Where Our Deep Sadness and the World’s Deep Hunger Meet
Photo by Marcelo Leal on Unsplash
This is an excerpt of an article written by Church Anew contributor, Dr. Deanna A. Thompson. You can read the full article on the Christian Century website here.
In spring 2009, I taught what I thought was going to be my last class ever. The mysterious breaking of two vertebrae in my back had led to a stage IV cancer diagnosis, and the year had begun with me resigning from virtually every aspect of my life. I went on sabbatical the following fall, intending to try to bring closure to my life before it ended.
Instead of dying, however, I went into my first remission. I’m not naturally an anxious person, but life-threatening illness can mess with one’s equilibrium. As my sabbatical came to an end, I didn’t know if I could handle returning to teaching. What if I signed back up for life only to have to resign from it all again?
Stanford neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi, author of the heartbreakingly beautiful book When Breath Becomes Air, lived just a few years after his diagnosis with incurable cancer. In that short period of time, he too went into remission and gained back much of his strength. His oncologist suggested he go back to working as a neurosurgeon. When he reminded his doctor he was dying, she responded, “True. But you’re not dying today.”
Of course, we’re all dying. But some of us know this more acutely than others. When that’s the case, it can be really hard to opt back into the life you’ve already had to opt out of. What does it mean to integrate trauma and death into our lives, even to make it part of our vocation, to figure out ways to go on?
In conversations about vocation, Christians often refer to Frederick Buechner’s observation in his book Wishful Thinking: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” This has been a sweet spot for many of us who have come to see our calling as the place where our passions, our joy, and our gifts can be put to work in service of the suffering and needs of the world. But now, in my fourth remission living with incurable cancer, I know that conversations about vocation must also make space for the deep sadnesses that fill our lives. Our grief, too, can and does intersect with the world’s hunger.
We don’t talk of vocation in terms of sadness, perhaps because we often lack the language to talk about what we’ve been through and how our bodies respond in divergent ways to traumatic events. Theologian Shelly Rambo defines trauma as “the suffering that remains.” I like this definition because it extends the language of trauma to those without a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, a disorder that can be debilitating and life-threatening. Invoking this language can open up ways for people without PTSD to talk about their deep sadness and how it relates to their sense of meaning and place in the world.
Copyright © 2022 by the Christian Century. “Where our deep sadness and the world’s deep hunger meet” by Deanna A. Thompson is excerpted by permission from the July 13, 2022 issue of the Christian Century. To read the full article, click here.
Dr. Deanna A. Thompson
Dr. Deanna A. Thompson is an author, speaker, and the Director of the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community and the Martin E. Marty Regents Chair of Religion and the Academy at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Thompson’s writing and speaking covers on topics ranging from Martin Luther and feminism, scriptural interpretation (Deuteronomy in particular), cancer and faith, and being the church in the digital age. When she’s not writing, speaking, or teaching, Thompson can be found hiking in a national park with her husband and two children.
Website | deannaathompson.com
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