The deeper part is to tell of pain, reconnect people to the suffering. This morning I wondered why this seems to reverberate through people so much. I think of the music of Phantom of the Opera and Evita—it is not just the deep thrum and beat, but the words and emotions, which seem to be dark. But it is not their darkness, not the pain and suffering itself that is there. The answer is partly in Meg Wheatley’s “People get hopeful whenever someone tells the truth.” There is a truth beneath this pain, suffering and truth. What? It is telling what life is really all about. Giving the idea that if you do X, things will be happy ever after is not real. People want the real, the full engagement. That is one. The pain has a way of pulling something common out of both the person in pain and the person observing him or her. What is this common string? That is two. Somehow the pain and suffering cut us to the quick, removing the shields and image we try to convey in more commercial moments. That is three. It does not have to be negative, but at least in these days it is in tragedy that we drop our masks, roll up our sleeves, and show our hearts. That is four. How could it be positive? That is what I have seen in Open Space—people talking of what matters and how to get there. Often there is a pain beneath it—the pain of never having been heard before. That might be five. It is working toward something, working against odds, flexing our muscles against some resistance, that gives us hope. That is six. It is not getting in the driver’s seat, but getting moving under our own volition that gives strength—this is muscle and body wisdom. That is seven.
:- Doug.
