Shattered Universes

Reflecting on the rapidity with which your whole life can collapse (in the context of living in Stalinist Russia where you could be an average citizen one day and in the concentration camps the next), Solzhenitsyn says the following: “The Universe has as many different centers as there are living beings in it. Each of us is a center of the Universe, and that Universe is shattered when they hiss at you: ‘You are under arrest.'”

It was true for Solzhenitsyn who was called in from his post as an artillery officer on the front in WWII and arrested for making fun of Stalin in a letter to a friend. But it can equally happen when one hears the words “you have cancer,” or “your child has been in an accident,” or “I want a divorce.” You lived in one universe the moment before and you live in a completely different universe the moment after. How does one learn to live in a new universe?

“Old things pass away; behold, all things are become new.” This sounds good when the new is an improvement on the old. But what about when the new is devastating, when the new makes you wish longingly either for the old to return or for life to end?

What you don’t need is people telling you, “You’ll be okay,” or even “I know how you feel.” No, they don’t know how you feel. Because they aren’t you. And even if they have suffered similar loss, it doesn’t relieve your own suffering to realize, as everyone does, that others also suffer. It’s your universe that has shattered and you are the only person who understands it. And of course you yourself don’t “understand it” at all.

The only thing to do is to continue on without understanding. Understanding is a luxury that life (God) only gives here and there. It’s where Abraham was when he set out from home “not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11). Maybe it’s where Paul was when he prayed, unsuccessfully, to be freed from his “thorn in the flesh.” It’s where countless people have been, though knowing that doesn’t necessarily relieve the pain.

The best that can be said about Abraham and Paul and many others is that they still had a story to live by. That story doesn’t promise them freedom from loss or suffering. In fact it almost guarantees it. It simply offers the hope that this life is not pointless, including the parts that seem pointless indeed.

Paul Elie (as I think I mentioned in a previous post) defines pilgrimage as “a journey undertaken in the light of a story.” That story needs to have a place for shattering experiences. It needs to be bigger than life and death. When your universe is shattered, continue your pilgrimage. Stick to a story that works in every universe—old or new.