Searching through hurt for redemption

Hemingway said to write hard and clear about what hurts. I think about that a lot. When I sit down to write, it is almost like I hear it in my head as a directive. He started as a newspaper guy and became one of the greatest writers who ever lived. Surpassing the honor of being one of the best Americans, he won the Nobel. Not just the Pulitzer.

The funny thing about conversations in my head with Papa Hemingway is that when I hear him tell me how to write, I go through the respect and awe and reverence I have for his art and come out on the other side with this question: “What good did it do you to write about what hurts? Your life was a disaster—and then you killed yourself. So why would I listen to you?”

If you read my column last week you know I have been thinking about how glorious it is to have the freedom to write about whatever I want. Starting this week’s piece, I am looking at themes. And it dawns on me that almost everything I write about, whether it is obvious or not, is what hurts me.

But I never stop there. Not for long, anyway. Because if I stay in a place of hurt, I may cycle through useful emotions like sadness and anger, but ultimately end in despair. And there is an impulse in me not to despair that comes from my faith in Jesus.

Flannery O’Connor articulated this impulse when she said, “I am no disbeliever in spiritual purpose and no vague believer. I see from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. This means that for me the meaning of life is centered in our Redemption by Christ and what I see in the world I see in relation to that.”

Redemption recurs through all the best stories of the Bible; if the Bible is read as the great literature it is, we recognize redemption as the overarching theme. Beauty from ashes, seeds into plants, rescue from lions’ dens, fiery furnaces, and superior armies. The climax of it all is a savior who dies only to rise up out of the grave.

But we don’t have to read the Bible to see it if we have eyes. Martin Luther said the promise of resurrection is written “not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.” There’s plenty of winter before spring and darkness before light. That’s undeniable.

It is also true that we each choose where to put our focus. Helen Keller said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” I want to be honest enough to look at the suffering with eyes wide open, and keep a heart soft enough to feel it. But then I want to be like Mr. Rogers and—in the midst of it—find the helpers. Be one.

Here are things that hurt me today in no particular order. It hurts that David Pryor died. Not because I knew him, but because he was one of the living lights shining in our current political darkness. He was the kind of governor I took for granted growing up because he was the only kind I saw as a child: a person of integrity who loved Arkansas and stood up for our people, especially those Jesus called the least of these.

I came across a photograph of him behind his desk and a sign that said, “Arkansas Comes First.” It hurts that I don’t see many practice that in our Capitol today. It hurts that my children don’t have his kind of political leaders.

It hurts my kids are growing up. Grace’s coming law school graduation, Harper’s engagement, Adelaide’s senior year of high school, and Stella’s height and braces all remind me of the transience of life. Their exquisite beauty hurts, like it hurts a little to look at the sunset, or go on an epic vacation, or read a perfect sentence.

Just as relief comes when pain subsides, there’s an ache knowing childhood gives way to adolescence gives way to adulthood. I go from beauty to new beauty with my children, but miss the ones that went before. They are holy ghosts that haunt my home and heart.

It hurts to be divorced. Not to be unmarried; that ended some chronic pain. But being divorced is hard. It hurts to see your kids deal with it and you feel guilty and worry about them even when divorce is the right thing. It hurts when other people don’t get it, and few do, even when they try. They can’t, I guess. It’s lonely.

And like any personal grief, it’s a road you walk alone, even with other people beside you. It hurts to sift through memories, decide what’s worth keeping. Same with material things a marriage acquires. Living in a house you built together can feel strange, like there are landmines everywhere. And it hurts to know people depended on the image of your marriage that is now shattered; you have let them down.

It hurts to see our country so divided. For American Christianity to be a joke. It hurts for my parents to get old and to know they will leave me. I hurt for others I have loved and lost. It hurts to go and not go to church. Crypto mines in small towns hurt me, and so do vouchers, and opioid abuse, and people who are hungry, and transgender kids who feel despised, and their parents who feel powerless to protect them.

It hurts to know children and the elderly and women and men and animals are abused. Human trafficking hurts. Ukraine. Gaza. Antisemitism. Arrogance. Dishonesty. Infidelity. It hurts when people I love are sick. It hurts that the Earth is on fire. It hurts that so many people want to come to America because they can’t live where they are. It hurts that we can’t figure out how to help them, or won’t. It hurts that kids and teachers have to worry about getting shot at school.

I am tired of making this list, though it is incomplete. There is no shortage of things that hurt. There is, however, a major shortage of things I can do about it. This combination of circumstances is the recipe for despair. But if the meaning of life for me is centered around redemption, specifically redemption by Christ, then on an anagogical level, that requires and empowers me to participate in redeeming the world. Shining light where there is darkness.

Bringing life to a dead place. Rescue. Hope. Help. Overcoming evil with good.