Never waste the pain

By Keiralee Friesen and ChristianWeek | July 28, 2010

Books on suffering are plenty, from the intimate journals of those who have loved and lost, to scholarly, detached essays on the purpose and meaning of universal affliction. In Scott Cairns' The End of Suffering, we are given a work that encompasses both modes of exploration, delving into the emotional, philosophical and practical meanings and outcomes of pain.

Cairns draws from a body of work that is deep and wide: studying Scripture, poets such as Emily Dickinson and W.H. Auden, Russian writers and 14th-century saints to see what they had to say about suffering. He wades through Greek vocabulary the early church fathers and mothers would have been familiar with and examines news stories from around the globe, all to explore the purpose of suffering, as well as looking forward to a time when suffering will end.

This book makes you feel the necessity of community. Cairns explores the concept of "One Body," the body of Christ, the pairing of love and affliction and our role in bearing one another's burdens. Our suffering is inextricably linked with the suffering of Christ.

Another chapter looks at our culpability in the fallen state of the world and how we deal with it, the consequence of the freedom of God and creation and the mysterious intimacy we share, whether we like it or not, simply by being neighbours on this planet of ours.

Cairns doesn't shy away from hard questions or hard truths, but neither does he spell out the answers, only sets the stage for further exploration. No pain, it seems, is too great or too small to shape us. He uses well-thought out meditations on salvation, prayer and Lent, to illustrate the transformative properties of suffering. This book is a challenge issued to us to wake up, to use our afflictions wisely so that pain is never wasted.

Scholarly and compact, this book leaves you with the impression you've just sat through a class with a beloved professor, one who teaches from both the head and the heart.