Some friends of mine have had some tough days over the past week. I’ll go out on a limb and say that you probably could say that about someone you know almost every week of the year. I won’t give specifics about the individuals, but they are suffering in ways that are simultaneously unique to their situations and common to us all. One of my friends lost a parent. Losing a loved one is universal and universally difficult. Another friend was betrayed by someone who they had trusted with everything. Betrayal is one of those trials that hurts deep down inside and at times can make us feel like we will never heal. I’ve had bad weeks too similar to these—we all have. For me, the most important thing that keeps me going during tough times is faith.

What is faith?

Faith is an interesting term, and it means different things to different people. The meaning of faith depends a lot on your own experiences in life. For me, it means hoping for something that I feel is real or that will be real sometime, but which I can’t see quite yet. Faith helps me to carry on even when life seems darkest.

I have written before of a few examples of ways that I think can help during difficult times.  These are just my own methods, and they have made a difference for me. But I think that there is one thing that helps all of us. At our core, in spite of anything we do to persist, we need an internal strength and power that can generate enough energy and motivation to win the struggle against the seemingly overwhelming difficulties of life. We need faith.

We need faith because we need to hope that the bad times will end. Faith helps us hope for good times that will be better than the bad. When we have faith, we can believe against the evidence of what we are seeing and feeling in the moment that the storm will one day pass on. When we have confidence that the sun will shine again, we can weather even the darkest tempest.

I have said this before, and I will repeat it here: I believe in God. For me, that is crucial to my faith. I realize there are many people that do not believe in God, and I respect them and their right to that opinion. I believe what I have to say still has value for them.

Why does life hurt?

This is probably a question that everyone asks themselves at one time or another. The question might be spurred by a personal difficulty. It might rise to the surface when you see someone else’s suffering that you feel is just not fair. You might ask when everything just seems like a little more than you think you deserve. And when those moments arise, you ask “why”?

If our life was simply an existence from one point to another, that is from birth to death, then I think the question of “why” becomes very difficult to comprehend. And if viewing life simply as that finite journey, it can become easy to let bitterness and frustration in.

In contrast, if you can look at your life as one with purpose, then I feel that some sense can be made. For those that believe in an afterlife, generally also those that believe in God, the answer comes in a different way, but I don’t think exclusively so.

I think all of us believe that we can make a difference during our existence. And not only that, we can individually become something more significant than we were at the start.

I feel strongly that all of us want to improve our character, be a more kind, loving, and generous person than maybe we are at the present time. When I wrote about Charlotte’s Web, I discussed some of the reasons why.

For various reasons, we feel a strong internal need to be more courageous, more reliable, more selfless. We would like to do more for the destitute. Whether we actually act is a different story, but the desire is in us. And this is how I answer the question “why does life hurt?”.

As with many of my life views, I have found truth from Victor Hugo’s writings. A habit of mine is quoting from Les Misérables, in this case the book. He wrote:

The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God

Hugo shared my version of faith in that he also had a belief in God. But if you take his conclusion of “finding God” to mean “becomes more like the ideal person we wish ourselves to be” then we can talk the same language, whether theistic or atheistic.

Misfortune, in Hugo’s words, or trials, in mine, serve a greater purpose than just suffering. They can transform us. Difficulties can help us grow in ways we never could have if everything were perfect all the time. I will say before I continue that this does not make the death of a loved one, betrayal by a close friend, loss of a home or a job, or a myriad of other difficulties any less painful.

What I do think, though, is that if we allow our faith to carry us through it and if we keep ourselves from becoming jaded by difficulties, whether ours or not, then we strengthen our character in a powerful way. And in doing this, we fulfill our internal yearning to become better than we were.

Faith can help us keep a perspective that our present but unpleasant experience is not merely misdirected pain and suffering. We can realize and understand that the difficulty simultaneously serves the purpose of changing us into better people. Faith can thereby give us the energy and strength to carry on. It’s a source of power to press onward.

When life does hurt, what can we do?

The answer to this question is twofold, I think. First, what about when our own life hurts? What do we do then? I wrote a little about that in my post on emotional health that I referenced earlier. Essentially, what I said was to find things that help you find peace and see them out in those moments. Maybe not groundbreaking, but good to think about.

I find I am often in a position of watching someone I love suffer, though. And in those cases, I feel a little of the pain they are experiencing, and then some frustration at not being able to help. So then what?

The answer to this question is not a catch-all. Each situation and person is too unique for that. But let me say there are a few ideas that can be applied to most situations. One of the most important idea being to communicate with them. Listen to what they say and let them know you are there with them to help them through it. Many times we feel powerless because we can’t just “make it all better.” But part of helping someone through a difficult experience includes having patience.

But again, I think this is where faith comes in, at least my definition. If we can offer some hope that our friend who is suffering can make it through the difficulty, and that it will be okay, then that can empower them to believe it too. We can help them gain the motivation and energy that they might lack by helping them feel like they will be able to persevere.

