Joshua Minden (00:02):

Welcome back to another episode of Stories & Other Things Holy! I'm really excited to share today's episode with you as it's one of the earliest episodes Terry and I recorded together. As such, you'll see a little different introduction before we dive into the story. Speaking of this week, Dr. Terry Nelson Johnson invites us to reflect on the paradoxical relationship between pain, suffering, and healing. I'm really excited to share this episode with you. So let's dive in together for another episode of Stories & Other Things Holy.

(00:30):

Bless us, oh Lord,

Terry Nelson-Johnson (00:37):

for these thy gifts,

Joshua Minden (00:39):

which we are receiving

Terry Nelson-Johnson (00:42):

From thy bounty

Joshua Minden (00:44):

Through Christ our Lord.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (00:46):

Amen.

Joshua Minden (00:47):

Amen. It's good to just stop every once in a while and just soak it in a little. Right?

Terry Nelson-Johnson (00:53):

You're not kidding.

Joshua Minden (00:57):

One of the points of this podcast is called Stories & Other Things Holy, and so stories are kind of at the heart of it.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (01:04):

Indeed.

Joshua Minden (01:06):

And so what we want to do is we want to, like you said, one of our first conversations. We kind of want to venerate the story. We want to let the story and the power that it contains and that it conveys be communicated and come through clearly, and then that way we can engage with it and reflect on it and do all the things that we do with a good story. After it's shifted down into our inner parts,

Terry Nelson-Johnson (01:35):

I feel like we're the host that the story is the guest and we're hosting the story. I really like that. And then the story becomes a meal. It's like a potluck, and the story brings most of the feast, and we're the recipients of that feast. And so our time together here is to just celebrate the nourishment of the story and share that feast with as many people as possible.

Joshua Minden (02:02):

I love it. Let's do that.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (02:04):

Okay.

(02:09):

Stories & Other Things Holy.

(02:12):

I love being ambushed by a story, a story that you totally didn't expect, and this one was one of those. I injured my Achilles, actually, I just told a story about it, so this could be like Achilles number two, and I was told that I could either have surgery, I could do physical therapy that would take about a year, or I could do physical therapy on steroids that would take about three to four months.

(02:42):

The caveat on the three to four month version was very painful, am going with steroid physical therapy. So I go in and I meet Peru and she takes out implements, and when you go to physical therapy and there's implements involved, that should give you some kind of clue, like, oh, and then she explained to me what she would need to do to enhance the healing of this achilles, and then she told me why it would be so physically taxing, and then she gave me a washcloth rolled up to put in my mouth, and then she said, if it's too much, let me know. I sort of pride myself on a high pain tolerance threshold, and we got very, very close to it, and I prayed God that this was actually contributing to healing, and I thought, I don't know, three months of this. I went home and I met my son in the basement and he was 20, and he was involved in a rehab program, which was very painful in its own.

(03:53):

It was drinking related. It was painful for all of us and significantly demanding for him. And he said, how was physical therapy? And I explained what I just told you, and he watched, he was at the very end of his therapeutic experience and he says to me after I explained what was transpiring, and I had especially communicated to him that Peru had told me what she was doing, why she was doing it and how it would contribute to healing and his succinct conclusion of the whole, my telling him all of that was, oh, so the pain was trustworthy. Then I'm standing in the presence of my 20-year-old son, and he says to me, oh, so the pain was trustworthy then. It's not like I understand the crucifix. I just work here. I normally wear Birkenstocks, but I immediately thought of the crucifix and I'm like, isn't that one of the things it tells us pain can be redemptive, so the pain is trustworthy that I still don't understand it. I just know that my 20-year-old son gave me this gift in the basement in his boxer shorts. Okay. And the reason he could say that is because he knew it because of his own experience.

(05:26):

Stories and Other Things Holy.

Joshua Minden (05:34):

The pain was trustworthy. I had to sit there for a second. It's like, what does that mean? It's like trustworthy, trustworthy, worthy of trust. I had to break it down and really think through how can pain be worthy of trust? I was like, oh, right. It's the kind of pain that is indicative of a change. If I'm not experiencing pain, nothing's changing. In that example of the therapy, if it wasn't hurting to some degree, then it wasn't contributing to your rehabilitation and always, it makes me think of five other stories that you often tell, which we won't do that now, but think of your masseuse.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (06:37):

Yes, Yes.

Joshua Minden (06:41):

But it makes me think of the wisdom that it takes to embrace that reality. It takes some maturity, no less it unpleasant pain.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (06:59):

Yeah.

Joshua Minden (07:00):

Ian talking out of his own experience of recovery, you out of your own rehabilitation, that pain isn't fun.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (07:08):

Yeah.

