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Life Worth Living is an initiative of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School.
What is the role of suffering in a good life?
Christian Wiman on Compassion and Suffering
Life Worth Living Team
Although feeling isolated in the midst of suffering can produce despair, Christian Wiman believes compassion eliminates such solitary suffering. In his book My Bright Abyss, Wiman reflects on his own faith journey through life's difficulties, most notably his struggle with cancer. The following excerpt explores the relationship between human suffering, divine presence, and endless compassion.
Quote
[.alt-blockquote]“I'm a Christian not because of the resurrection (I wrestle with this), and not because I think Christianity contains more truth than other religions (I think God reveals himself, or herself, in many forms, some not religious), and not simply because it was the religion in which I was raised (this has been a high barrier). I am a Christian because of that moment on the cross when Jesus, drinking the very dregs of human bitterness, cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? ...[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote]I am a Christian because I understand that moment of Christ's passion to have meaning in my own life, and what it means is that the absolutely solitary and singular nature of extreme human pain is an illusion. I'm not suggesting that ministering angels are going to come down and comfort you as you die. I'm suggesting that Christ's suffering shatters the iron walls around individual human suffering, that Christ's compassion makes extreme human compassion—to the point of death, even—possible.”[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote-attribution]—Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss, 155[.alt-blockquote-attribution]
Questions
- How have you seen human compassion ease suffering in your own life?
- What may this compassion look like in practice?
- How would the idea of divine presence in the midst of your own individual suffering affect your experience of pain?
- Do you find the idea of compassion even to the point of death comforting or disconcerting? Why or why not?
- Do you see compassion in this sense as an obligation, a right, a privilege, or something else?
- What would a world marked by extreme human compassion look like?
- Do you see solidarity in suffering as evidence for or against the idea of divine benevolence?
Context
- Christian Wiman's My Bright Abyss
- Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, Chapter 11: …And There's No Fixing It
Listen on
The relationship between human suffering, divine presence, and endless compassion.
Quote + Question + Context
What is the role of suffering in a good life?
Although feeling isolated in the midst of suffering can produce despair, Christian Wiman believes compassion eliminates such solitary suffering. In his book My Bright Abyss, Wiman reflects on his own faith journey through life's difficulties, most notably his struggle with cancer. The following excerpt explores the relationship between human suffering, divine presence, and endless compassion.
Quote
[.alt-blockquote]“I'm a Christian not because of the resurrection (I wrestle with this), and not because I think Christianity contains more truth than other religions (I think God reveals himself, or herself, in many forms, some not religious), and not simply because it was the religion in which I was raised (this has been a high barrier). I am a Christian because of that moment on the cross when Jesus, drinking the very dregs of human bitterness, cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? ...[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote]I am a Christian because I understand that moment of Christ's passion to have meaning in my own life, and what it means is that the absolutely solitary and singular nature of extreme human pain is an illusion. I'm not suggesting that ministering angels are going to come down and comfort you as you die. I'm suggesting that Christ's suffering shatters the iron walls around individual human suffering, that Christ's compassion makes extreme human compassion—to the point of death, even—possible.”[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote-attribution]—Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss, 155[.alt-blockquote-attribution]
Questions
- How have you seen human compassion ease suffering in your own life?
- What may this compassion look like in practice?
- How would the idea of divine presence in the midst of your own individual suffering affect your experience of pain?
- Do you find the idea of compassion even to the point of death comforting or disconcerting? Why or why not?
- Do you see compassion in this sense as an obligation, a right, a privilege, or something else?
- What would a world marked by extreme human compassion look like?
- Do you see solidarity in suffering as evidence for or against the idea of divine benevolence?
Context
- Christian Wiman's My Bright Abyss
- Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, Chapter 11: …And There's No Fixing It
Quote + Question + Context
What is the role of suffering in a good life?
Although feeling isolated in the midst of suffering can produce despair, Christian Wiman believes compassion eliminates such solitary suffering. In his book My Bright Abyss, Wiman reflects on his own faith journey through life's difficulties, most notably his struggle with cancer. The following excerpt explores the relationship between human suffering, divine presence, and endless compassion.
Quote
[.alt-blockquote]“I'm a Christian not because of the resurrection (I wrestle with this), and not because I think Christianity contains more truth than other religions (I think God reveals himself, or herself, in many forms, some not religious), and not simply because it was the religion in which I was raised (this has been a high barrier). I am a Christian because of that moment on the cross when Jesus, drinking the very dregs of human bitterness, cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? ...[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote]I am a Christian because I understand that moment of Christ's passion to have meaning in my own life, and what it means is that the absolutely solitary and singular nature of extreme human pain is an illusion. I'm not suggesting that ministering angels are going to come down and comfort you as you die. I'm suggesting that Christ's suffering shatters the iron walls around individual human suffering, that Christ's compassion makes extreme human compassion—to the point of death, even—possible.”[.alt-blockquote]
[.alt-blockquote-attribution]—Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss, 155[.alt-blockquote-attribution]
Questions
- How have you seen human compassion ease suffering in your own life?
- What may this compassion look like in practice?
- How would the idea of divine presence in the midst of your own individual suffering affect your experience of pain?
- Do you find the idea of compassion even to the point of death comforting or disconcerting? Why or why not?
- Do you see compassion in this sense as an obligation, a right, a privilege, or something else?
- What would a world marked by extreme human compassion look like?
- Do you see solidarity in suffering as evidence for or against the idea of divine benevolence?
Context
- Christian Wiman's My Bright Abyss
- Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, Chapter 11: …And There's No Fixing It
Pairings
Our responses to life's big questions are meant to form a coherent whole—a vision of life worth living. A response to one question will fit well with certain responses to other questions, but it will be incompatible with others. We've provided the "Pairs Well With" and "Pairs Poorly With" sections for this article to help you consider these questions of coherence.
Pairs Well With
- An ethic that values self-sacrifice
- A high value on empathy
Pairs Poorly With
- Classical theological commitment to divine impassibility (inability to suffer)
- A strongly activist stance that tries to eliminate suffering
- Insistence that the good life feels good
- A heroic ideal of pushing through your suffering on your own
- Some Buddhist accounts of compassion, which emphasize benevolent equanimity in the face of others’ suffering
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