Cracked Open: Suffering, Deconstruction, and the Birth of Wisdom

Lawrence R. Taylor, PhD

There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.

—Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

It is quite possible to live our lives sailing on the surface of the sea, unaware of the splendid, awe-inspiring, mysterious depths.

We enter the world laden with the blessings and baggage of family, clan, and culture. As we grow, we naturally take on the expectations of the people and institutions around us. We develop personae. We must.

Personae are masks we put on or roles we play to be accepted, to fit in: daughter, son, sibling, grandchild, friend, student, shy, happy, athletic, musical, smart, cute, studious, class clown … and so on. As we enter adulthood, we don the mask of go-getter, sales rep, grad student, teacher, mechanic, or writer. A bit later, many of us put on spouse and parent; and still later, parental caretaker. All of this is natural, good, and necessary.

We become defined by those personae. If asked who we are, we respond with, George’s partner, Heather’s dad, nurse, landscaper, doctor, lawyer, administrator. In other words, we define ourselves by what we do and with whom we are connected. The majority of people continue like that until they die. At the funeral, relatives and friends speak of our accomplishments, careers, hobbies, and personalities. None of that is wrong. It is, however, superficial. We remain disconnected from wisdom, spirituality, and our authentic selves.

We live as human doings rather than human beings.

Under those personae, our necessary masks, lies the shadow self. That is the part of us that we can’t see. It may be good or bad. Maybe I can’t see my talents. Maybe I don’t want to see my short-temperedness. Intimate others can often see the things in my shadow self. That’s why I need an honest, wise companion or two – someone to hold a mirror to my perceptions so I can discover who I really am. Shadow work is lifelong. We never fully “arrive,” but we make progress if we are open, teachable, and humble.

The world has always needed wise spiritual elders. They are our guides into Truth and Wisdom. They are authentically, deeply connected to the Source of life, grounded in the metaphysical reality of being. Some are the poets, philosophers, or saints. Most are quiet, little known, gentle people of profound depth. They carry a sense of deep wellbeing, shalom, a calming presence, and a profound love for all people and the natural world. They are nonjudgmental, accepting, and deeply empathetic. They carry the wounded on their hearts. Most are getting along in years, but you can’t recognize them by their chronological age. Some are old souls in young bodies. They are always contemplative but never disconnected from suffering. They embrace those on society’s margins. They may or may not be religious in the institutional sense. All are spiritual.

Why do only some people make the shift into Wisdom? Why are most content with so-called “normal life?” I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that it is impossible to shift into the pursuit of deep wisdom without suffering. Suffering doesn’t guarantee wisdom. Suffering can leave you cynical, hardened, bitter and angry, or filled with self-pity, sadness, or depression.

In order for suffering to usher us into Wisdom, we must embrace it. Across traditions, this truth has been named with striking consistency.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

—Rumi, Selected Poems, trans. Coleman Barks et al. (Penguin, 2004)

This is what the Apostle Paul gestures toward when he exhorts believers to “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NRSVUE)

We are not happy about suffering. Suffering is painful, whether it be our own physical suffering, the agony of losing a loved one, or empathetically and vicariously absorbing some of the world’s pain. No one makes the shift from “normal life” to the path of deep wisdom until some deep hurt happens. When it does – if we open the door of our hearts allowing the heartbreak to break us open – we find these new house guests to be at first destructive. We will later recognize them as gifts from beyond.

Here I am speaking of deep suffering – a family ripped apart by divorce, domestic violence, a murder, the death of a child or spouse, the suicide of your best friend, a life-threatening diagnosis or severe injury, severe depression, existential angst.

The wounded, broken-open, suffering person plunges into a long season of deconstruction. That word is overused, often to the point of meaninglessness; nevertheless, it is applicable. To deconstruct is not simply to tear down. To deconstruct is to dissect, analyze, to break down into parts in order to examine and understand. Deconstruction, rightly understood, is not nihilism but discernment.

Wise people don’t just throw everything they’ve learned out the window. Instead, they take a closer look, analyze, determine what is solid and valuable and what is worn and no longer useful. The Japanese Kintsugi Master doesn’t throw out the shards but rather repairs broken heirloom pottery with urushi lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. 

terraemotu doloris comminuta

Shattered by an earthquake of suffering,

life splintered into shards of despair and angst

Tidy religiophilosophical belief systems  

Scattered like shavings on the sculptor’s floor

The vessel that he was now useless

Exhausted dreams swept up and

Imprisoned in the dustbin, forgotten

Centuries later silent Kintsugi Master

Breathes away the dust and contemplates

With tender care and patience; the Master

Mixes urushi lacquer gently dusted with gold

Sets to work on the eternal process of

Accentuating sorrow and grief, loneliness and pain

Creating a masterpiece of Love. (LRT)

The tidy structure we built around us as we grew into adulthood is no longer adequate to hold this suffering. The mortar of our foundations has been liquefied by the earthquake of distress. Profound suffering brings profound questions – Why am I here? Does life have a purpose? Why is there so much suffering in the universe? What do I really believe? Is there a God? If so, what is God like? What if God is a monster?

