engagements, singleness, and suffering

first off, congradulations to all of the engaged people in my life, all 28 million of you. I'd extend a personal note of blessing and well-wishing to each of you, however - alas - there are too many of you.

and so blessings upon you and your soon-to-be-spouse; may you find rich joy in each other, may the Lover of lovers teach you about Himself and each other through your marriage, may the children you raise be a delight to your eye, and may God shower down grace and humility for you to share with each other. enjoy this life and drink it in deeply.

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and now for the six of us that aren't engaged/married..

singleness is a peculiar kind of suffering. to be single is to experience a measure of pain, but not all pain is suffering and to be single is different than living in singleness. this distinction is - must be! - a crux, a cross which we must understand in being.

pain is circumstantial. the product of choices and events; impersonal, existent despite the pained's response.
suffering is a volitional enhancement upon preexisting pain. for this reason it bears the resemblance of masochism, for whose volition enhances pain except the sufferer's?

a starving man experiences pain - his entire body yearns for food but has no choice except to consume itself instead. in his anguish he may or may not cry out to the heavens - but his body still experiences relentless pain.
now say that this man, as he lies in agony, finds a crust of bread lying next to him. exultant, his spirit rises, and as he reaches towards the crust he sees his child, eyes squeezed shut and body shaking with the same hunger that grips the father, not ten feet away. his exultation immediately fades yet returns just as quickly with a new sensation; he will give the bread to the love of this life. his decision was not a choice, but it was an act of volition. in this moment his pain has been enhanced by suffering, but here the enhancement is not painful. the pain of hunger has not abated, yet somehow its sensation is different: love for his child is at the forefront of his mind and spirit and that love mediates the unchanged pain. through that mediation his pain becomes purposeful and noble, and that nobility recognized by all.

now say that in the moment of exultation this man finds - no, not his precious child! - his fiercest enemy, doubled over and near death. our starving hero now faces an entirely different decision, for the possible act of love before him is an actual decision: his own life or that of his enemy. before conscience would have destroyed him had he chosen his own life over that of his child; now conscience takes leave and all forces human and abstract will contend with him to choose the wise choice, to choose himself. but if our hero is a Christian, he is not accountable to the wisdom of the world but rather to the wisdom and love of the Christ whose Name he bears. he is not even accountable to his own conscience, that pale imitation of the Truth to Whom he must be obedient. and the question is one of obedience: will our hero choose to obey God, loving his enemy at the cost of his own life, or will he rebel? both roads will lead to suffering! should he love, he will find himself suffering alongside Christ - the suffering that comes from willfully setting aside a good thing in favour of obedience and love, and in this suffering he will find enhancement of what might take his life at any moment. should he rebel, his pain will be ameliorated and replaced with the knowledge of rebellion against his love - his choice will be the same as the father's choosing over his son. and he will suffer. but say he loves his enemy. those near will mock him for this unnecessary, uncalled, unwise foolishness and those that pity him for his nobility in fact despise him (for to pity a man in this way is to hold him in contempt). this mockery will only deepen his suffering, but now there is a curious thing to behold: his choice creates anxious suffering in anyone who sees this love, for this kind of love is a confrontation and a challenge. the anxiety passes by the mockers in a moment - death is already there and its fundamental character will not be changed by a single event - but lingers with the pitying crowd, now separated by this love into pitying individuals confronted with a choice: will they also love?

but back to our hero. should he find solace in his obedience, his suffering will now have a new character - it has taken on the purpose of Christ's love. the death-pain is still before him and he is and must be conscious of it - he can do no other! should he ignore the pain, the loving gift is no longer love and he is no longer an honest man. yet this act is that much easier to understand than the conscious choice he has made. what cruelty is this, that our hero must not only be asked to love his enemy while at the hand of death, but that he must be fully aware of his pain, his decision, and its consequences or that love will no longer be love?

let us now go back to the crux, the cross upon which our hero is nailed at the point of suffering and decision: to the choice to love his enemy. as he sees the man before him he also feels the touch of his wife's hand across his brow. as he sits on the brink of oblivion he knows that he has provided for her - her body is nourished and she is not in danger. in her love and terror she offers quiet love to her husband, providing what encouragement she can amid the fear of losing her beloved. her eye catches the crust at the same time as our hero and the two share in the exultation of hope for life. but as his eye catches his enemy he becomes alone. the choice of love will now bring suffering upon his own head and upon his beloved's. and as he hands the bread to his enemy, his wife's exultation will turn to ash and his pain will take on a facet he has chosen but could never wish upon anyone, for now the love of his life is separated from him across an expanse of tears and anger. not only will his choice remove her from him and him from her, but in the point of decision she no longer understands him and the two-become-one they have become is rended like the sky back to two - and this before the physical death that yet awaits him! he experiences premature death in the present, death that must be endured before the death to take him.

but the suffering here is deeper than the continuation of the hunger that will consume him. it is even deeper than the pain that separates him from his wife and friends. it is the fact that he has made a choice, and that to do the unthinkable that no person (only The Person) asks him to do. this is the suffering that enhances his pain - and he cannot even cry out for justice, for to do so would be to turn his back on the choice (and Choice) he has willfully taken. everyone near and far will scream: cruelty! how could One demand such a cruel choice? only our hero will remain silent, for his volition is at one with the One who required this love, and it is by that volition that his decision in the moment and future decisions as he remembers will be defined.

suffering is a volitional enhancement upon preexisting pain.

what clean words to describe such agony.

but this is just one facet of Jesus' suffering on the earth: that He chose the will of the Father to the point of execution; that His suffering became the crux of human history.

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and this is the distinction between being single and living in singleness. God help me to choose the latter - I must do no other!