This is not an instant cure. I don’t intend to imply that every problem will be wiped away this way. But what I do believe is that as we strengthen our bonds of friendship through this kind of support and this kind of demonstration of our love, then we can help carry each other. And at the same time, we again change who we are internally and grow as a person.

There is no question that we each have had and will again have “one of those days” (or weeks, or months). There will always be times when it all seems to go wrong. But there is also no question that if you can draw on your inner faith, and on the faith of those true friends you have around you, that the burden will be made lighter. And if you can persevere through it, then you will become a stronger and more resilient person too.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experience watching Les Misérables (the musical) at a theater in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The audience booed Javert when he came out for the curtain call. It was embarrassing and awkward, and an all-around poor display of theater etiquette. I was mesmerized by it. Something else happened during that moment, which I find equally engaging. I have thought about it often.

Soon after booing Javert (who had delivered an excellent performance), one of the tragic figures of the play and one of the great characters in literature, the audience gave one of the loudest cheers of the evening for M. and Mme. Thenardier of “Master of the House” fame. If you are not in the know, they are the crooked innkeepers who abuse the child Cosette, steal the impoverished Fantine’s money, lead their own daughter Eponine to a life of crime, and pillage dead bodies in the streets of Paris (among other detestable activities). They are, in short, the least virtuous of all the characters in the play, and are not at all part of the the group of great characters in literature.

And yet, the audience cheered for them. They cheered for them as if they were the greatest and most important part of the musical too. These two sing one of the catchiest songs of the play, and it has several humorous moments, and so I can understand a little bit of the motivation behind the cheering. They also provide considerable comic relief (to some points of view) in their appearances throughout, although I find it not as comical as others might. The actors who portray these two were skilled, as are any actor in this type of production. But the cheers were not motivated by their demonstration of skill. If it had not been for the Javert incident that had immediately preceded it, I would not have even thought twice about this.

But Javert had been booed. The actor portraying Javert was equally skilled as the Thenardiers, likely more-so considering he had a primary role. Javert’s character is in many ways that of a protagonist, and most certainly a tragic figure deserving a measure of compassion and respect, if not admiration. And he is certainly honorable, if not likable, and maintains an unequivocally law-abiding stance, honest to a fault.

To put it simply, if you were required to pick one of these two, Javert or the Thenardiers, for a neighbor, you would take Javert over the Thenardiers in a heartbeat (just to hear him practicing “Stars” in the evenings, I would say). But still, the audience cheered louder for the villains (the only real villains in this story) and I have often wondered why.

Some of it is the moment, I think I can see that. The actors that made you laugh amidst a play fraught with tears would attract some adoration. Laughter is one of our greatest joys, and that makes sense. Javert offers little to laugh about.

But at the same time, I am disappointed that in the end, truly detestable characters elicited a stronger positive reaction than that of a character trying so hard to live up to a standard of behavior that he believed to be right.  His standard was that obedience to the law, an effort to follow an undeviating course of perfect harmony with the established requirements of behavior, is the only appropriate way of life. And though his standard might not be the very best, since it leaves little room for mercy of any kind (in word not in practice, since Javert did not walk the hard line walk he claimed despite his talk), it was still a standard of behavior worth aspiring towards.

The Thenardiers on the other hand use every opportunity to abuse and use the people around them. They delight in cheating and hurting others. They revel in crime and stealing. They prey on the most vulnerable and weak of society. They desecrate the dead. They persecute the minorities of their time. And in light of this, I think there is little excuse for considering the Thenardier characters to be anything more than the charlatans they are.

They are not deserving of a reprieve simply because they made us laugh. Maybe we ought not laugh at them even though they are comical, because in fact, they are lying to us as well. They are mocking the audience just as soundly as they are cheating their faux patrons in the play. Their message is that if you put on the right cover, anything goes. And the audience’s reaction to their performance proves that they have figured out the game quite well.

Please don’t boo the Thenardiers next time you go watch the play. That is rude and they are actors. But take a little bit of this to heart and consider what their characters’ actions really mean. Can we laugh at cruelty and be unchanged by it? Can we dismiss it as “just entertainment” and not simultaneously permit just a little sliver of acceptance of such attitudes? I don’t think we can.

One of my favorite quotes is this from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“Your actions speak so loudly I cannot hear what you say.”

This quote hangs on the wall of my home. I put it there so that I won’t forget to act like I talk, and to be honest with myself about how I act.

Let me also say that clapping for the Thenardiers during a performance or laughing at their antics are not signs of the deterioration of your personal virtue past the point of no return. I think my point here is that we ought to consider carefully what we cheer for and what behavior and attitudes we encourage, maybe less importantly within the walls of a theater and more importantly in our day to day interactions.