Friday 3 July 2015

Beautiful Suffering

So a while back I heard the phrase somewhere 'beautifully suffered' and it really struck a chord in my head. 
What is beautiful suffering? 
What causes it? 
How do you suffer beautifully? 

One night, when I just kept thinking about this phrase I'd heard somewhere, I wrote this: 


How does one beautifully suffer? 

Is it like Jesus' suffering? 
His pain and anguish for us to live 
Forgiven and uncondemned. 

Or is it simply someone who is beautiful, 
Suffering? 

Or is it more? 

Like to suffering of grief 
At the loss of a loved one 
who was so brutally stolen 

Or the undeserved suffering of women, 
Raped and abused. 
Of those tortured by cowards and thieves of love, 
Simply for what they believe? 

The agony at losing a newly born child, 
Who was given no chance at life, 
The toys and daffodils lying untouched and neglected by the grave. 

The stab that reappears 
In every great achievement, 
Knowing that a buried parent will never share 
In the triumph and rejoicing. 

Or the knowledge that 
The one you long for 
Is yearning for another, 
Who is not you. 

Just what does it mean? 

I then asked my dad about the phrase and what he thought, and he told me that I had heard it from a poem by R S Thomas, called The Musician, if you were interested; 


A memory of Kreisler once:
At some recital in this same city,
The seats all taken, I found myself pushed
On to the stage with a few others,
So near that I could see the toil
Of his face muscles, a pulse like a moth
Fluttering under the fine skin
And the indelible veins of his smooth brow.
I could see, too, the twitching of the fingers,
Caught temporarily in art’s neurosis,
As we sat there or warmly applauded
This player who so beautifully suffered
For each of us upon his instrument.
So it must have been on Calvary
In the fiercer light of the thorns’ halo:
The men standing by and that one figure,
The hands bleeding, the mind bruised but calm,
Making such music as lives still.
And no one daring to interrupt
Because it was himself that he played
And closer than all of them the God listened. 


I'm not sure if you can call what I've written a poem, but I enjoy writing out my thoughts and it helps me pick what I'm puzzled about apart. 

Keep smiling! :-) 

8 comments:

  1. This was a lovely post, and I especially like your poem (I'd definitely call it one!).
    I'd say that beautiful suffering is what Jesus did on Calvary: though he didn't deserve His pain, He still bore it. And He didn't simply bear it, He bore it with humility and, most importantly, love.


    Alexa
    thessalexa.blogspot.com
    verbositybookreviews.wordpress.com

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    1. Yes, exactly and I think it has a lot to do with how the pain is dealt with.
      And thank you so much!:-)
      Sharpie63

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  2. The post is amazing and interesting. The poems were beautiful. I think i can call it that because it reads like me. i have heard the phrase before and i think i understand it better now. The phrase itself is subjective and up to interpretation in any way. To me, it means a person who can stand being in pain and still willing to have hope.

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    1. Thank you so much! I really love the RS Thomas poem so much!
      Yes, it would mean different things to different people, especially those who have actually been through such things.
      Sharpie63 :-)

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  3. i nominated you for the creative blogger award! :)
    http://lissangels.blogspot.com/2015/07/creative-blogger-award.html

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    1. Oh my goodness, thank you so so much! :-)
      Sharpie63

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  4. This is most definitely a poem, and a beautiful one at that!

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