I saw this today in an email:

"Sometimes I wish I was a Christian so I could simply transfer my anguish to a higher power."

This was an interesting thing for me to read, as I'm currently living with one person in anguish, and one who is either holding off the anguish, or simply uncomfortable; and the person who is in anguish is a Roman Catholic (but just began practicing again, so he's out of practice) while the one who is "uncomfortable" is an alcoholic Episcopalian (who's quite continuous in her practice of a spiritual discipline).

In Alcoholics Anonymous, we have what is known as a Spiritual Axiom:

         "It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is
         something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also....
         As we saw it, our wrath was always justified."     -- pg 90,  AA 12&12

This one can cause folks to beat each other about the head and shoulders; most AA folk will agree that it is certainly true ("yeah, sure it is - everybody knows that") but, as soon as one of us runs into one of our own troubles, we toss this axiom out on its ear - we do not want to hear that we're not supposed to be unhappy.

It's amazing how much we cling to our right - to our entitlement - to be unhappy. And we defend the certain and dear cause of our unhappiness as being important to our very identities.

It reminds me of the story of the guy who's treading water in the river, and barely keeping his head up - some folks come up to him in a boat and say "Get in the boat!" and he says "I can't!" - when they ask him why, he says "Because I've got this rock!"

...when they look down, they can see that he's holding onto a huge rock; he's kicking with his legs to stay afloat, but he can't use his arms, because they are holding the rock, and the rock is dragging him down.

They say "Just let go of the rock, and get in the boat!"

The man says "I can't let go of the rock!"

"Why?" they ask.

"Because", he explains,"  - it's my rock!"

I remember, back when my first wife left me, explaining to my platoon sergeant why it was that I couldn't just let go of it - I told him that I was more *sentimental*, that my marriage meant more to me than other guy's marriages - that was why I couldn't just pick up and go on with life. I managed to make my liability sound like an asset - I somehow pretended that my virtue was causing my pain.

It doesn't take too many inventories to learn that the Spiritual Axiom is spot-on true - that, as Bill Wilson said elsewhere:

        "If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it
         some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand. Let us, with God's 
        help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and
        love; we may then be able to Twelfth Step ourselves and others into emotional sobriety." 
  
That's a pretty damning statement - if taken at face value, it means (just like they told me back in Texas) that "if I ain't the problem, there is no solution". It also allows one to look whatever trouble we have generated in the face and ask ourselves "Is this dependency worth this anguish?" If it is - then, okay. Wallow in it.

But I have to stop pretending that it's healthy - that the reason that I'm in pain is because I'm loving, or because I'm more emotionally sensitive, or because I'm so giving or generous - I'm in pain because I've created a dependency upon some person, place, thing or situation, and that dependency doesn't work. 

I'm generating my own anguish; I can release it at the cost of my demands upon it.

I can remember singing this song at Camp Meeting in my youth:

                                                "So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
                                                Till my burden at last I lay down
                                                Yes, I'll cling to the old rugged cross
                                                And exchange it some day for a crown"

...an interesting thing I just found out - the original lyrics say "Till my trophies at last I lay down" - but I grew up singing it as burdens, not trophies. But the idea is the same - those things that cause me pain are the things that I cling to, and expect to make me happy, and don't - trophies are a great example of such burdens. (if you really think that tropies will make you happy, then you've never won many trophies :)

Some of us try to foist our pain off on God, and (as far as I can tell) He doesn't ever take it - He will, however, allow us to be free of the burden that is causing the pain; He'll help us to drop the rock that we're trying to swim with.