The Problem of Pain

No, I will not wax poetic or reflective on C.S. Lewis' book by the same title.  In fact, my thoughts today are much simpler and perhaps easier to read for many folks than Lewis' writing style, even though I have not read "The Problem of Pain" recently enough to recall any of the content.

The problem of pain which I am thinking about is concerned more with the physical toils of this life...and how far removed many Americans seem to be from the pain and exhaustion that goes with a hard day of work which many millions of people in other countries almost seem to accept unconsciously.  I remember hearing a story from a friend of mine who went to Thailand with his then-girlfriend to visit her family.  He observed rice farmers getting up in the morning, eating a bowl of rice with a small fish on top...and then working with simple tools and hands in the blazing heat of the Thai summer for fourteen hours.

My mind is boggled by this story whenever I think about it.  In fact, I am starting to keep this story in the back of my mind whenever I think that a certain task is beyond my endurance.  At the breaking point, I grumble at myself: "Think you've got it tough? Do this on a bowl of rice and a sardine for breakfast...wimp."  Usually that is enough to goad me onwards.

How does this relate back to the removal of many American citizens from the problem of everyday pain that comes with hard, honest, back-breaking labor?  Perhaps 5% of our workforce is engaged in agriculture, if that.  The other 95% are engaged in service industries including finance, a dwindling manufacturing and heavy industrial sector, and a very stagnant housing and infrastructure sector.  The government employs hundreds of thousands, but these still make up a small fraction of the whole.

I am convinced that the absence of pain has dulled the awareness of many people, taking away the ability to empathize and see other perspectives.  Wrapped up in a pain-free, insulated world, some people in the United States have turned to look inwards and see everyone else as being not quite as good as they are.  The problem of pain for these folks is that pain might reveal a certain ugly truth about themselves that they did not want to confront: character flaws and shortcomings are to be found in everyone, especially the individual doing the investigations of other people for their flaws.

Introduce a hard week's worth of demanding physical labor, and then another.  Turn the weeks into months, and months into years.  Pain mutes the self-promoting pride, sharpens the senses of touch and smell and taste, enhances the foresight which is also called common sense, and pushes the mental capacity of the individual to perform in times of bone-deep exhaustion and do so with no mistakes and no over-looked details.  Pain experienced mutually allows people to find common cause in suffering, and forges bonds of friendship and teamwork that only get stronger over time.

Whether this is a God-sent gift to us is beyond my reason right now.  I do know that God can open the eyes of a person's heart through the very problem of pain.  If such were not the case, why would God allow pain to exist at all?