Blog 3386 – 02.09.2025

The Purpose Of Pain

About fifty-nine years ago when I was a sophomore in high school and a young poet, I was inspired to write a few lines that I still recall:

The Purpose Of Pain

The purpose of pain as I see it,

All toll of one heart torn,

Is to be by it made more tender,

Each dying rose to mourn.

What does a fifteen or sixteen year old know of pain or anything much you might ask. Well even at that young age I knew what I still believed to be true, that one of the most horrendous and hurtful pains one can experience in a lifetime is the heartache of rejection. They say you never forget your first love and the same is sadly true of that first heart ache.

This morning I woke up with an excruciating head ache. I get them occasionally from sleeping crooked on my pillow over night. The neck-pain is the root cause of a sick headache that usually is abated by putting a heat pad on my shoulders. Sometimes even that does not bring relief and I just end up waiting out the pain.

That is what I am doing this morning. It is my philosophy regarding life that we only have too options:

To win some

Or too learn some

Pain, not being a winner, is therefore always an educational opportunity. When there is nothing else to learn from pain, and there often is, pain helps us to become more sensitive and compassionate to the pain of others. As the lyrics of todays song, How Does A Moment Last Forever, express so well:

The idea of eternal pain that some says was invented by Pope Gregory to keep his parishioners in line is a bogus a bad idea. There is great comfort especially when we are in pain in the words, “This too shall pass.”

Head aches and heartache are not meant to last and only come to pass. But thankfully there are some wonderful moments that can indeed last forever.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zRodvt6wJfGiPuNEWrgHBGf7J30Pv_X1/view?usp=drivesdk

How Does A Moment Last Forever