Review: The End of Suffering

The End of Suffering

By Scott Cairns
Paraclete Press, 2009
126 pages
$19.99

Reviewed by Julie Lane-Gay

Everytime something catastrophic happens, like the recent earthquakes in Haiti or Chile, I’m catapulted back to reconstructing my own thinking on suffering. How can I make sense of this awfulness? What do I do with it? Where is God’s mercy? I race to the letters from Peter to the persecuted Roman Christians, to Lewis’s The Problem of Pain, to Sittsers’ A Grace Disguised. Most recently I holed up with poet Scott Cairns’ slim new volume, The End of Suffering: Finding Purpose in Pain.

The End of Suffering is a hybrid –a personal theological inquiry – written in a humble, conversational tone. It is neither textbook nor memoir. It doesn’t cover every topic and it doesn’t go deep. Instead, this is a thoughtful man’s eloquent reflection on why suffering happens and one tack Christians might take to grapple with this conundrum. Cairns looks at suffering that occurs on both a global and a personal scale, suffering that falls on the foolhardy and on the careful. He holds these dilemmas up to the light, trying to gain not only comfort but also a more enduring perspective.

Scott Cairns is a renowned poet, professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Missouri. In Canada, he has taught poetry at Regent College’s summer school. Cairns is also a convert from the Baptist tradition to the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some readers may feel The End of Suffering is really his understated apologetic for the value of his adopted tradition. More accurately, Cairns is probably holding up his own perplexity with suffering to the light of Orthodox tradition and parsing its answers and perspectives. Cairns clearly loves his new theological and liturgical home, and for readers it is a treat to be offered the wisdom of old monks filtered through a poet’s sensibilities.

Cairns approaches his topic– theodicy – by investigating how suffering wakes us up, gives us clarity (about both our messes and about our way out of them), unifies us and even can begin to change us and heal us. He doesn’t skip the hard parts – the wrenching pain that sinks individuals and whole nations – but he doesn’t profess to wholly solve them, either. Cairns looks at some less common answers. He starts by showing us the underside of self-esteem – the transformation of pride into a virtue. As a poet he ponders how the arts might be useful in our acceptance of mystery, how we can engage in things we simply cannot understand. Cairns looks at the frequent remaking of our church traditions to suit our own tastes. Looking at these less-often considered routes to understand suffering is surprisingly helpful. At the very least it helps us understand what messes we have brought to the dilemma.

Even with such useful chapters, the real contribution of this small volume is Cairns’ emphasis on suffering and healing – our own and the world’s – as something we do together. In an understated way, The End of Suffering is an elegant apology for the church, for working out our salvation in community. Cairns explains, “I see more vividly how we are called to work out this perplexing business together and I see that faith is not something that can be both solitary and healthy” (pp. 77-78). While Cairns’ own experience has no doubt been blessed and informed by his time with the Eastern Orthodox monks, he sees the need as a holistic one.

According to Cairns, engaging in this lifelong act together gathers the wisdom of our joint history. In the end, suffering comes from not being together – from being at odds with one another – in our own homes and on the face of the earth. Cairns explains, “our deepest consolation lies in consciously experiencing our mystical membership in the Body of Christ.” Evangelicals in particular tend to look at sin individualistically, but as Cairns insists:

 Your sin is not only about you, either. Every choice that separates us from communion with God and every decision that clouds our awareness of his presence or erodes our relationships with one another has a profound and expanding effect – as the proverbial ripples in the pool.” (p.62)

Some will feel that The End of Suffering is too much of a poet’s ramblings, without enough practical information, or depth. Some may feel there are too many quotes from the Orthodox Church Fathers. These frustrations would be poor reasons to skip the book. Cairns’ quiet offering is an excellent addition to tomes on suffering, contributing thoughtful concern, questions and answers. In a world like ours, I will undoubtedly need to read it again, but maybe next time I can read it in the fine company of my church community.