How the Light Gets In

 

(7) By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted excessively, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, that I should not be exalted excessively. (8) Concerning this thing, I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. (9) He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me. (10) Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.

This, from 2 Corinthians, was the second reading at Mass last Sunday. It is traditional for gay advocates to take Paul’s reference to a “thorn in the flesh” to refer to homosexual cravings.

It seems to me this reading is not just random, but improbable. Why would he refer to a temptation as if a physical pain? Whenever one wants to interpret something in a text metaphorically, one must first somehow exclude a more literal meaning. We must assume a “thorn in the flesh” describes a physical pain of some sort. Perhaps kidney stones, or gall stones, would be a more plausible guess.

Can such things come from Satan? In Paul’s day, it was taken for granted that they could. This is why Jesus could heal physical illnesses by driving out demons. The desert fathers and the Buddhist sages tell us that Satan/Mara comes first to tempt, but, if we resist temptation, then assaults us directly. He torments.

There is a truth here known to mystics and shamans. When a shaman takes a trance journey, he commonly harms himself physically in some way on his return to normal consciousness. Patty Duke says she used to need to be stuck hard on the back to pull her out of a “manic” episode. This is somehow necessary for a safe landing back in the world of the physical senses. Hydrotherapy--a cold dose of water splashed on someone acting hysterical—might work the same way. 

It may also be why, proverbially, you have to suffer to sing the blues; every act of creation comes, as I think Shelley put it, like a pearl comes to an oyster. It coalesces around some source of pain. Inspiration, whether aesthetic or more directly religious, comes balanced with some pain or weakness. “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”  

We may not know why, but it is so.