I noticed in the newspaper yesterday an article about a strong new painkiller that is being developed. The worry is that its availability will also bring even more drug abuse.
The question that hit me is this: “Why are we in so much pain?”
What it is about our lives that drives the need for continual development and misuse of pain relief meds? I am not talking here about the legitimate use of such things–there are diseases and accidents that leave people in horrendous pain. I’m grateful for relief that comes with different meds.
No, I’m talking about the psychic, emotional pain that so many carry around that drives addiction to narcotics like this. This kind of pain scares us and sends us running for relief. Relief can be drugs, food, TV, exercise, work–anything that masks the pain of feeling fully the realities of our lives.
Is this just the human condition? Or is there something much, much deeper going on? Could it have something to do with the anguish that comes from living so separately from the Holy One? That growing chasm between our creation as image-bearers of the face of God and our lives, too often driven only by life-sucking animalistic passions, could be the cause.
Just my thoughts I as face the chaos of my desk, determined to face my pain of the ever present tendency to procrastinate over my paperwork.
Sigh. I am indeed my mother’s daughter.
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