Joshua Minden (07:12):

I think it was early days of you and I sitting in spiritual direction. I think we both described it sitting in a waiting room at a dentist office. It's like that tooth is coming out one way or another. We sure are taking the long way around, but okay.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (07:31):

Yeah,

Joshua Minden (07:32):

And it wasn't fun.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (07:35):

No, it wasn't nice, but it was good.

Joshua Minden (07:37):

It was good.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (07:41):

Part of my response to it still is like, well, what do you know smarty pants? I mean, the kid is only 20 years old and I'm whatever in my mid forties, but there was something about the situation out of which he declared that wisdom and it was by whose authority? I love that notion. By whose authority do you say The pain was trustworthy,

(08:10):

And I think the authority was his own experience of navigating explicitly two or three months of pain associated with recovery and healing and then other kind of pain that proceeded getting to that point. So there's something about knowing of what you speak, and the danger with this, it seems to me is that it can so easily be perverted, like pain is good. Pain for pain's sake is good, that suffering should be celebrated, and it sort of goes to that notion of salvation associated with the suffering, the more suffering, the more salvation. It just, there's something so from my perspective, so not right about that,

(09:00):

Those stories about the seminarians doing discipline and sort of hitting themselves with the things so that they could identify with the suffering of Christ. And part of my thing is like, dude, the suffering's coming. You don't have to go and search for it. You know what I'm saying? I mean, there is suffering coming in our lives and the job of healthy religion seems to me is to give meaning to suffering. Not exclusively there's other jobs, but a significant part of the job is like is there any meaning in pain or should we just spend our lives avoiding it and getting Botox and having an extra glass of wine and trying to live a life without pain? And I just think pain is part of it, and so what do we do with it and can it be redemptive? Can pain lead to life? And if so, how? Sort of the core of this notion is, is it possible that pain is trustworthy and what makes it trustworthy? I think it's trustworthy. Partly it can serve life. Think about so many moments in our lives where we've changed, grown, navigated, so many of them have included some element of pain.

Joshua Minden (10:22):

I kind of have this image in my mind of grew up in a really old house when I was a kid, built like 1900 or something like that. And so as we lived in it, we renovated it and I think of an image of an old door in an old house and the foundation has shifted, and so the doors dragging on the floor

(10:48):

And the hinges have been painted and the latches have been painted and everything's kind of, so to get that door to move, even just to get it off the hinges, you've got to kind of work it. You're going put a rut in the, well, there's already a rut in the floor and you're going to put more of a rut in the floor. You're going to do a little more damage. That's not the point, but you're going have to work it, break loose some of that old paint, get it out of that rut so that you can get it moving so you can clean it up and put things back. It's kind of the image that comes to mind. It's not like, to your point, it's not about the pain itself, the pain's just a byproduct of is it letting go? Is it the parts of me that are holding on that and when Grace is inviting us to move or to change or to go where we haven't gone before?

Terry Nelson-Johnson (11:53):

Yeah. I thought of, when we talk about the Paschal mystery and talk about Good Friday in particular, one of the things we say is that Good Friday represents those moments in our lives when life demands that we surrender, relinquish, let go, those moments in our lives about which we say, this is not the way I expected it to be, or I can't do this anymore. To the extent that there's any truth in that, that means that suffering pain are part of renewal and growth. The way to get to Easter is to host Good Friday, not because we're bad, not because God wants to punish us, not because we have to prove anything. The nature of growth is to go from one place to another. We have to relinquish, let go surrender to get to the next Easter. We have to undergo Good Friday, and it's just so comforting to me to feel like, well, oh, that's part of our bigger story.

(12:59):

It's not all good Friday. Good Friday. It's not the only day. There's four days, but one of the days is Good Friday and it involves pain, relinquishing let go, and that language is so helpful for me. Oh, good Friday involves those times in our lives where we have to relinquish, let go, surrender. I had to go to kindergarten, I had to leave my mom. I had to stop playing one sport so I could play another. I had to say goodbye to a girlfriend who was great, but it wasn't working, had to stop pursuing a major because this isn't me. I had to tell the truth about being embarrassed. Whatever it is is those multitudeness good Fridays, and then I think one of the comforting elements of the Christian imagination is that there's no place you can go in the world of suffering that's foreign to God

(14:00):

In terms of the crucifixion and what it means. Not so much like, oh, there's a lot of blood and blah, blah, blah. It's not that it's, wait a minute, we are invited to imagine that we have a God that is not unfamiliar with suffering, with letting go, surrendering, relinquishing that God had to do good Friday, Jesus had to do good Friday, so we're in good company. Dude, there's a lot of us at the base of that cross and like, oh, okay, it feels more organic rather than impositional or some kind of dogmatic, you must suffer. No suffering is part of the package.

