Claude AnShin Thomas suffered for years from the trauma of war as a Vietnam combat veteran. A retreat with Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh set him on the path of mindfulness and healing. He is now a Zen Buddhist monk. He recounts his story: I suffer from a disturbed sleep pattern that has been a part of my life since a nighttime attack in Vietnam in 1967. Since that time, I haven’t slept for more than two consecutive hours in any one night. . . . My sleeplessness became the central symbol of my not-all-rightness, of my deepest fears that I would never be all right. . . . Part of the reason I had difficulty sleeping was because of my night terrors: the sounds of artillery (that isn’t there) firing in the distance, of helicopters on assault, that special look of everything illuminated by artificial light, the sounds of small arms fire, of the wounded screaming for a medic. For me, this is what rises up out of the silence that is special to night. I hated the sun going down. I fought and struggled with my inability to sleep, and the more I fought, the more difficult the nights became. So I turned to alcohol and drugs (legal and illegal) for relief, but my suffering just got worse. . . . Some years after getting sober, I was standing at the kitchen sink in my cottage in Concord, washing dishes. Above the sink was a window through which I could see a row of fifty-foot-tall pine trees that lined the driveway. That day as I did the dishes, I was watching a squirrel busy doing whatever it is that squirrels do, when I had a powerful experience. A voice inside me, the voice of awareness, said to me, “You can’t sleep, so now what?” I began to laugh. It was a moment of complete acceptance. I finally understood that I just was how I was. To resist, to fight, to attempt to alter the essential nature of my life, was in fact making matters worse, and now I understood that I simply needed to learn how to live with the reality of who I was. In this moment I discovered that it was here, in the midst of suffering and confusion, that healing and transformation can take place, if I can stop trying to escape. But I’m not special, you know. You can do this, too. You can face your own sorrow, your own wounds. You can stop wanting some other life, some other past, some other reality. You can stop fighting against the truth of yourself and, breathing in and breathing out, open to your own experience. You can just feel whatever is there, exploring it, until you also discover the liberation that comes with stopping the struggle and becoming fully present in your own life. This is the real path to peace and freedom. You could do this for yourself; you could do this for your family. Our whole world will benefit. What Do We Do with This Pain? We have heard the word trauma a lot in the last thirty years or more. I am not sure if it is happening more, or if we finally have a word to describe what has probably always been happening. When we examine history, we know that there has scarcely been a time period, community, or country which did not regularly experience war, famine, torture, families separated by death or distance, relentless injustice against which people felt powerless, domestic violence, sexual abuse, imprisonment, natural disasters, disease, even wholesale enslavement, persecution, and genocide. All of these are emotionally traumatic for the human psyche; such memories are held in the body itself—so much so that, in many cases, the mind cannot remember the trauma until years later. Reflecting on trauma has made me think that much of the human race must have suffered from what we now call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It is heartbreaking to imagine, but it gives me much more sympathy for the human person caught in repeated cycles of historical violence. Could this be what mythology means by “the sacred wound” and the church describes as “original sin,” which was not something we did, but the effects of something that was done to us? I believe it is. If religion cannot find a meaning for human suffering, humanity is in major trouble. All healthy religion shows us what to do with our pain. Great religion shows us what to do with the absurd, the tragic, the traumatic, the nonsensical, the unjust. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. It’s no surprise that the Christian logo became a naked, bleeding, suffering man. What do we do with this pain, this sadness, this disappointment, this absurdity? At the end of life, and probably at the beginning of life, too, that is the question. When I led men in rites of passage, this was the biggest question for the largest percentage of those in the middle of life: what do we do with what has already happened to us? How do we keep from the need to blame, to punish, to accuse, to sit on Job’s eternal dung heap and pick at our sores (Job 2:8)? It seems to me that too high a percentage of humanity ends up there. It is no wonder that Jesus teaches so much about forgiveness, and shares so much healing touch and talk. He does not resort to the usual moral categories, punishment practices, the frequent blame, or the simplistic sin language of most early-stage religious people. That is why he is such a huge spiritual master. Christians almost avoided seeing this by too glibly calling him “God.” He offers everything to us for our own transformation—everything! Not to change others but to change ourselves. Jesus never “cancels” other people or groups. As I wrote in the most recent edition of our biannual literary journal Oneing, this much is all I am equipped to say. This week, let my friends now take it further. _____________________________________________ May 3 MORNING YOU CANNOT SERVE TWO MASTERS . If I am truly your Master, you will desire to please Me above all others. If pleasing people is your goal, you will be enslaved to them. People can be harsh taskmasters when you give them this power over you. If I am the Master of your life, I will also be your First Love. Your serving Me is rooted and grounded in My vast, unconditional Love for you. The lower you bow down before Me, the higher I lift you up into intimate relationship with Me. The Joy of living in My Presence outshines all other pleasures. I want you to reflect My joyous Light by living in increasing intimacy with Me. MATTHEW 6:24; No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. REVELATION 2:4; Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. EPHESIANS 3:16–17; That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, PSALM 16:11 You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional (Jesus Calling®) (p. 256). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

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