Pain & Suffering

I watched The United States of Leland last night. Excellent movie, but I felt it was fundamentally flawed. It was written and directed by Kevin Spacey (whom I really, really enjoy - my favourite role of his is in The Usual Suspects, and I also thought he was great in K-PAX). So far, I have enjoyed all of Kevin Spacey's forays into the world of direction and production. This was no exception - very well done. The entire movie was incredibly believable. It also featured excellenting casting - particularly the role that Ryan Gosling plays as Leland P. Fitzgerald.

The movie is essentially about pain, suffering, and sadness. These things are an integral part of our lives, in fact the movie my even be saying that these things are the basis of life for us as humans. How do we react and interact with pain and suffering?

Pain and suffering is an issue so close to all of our hearts, and it demands an answer. But the answer that this movie gave left me cold and empty. As Leland says, there are 2 ways to see the world. One is to realize that the world around you is full of pain and sadness, and to ignore it. The other is to see and feel the pain and suffering of the world so deeply that it cripples you, and the only way to relieve that suffering is to take those that are suffering out of the world.

I believe this is flawed. Pain and suffering are not useless, and it is not meant to be avoided. It is a fundamental part of what makes us human, and I believe that feeling pain and suffering is part of God's divine imprint on each of us. God experiences great sadness and pain as he seeks to relate with us. Christ experienced the greatest anguish known to any being - death, and ultimately separation from the Father due to the sin of the world. My personal experiences with sadness and suffering have shaped me and in part have made me who I am. I would not be me without them.

There are two ways to approach suffering and sadness. One is to reject it, fight it and become bitter as you lose the struggle to it. The other is to accept it, suffer through it with friends and family, and allow it to clean you, shape you, and give you hope that you are in God's loving embrace and with people who care about you deeply, and come out the other side of those dark times a new person.

There is so much more that I could add within the details of this, but I don't really know how to put it in words. I know what I've experienced - suffering is not stranger to me. And I know that at times I have dealt with it in the first way, and others the second way. Only one way has enabled me to continue in living with joy, hope and happiness.

J