Joshua Minden (14:47):

I just love this idea that I was reading it, that passage in Philippians, the Philippian hymn where it talks about having not deeming equality with God, something to be grasped, but coming in the form of a man, and this idea, I heard it differently. I heard someone teaching on it and they were talking about the fact that all of the things that Jesus did while alive on earth, everyone he healed, everyone He touched everyone that was transformed in his presence in any number of ways that he didn't do any of that out of his own divinity, like the power that made that possible wasn't the power, his power as being part of God. It was He relinquished all of that, and so like us was participating in a power outside of himself, the Father, the rest of God. However you want to say that, I mean as if we're going to pretend we understand the Trinity, but it's like, and if you think you do, you don't

Terry Nelson-Johnson (15:58):

Tune in for podcast number 3018 on the Trinity or we will nail it.

Joshua Minden (16:06):

We will nail it. Yes. Oh, I love it, but this idea, and I don't know why, because this idea of Jesus letting go to your point, we emphasized the dying part, but Jesus let go from the day he was born, from the day he was conceived in his mother's womb. He let go to start the journey and every day was letting go.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (16:29):

Yeah, that's so good.

Joshua Minden (16:31):

From his first to his last,

Terry Nelson-Johnson (16:33):

It's the antithesis of, oh, easy for Jesus

Joshua Minden (16:38):

Was it.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (16:38):

He sort of suffered, but it wasn't really suffering because if that's true, then he's not a brother to us in the suffering and there's no authority in it. For me, the authority comes from, oh, no, no. Jesus suffered, underwent the same reality, the relinquished go surrender of all the people to say, this is not the way I expected it to be. Jesus is at the front of the class like, oh, excuse me, point of order. This is not the way I expected it to be. This is not the way that when I said the kingdom is here, I wasn't imagining it quite like this. Yeah, my marriage not like this. Of course, my vocation not like this, not the way I expected it to be. How am I going to get to Easter? Relinquish, surrender, let go, trust that Easter's coming and that in order to get to Easter, we undergo the invitation, the burden, the mystery of Good Friday, which involves suffering, so the pain is trustworthy.

(17:46):

Then I was thinking of the, I love that line from Buchner, the Protestant theologian, here is the world terrible and beautiful things will happen. Don't be afraid and you're like, excuse me, I got you. Terrible and beautiful things will happen. You got to confirm that, but the don't be afraid part, like what whatcha talking about, don't be afraid and it's sort of at the same thing. That pain is trustworthy because it's contextualized in love. It's not like isolated, just pain in and of itself is trustworthy. Life is trustworthy, love is trustworthy, and part of that is pain, and so it's contextualized, which is way different than just pain in and of itself. No, but if it's here's the world, terrible and beautiful things will happen. Don't be afraid. Be life is trustworthy, love is trustworthy, and the pain that's part of each of those is trustworthy.

Joshua Minden (18:54):

I always find myself in the situation when we have these conversations, cameras or otherwise, it's just like at a certain point I hit it like a, it's like, okay, I need to, I need to so soak in that for a while. I don't even know quite what to say. Like, Ooh,

Terry Nelson-Johnson (19:12):

Yeah, you're so good at that. It happens. You close your eyes and I do too. When I go down into that place of soul, of guts, of heart, of spirit, which somehow you identify with when something moves people they do, their hands go to this part of themselves, the chest cavity where those things presumably reside or at least in our imagination, reside our hearts, our guts, our soul, our spirit, and then we get quiet for a little bit. Take that deep breath and then pray.

(20:00):

Bless us the Lord

Joshua Minden (20:02):

And these thy gifts,

Terry Nelson-Johnson (20:05):

Which we have just received

Joshua Minden (20:08):

From your bounty

Terry Nelson-Johnson (20:10):

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Joshua Minden (20:17):

Thank you again for joining us for this episode of Stories & Other Things Holy. If you haven't already, I invite you to visit our website: StoriesAndOtherThingsHoly.com where you can sign up for our email newsletter and access previous episodes of the podcast. I also want to express my gratitude to all of you that have been sharing the podcast with your friends, family, and loved ones, whether that's forwarding the email newsletter or sharing the YouTube link to our weekly video or telling people about it through word of mouth. We do see an increase in interest and reach of the podcast week to week, and it's really exciting to know that more and more people are getting the opportunity to have encounters with the source of love through stories. That being said, we want to be able to continue to bring this podcast and cultivating this ground of encounter with the source of love, and so if you would be willing to consider becoming a supporting member of Stories & Other Things Holy, that would really empower the work that we're doing.

(21:23):

Through the platform, Buy Me A Coffee you can sign up for a recurring monthly membership at three different levels. You can set your own level or you can make a one-time gift to support Stories & Other Things Holy. If you'd rather support us directly versus going through Buy Me A Coffee, you can contact me by email: connect@otherthingsholy.com, and I'd be glad to talk to you about ways we can do that. Again, we are so thankful for all of the feedback, the support, the encouragement, the sharing that we have seen and received. It is a blessing and so we pray, God, that we may continue to share more Stories & Other Things Holy with each of you in the days to come. Thank you!