The masks, the personae, drop away. The once adequate structure crumbles. Who cares that I spent years building a successful business when I’m standing over my child’s grave? I am, thanks to suffering, in a deep existential crisis, filled with angst. Religious platitudes are not only empty – they are hurtful. The universe is cold, harsh, empty. My friends mean well, but having not suffered like I am, they contribute little solace.

And a song I was writing is left undone 

I don't know why I spend my time 

Writing songs I can't believe 

With words that tear and strain to rhyme

So you see, I have come to doubt 

All that I once held as true 

I stand alone without beliefs 

The only truth I know is you

And as I watch the drops of rain 

Weave their weary paths and die 

I know that I am like the rain 

There but for the grace of you, go I

—Paul Simon, “Kathy’s Song” (1965)

Suffering is always lonely. No one is exactly like you. No one has experienced exactly what you are experiencing. A few – one of those wise elders if they have suffered similarly – can carry your pain and walk with you, but the struggle for meaning is yours alone.

We do not look for suffering. We instinctively and rightfully do whatever we can to avoid it. Yet it comes. When it does, we face a choice – bar the door, harden our hearts, grit our teeth, and march on with a combination of bravado and denial; or allow our hearts to break open, embrace the suffering in humility, and enter the thick mysterious cloud of unknowing. The former choice risks leaving us dulled, diminished, only partially alive. The latter leads to Wisdom.

Those house guests of Rumi’s dismantle my hopes, my belief system, my philosophy of life, the theology I’ve held so dear. My world is turned upside-down. My foundations have washed away like a seawall in a hurricane. My world collapses. I feel like I’m going insane. I rant and rave at the universe. I become the figure in Edvard Munch’s The Scream. This is what I mean by “deconstruction.” It is much more than just a shift in beliefs or joining a different faith community. Most of us cannot navigate this kind of loss without in-depth analytic therapy combined with the companionship of a wise spiritual elder. Deconstruction is long and painful. I am stripped and alone.

But then. Those houseguests we dreaded who seemed so intent on tearing things apart show themselves as the gifts they are. The phoenix rises out of the ashes. A green shoot emerges from the old stump. God sculptssuffering towards good. Resurrection happens. My old belief systems are replaced by newer, truer ones. I no longer need definitive answers. My world is no longer cut and dry, black and white. I understand much less. Yet, I am wiser. I discover God in the dark cloud and blazing fire. I am increasingly comfortable with mystery. I am far less inclined to be dogmatic or judgmental. Kindness surges in my breast. Daily, I am present to the presence of Love. Hokhmah, Lady Wisdom in the Hebrew Scriptures, Sophia to the Greeks, is my companion. My life becomes settled, quiet, content. Ambition, success, recognition are now meaningless. I find it hard to believe I wasted so much time pursuing them. My days are split between contemplation and service.

Contemplation, centered meditative prayer focused on the Divine, is balanced by practical service to those Jesus referred to as the least of his siblings (Matthew 25) – the poor, sick, displaced, homeless, and incarcerated. I see Christ in their faces. With my heart cracked open, I can love. I love God. I love myself. I love others – all others, including enemies. I love creation, the natural universe and all its fauna and flora.

I do not travel this path alone. Conversely, I do so in community with wiser elders and peers. This is a journey that never ends. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–394 CE) spoke of epektasis, meaning an endless progress into God. God is infinite, so we will never know all there is to know or experience all there is to experience in God. The joy lies not in arrival but in endless becoming.

Invariably, as we reconstruct, as we journey into Wisdom, we discover God. Not the god of our youth, nor the god of this or that religious system, but the true God who is Love. We are filled and encompassed by unconditional love.

In Ephesians 3:18–19, St. Paul prays “that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

How can we know the unknowable? How can we plumb infinite depths? St. Gregory gives us epektasis: perpetual desire for more of God, eternal transformation, never-ending growth “from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18)—an eternity of continual learning, expanding, and being filled, yet always yearning for more.

On another Sabbath he (Jesus) entered the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. … and he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come and stand in the middle.” He got up and stood there. Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?”  After looking around at all of them, he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was restored. (Luke 6:6-11 NRSVUE)

God who loves me, daily stretch my withered heart a bit more; expand my capacity to love and be loved. Amen.