as the wave of pain crashes over you.

Say, “I am loved,” as the flower of pain blossoms in your gut.

Say, “I am safe,” as the cloud of pain covers the sun of yourself.

Aloud is best, and slowly.

Can you hear those words?

Can you believe them?

*

Remember.

*

It’s hard to remember when we don’t have to.

Let this pain help you remember.

Let it call you into now.

Let it humble you into a more honest version of yourself.

Let it break you down and open

into that truer, simpler, kinder you.

*

You might want to twist with it.

Don’t let it twist you.

Stay loose.

Soft.

Breathe.

Don’t let it sharpen you.

Let it sharpen only your commitment to the truth.

What is the truth?

Ask the pain to show you,

to carve away what isn’t true,

isn’t you.

*

Say, “Show me what you want me to see,”

when the pain comes,

and then open your eyes,

soft-gaze if you can,

and see,

and know,

and be known.

*

Let yourself be known by this pain.

Let others know you in this pain.

Let yourself know yourself,

all of yourself,

through this pain.

*

Who are you?

*

You are not the desperation brought on by the pain.

You are the host of that desperation.

Be a good host, Rumi says. Welcome your guests.

*

Who are you?

*

You are not the anger that starts to smolder and blaze in pain.

You are the father of that anger, the caretaker.

Be a good father, I say. Let the anger beat upon your chest, but don’t turn away.

Don’t turn away.

*

Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?

Ask, in pain.

*

You are not the frustration, the loneliness, the resentment, the dry-eyed cry, the sob, the scream,

you are not any of these things,

what the pain brings,

you are the mother of them all,

the great channel,

the one through whom these wild children must come

into this wild world

to be known

by love,

by us.

*

Let it all pass through you if you can,

this fearsome blessing

making its holy mark on you,

this bitter medicine

you have no choice but to swallow

and every choice

in every moment

to receive

or to resist.

*

And when you have to resist,

when you just can’t take it anymore,

resist with all your might.

Let your face, your physical face, take the shape of agony.

Let your body convulse, shake, contort,

dance the ancient movements that got us here.

Pain got us here.

Our mothers’.

Our fathers’, too.

*

So when the pain comes for us,

let us feel it as if we are being pulled into the embrace of our ancestors,

drawn back into reality,

called home by the benevolent hungry Earth,

this place where the antelope are eaten alive by lions,

where hurricanes obliterate cities,

where these wars rage on and on,

this Earth

who will not spare us her teachings,

who is our goddess,

ours to follow and to trust,

to be ruled by with all the grace and courage that she herself bestows upon us.

*

Find it in the breath,

or bellydown in the grass,

or in the arms of your wife,

or your husband,

or in the Epsom salt bath with lavender oil and rose petals:

the courage to feel what is so hard to feel,

the grace to know what you’d rather not know,

but must now know

to be more of who you really are.

*

And covenant to remember what you see when you are taken there,

to that place where only you will be

when the pain comes for you.

There is something for you here.

Something for us, perhaps.

Bring it back for us.

Because you will return to us,

if not to who you were before you were taken.

There’s no going back to that one.

This pain births you anew,

or it can

if you let it.

*

But enough talk.

The main thing is, I am so sorry you’re in pain.

Forget everything else I’ve said.

I’m just so sorry.

Ugh.

Hang in there, baby.

Gut it out, dog,

and breathe easy if you can.

Easy does it.

You got this.

Tana hates it when I say that,

so I’ve learned to say, “We got this,” instead,

and I think that’s true.

I do.

We got this.

We got this.

We got this.