Stoic

 

We are the silent sufferers; the ones’ who never complain.

Brave and alone we are to endure, whatever the problem be.

“Oh, he never cried.”  They all would say, though he was in great pain.  “He kept a happy face. He seemed never to fret”.

Is this some kind of virtue, like honesty and love?
Are we to embrace pain and hide it from our friends?

This, we are told from an age quite young.

“Big boys don’t cry,” every young lad is reminded when after falling off the bike, a broken arm has made.

“Don’t be a ninny. Be strong Instead”; a message that even girls are told.

That, they say, is what it means to be an adult.

“Keep moving, don’t give up, nor give in. Fight to the end, true and bold”.

Has this become our mantra?

 

But, what if this is all a fancy façade, a way to pretend that we are tough?

Lo, our pain is real, whatever the cause. Should we keep it to ourselves and not let the world in?

 

Remember childlike innocence, when you said what you meant. If we were in pain, others were told. We did not keep it to ourselves. That was honest. That was real.

Ah, but we are adults. We are not to act like “little kids” full of emotion and strife. Instead we are chastised to be strong and composed, to remain above the fray.

And yet. . .  On a sacred day long ago, the Man-God was sentenced to die. On a cross he hung, vulnerable and alone. His life was to end, though his mission was peace, ahead only violence lay.

On at cross, in the midst of that pain, in the presence of that rejection, he cried as below the people gathered. “Why have you forsaken me”? He wailed. Yeah, he was not composed, neither was he singing or smiling the day away.

 

Earlier he had cried when his good friend died. Later he shed tears of blood when, in the garden he waited for that which was to come.

 

There was something real in his sorrow. This was not one who stoically endured.

He was not afraid of emotion. He showed anger as well as love. He was both tender and strong. He was full of passion.

 

Passion is the opposite of stoic. Is that not who we really are?

When I am in pain, I cry. When I am angry I get mad. These are just emotions. They are not to be ignored, though they ought to be tamed.

 

Are we the silent sufferers? Are we the stoic and brave?

Or do we tremble with fear and yell out in pain?

Be strong and be open also

Embrace passion just as The Passionate One embraced us