The Philosophy of Pain and Nursing

Among the matters that ever haunt my mind — carrying me off into perplexity and fancies, and returning me in perplexity and fancies — is the problem of pain in this life. How often have I plied the pen upon the meanings of existence; how often have I turned from the familiar surface of things to knock at the door of the locked mysteries in the folds of the unseen — and then I return, and in the depths of my being there is a single voice, saying: in pains I was born, in pains I live, and in pains I shall die.

Indeed, I know nothing like pain that so mingles with the metal of man, making of him a new book written in ink of starlight — correcting his errors, clarifying his obscurities, purifying his doubt; then man becomes like filtered water, rising upward in its clearness. Indeed, I know nothing like pain that accompanies man from the cradle in which he is born to the grave in which he is laid. Pain is his warp and his weft in this existence. And if I am asked, what is the cause of pain? I say: the unknown.

Yes, it has been decreed upon man that he suffer, because it was decreed upon him, from the moment he was fashioned a man, that he should not know the final knowledge. He passes from the lofty to the distant, to the obscure, to the ambiguous, to the unknown — where he attains the highest degree of human knowledge, which is that he knows nothing. Man is bounded, despite himself, by the bounds of his ignorance. Yet he yearns for the final knowledge, because he is, in origin, of the essence of God, and God is the source of all final knowledge. Here the resurrection rises up in man's conscience, and the grinding war breaks out between the knowledge he wishes he might be and the ignorance that, in the end, he is. Here occurs the struggle between heaven and earth within man's very self — between the ideal toward which he strains in potency and the reality at which he arrives in act. Here the balance is upset, and man swerves from his divine source — and so pain comes to be. And is pain anything but a swerving from what ought to be?

By pain, in this context, I do not mean the sorrows of the spirit only; I mean the aches of the body as well, for pain is one thing, differing in degree, not in essence. And the spirit, with its secrets at once harmonious and discordant, is the source of pain in all its degrees. This is the philosophy of pain.

But pain is a means, not an end, and man's mission is to lighten the weight of this means. Hence we see life — which is in its origin justice and equilibrium — bringing healing as the contrary of pain, and consolation. God drew forth from pain itself a cause for the bursting forth of its contrary, and He willed to overcome it by life as well; so He poured into woman's heart something of this contrary — and there was the nurse! And in her were the meanings of contentment, and patience, and faith.

Yes, woman's heart has proved stronger than man's in nursing, because she is a believer, and it is faith that restores life to the face of the sick. Life found no gleam save in the light of her eyes, and virtue no substance save in her patience and tenderness; so her smile came to contend with the darkness of pain, and her hand upon the sick came as God's healing hand, which lessens pains and increases joy. Her heart came as a proof of divine mercy. Every hand that labors to lighten pains from humanity writes, in ink of starlight, the greater human history.

Yet the wonder of all wonders is that the history of humanity should halt at its bloody wars and its chameleon treaties. Perish man — how false he is! Is there not, in this disfigurement of true history, the conclusive proof that a ravening beast lurks within man? Is this history — the history of destruction and devastation — that which shows man forth as divine clay? Is this the history that gladdens the soul and makes it trust in life? Upon my life, how many minds has this history corrupted, leading people astray from the straight path!

No — humanity's greater history is not written by the fangs of swords and the teeth of spearheads. That is the history of men's ambitions, and it is fixed to the earth, because it is of the sons of the earth. Humanity's greater history belongs to what lies beyond the earth. It is the history of those who labor to lighten humanity's aches. It is a scripture of works of mercy that are not measured by size, nor weighed by quantity, nor drummed and trumpeted for. The suffering are the matter of this greater history. And the consolers — who light the lamps of knowledge, satisfy the hunger of the poor, and lighten the nightmare of pains — these are its builders. Yes, these are its silent heroes and its blessed sons. Blessed are they, for they enter it by a lawful door. Blessed are they, for they bend the world to the wise Will, and from behind them shines forth the perfect divine utterance.