The Wonderful and the Terrible
Can You be Happy and Sad at the Same Time?
Why is it difficult for Jimmy Mellado to shop at the local grocery store? The head of Compassion International, a hunger relief organization for children, Mellado experiences the juxtaposition of poverty and abundance firsthand, but he knows how to keep these realities together. On a recent podcast titled “A Tale of Two Worlds” he describes his struggle of seeing the reality of extreme poverty overseas and lavish abundance at home. He provides a transferable lesson to other opposites like friends and enemies and the pure and the sordid in the people we know, including ourselves.
Mellado’s solution is simple but not simplistic. Simplistic thinking resolves the tension of opposites by avoiding situations that arouse discomfort. It’s uncomfortable living with the extremes of joy and sorrow, good and bad, friend and foe. Humans are adept at minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure. It’s common to push away one extreme feeling or another, huddle with like-minded people, cast those we disagree with into far-flung corners, or demonize the other, all to decrease the tension of living with painful realities of life. A simple—but profoundly challenging—solution is to feel the pain of knowing opposites. Mellado proposes that knowing the juxtaposition of extreme poverty and opulence is important for our character and for finding solutions. His organization is a powerful example of engaging in effective solutions to combat poverty. How do you process in your soul the pain that comes from knowing things that are not so great? Look to people who are practiced in this art.
Professor and author Kate Bowler is such a person. When she learns she has incurable cancer in her mid-thirties, she writes a memoir I return to again and again. There and elsewhere, she underscores the coexistence of “the wonderful and the terrible, the gorgeous and the tragic” offering this snapshot:
“I am beginning to believe that these opposites do not cancel each other out. I see a middle-aged woman in the waiting room of the cancer clinic, her arms wrapped around the frail frame of her son. She squeezes him tightly, oblivious to the way he looks down at her sheepishly. He laughs after a minute, a hostage to her impervious love. Joy persists somehow and I soak it in. The horror of cancer has made everything seem like it is painted in bright colors. I think the same thoughts again and again: Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard” (Bowler, 123).
It’s not only more real to embrace the juxtapositions of life, but it is also more blessed to do so. When we compartmentalize the wonderful and the terrible, delaying our happiness until the terrible goes away, we pursue a vapid course of action. A commonly promoted parenting myth is “I’m only as happy as my saddest child.” Every parent understands this statement. Our hearts are intricately woven together with our child’s heart, and the bond never dissolves, no matter the pain. It is a falsehood, however, to believe the myth that we can only be happy once the terrible is gone. There’s a remedy in breathing in both these realities at the same time, of allowing them to take up space in our lives. We can find happiness amid deprivation, sorrow, and pain.
It’s also like that with the people we know. I think the world of someone until I get to know him or her more and the flaws are revealed. Perhaps a person hurts me deeply and I want to write that person off to ease the pain, but the pain doesn’t go away. First thing in the morning it ambushes me and creeps in throughout the day. I feel like I can’t cope with the hurt. Then it dawns on me that my heart can feel pain and joy at the same time.
I marvel that the same lungs that breathe in a fragrant rose exhale a heavy sigh of sadness. The same ears that hear a merry fountain perceive a looming portent. The same heart that springs grateful for life’s pleasures is also a broken heart. Our hearts and minds are capable of more than we think. When we put them to the test by allowing the juxtapositions room to be, we discover a capacity for joy amid pain where the poor in spirit become the blessed.
Keeping together the wonderful and terrible helps me endure hardship and find joy. Joy resides in the resistance of all or nothing thinking—making people all good or all bad—and living with the tension of good and bad in a person, knowing that this is part of the same person, knowing this is true of me as well. I can affirm, “You are more than the hurt you’re causing me.” You are loved and valued by God and by me. Mellado points out that once we gain God’s eyesight—God sees the bad and the good—we are better able to cope with the darkness and find joy. This joy amid the terrible keeps the terrible from wearing us out.
Embracing the wonderful and the terrible is not only an individual pursuit; it’s a community pursuit. Like Alexander in the children’s book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, we discover that some days are like this for other people. We are not alone. Vast networks of people living with opposites offer hope and strength for us on the fraught and free journey of life.
Source cited:
Bowler, Kate. Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved. Random House, 2018.