“Heartbreak Can Be the Engine of Obliteration or Growth”

I read Nick Cave’s latest edition of the Red Hand Files before heading off to the jail yesterday. Zack, from Leeds, UK was wondering if Cave had any advice about how to deal with his father’s stroke and the sudden responsibility this had thrust upon him. Zack was used to living what was, by his own description, a fairly self-absorbed life. Now his family was looking to him for strength and guidance. He was struggling to cope, feeling emotionally drained and on the point of implosion. Did Cave have any advice?

I thought about how I might have responded to such a question. I almost certainly would have led with sympathy, compassion, understanding. Don’t be too hard on yourself, do your best, try to be gracious with yourself and others, these things take time, etc. This is kind of my default setting. It’s probably down to being a people pleaser or conflict avoidant or some other cocktail of early childhood influences, socialization, and various and sundry Jesus-y-type effects. I tend not to like making people feel bad about themselves and avoid it wherever possible.

This is not always, however, the response that is required. And it is not how Nick Cave responded:

I am sorry to hear about your father’s stroke, and that you are going through a challenging time, but I have found that embedded within these challenges there is almost always the opportunity for renewal or transformation. That is the plain but uncomfortable truth. I say this with a much-conflicted heart, but it seems clear to me that the heartbreaks that routinely befall us—personally, societally or universally—are, in fact, the necessary gifts of change. These painful upheavals always provide us with the option for self-destruction or for transcendence. Heartbreak can be the engine of obliteration or growth. The choice is ours.

I was unprepared for this stark, binary presentation of options. Self-destruction or transcendence. Obliteration or growth. Are we even allowed to frame things so bluntly anymore? And heartbreak as a “necessary gift?” That’s strong stuff. Surely, Cave should have been a bit more sensitive to Zack’s feelings and perhaps to the combination of factors that might have led to him feeling a bit overwhelmed, no?

Cave wasn’t done:

You are being called to remake yourself, to not be the self-absorbed individual you were. You are the one your family are depending upon for guidance, and although this can feel overwhelming and an almost impossible—perhaps even thankless—task, it will be a defining experience for you. True growth comes when we accept the mantle of that which we feel is beyond us.

Whew. This was veering uncomfortably into Jordan Peterson territory. Grow up. Take responsibility for yourself. Rise to the challenge. Stop being so selfish. Next thing you know, Cave is going to be telling poor Zack to clean up his room or something.

As you may know, Cave is not speaking abstractly about “the heartbreaks that routinely befall us.” In 2016, his 15-year-old son Arthur fell to his death from a cliff near Brighton, England. This loss changed Cave. That stark list of binary options above? He knows the truth of these experientially, having lived through the options. It was a loss that could have shattered him, indeed came close to doing so. It is the kind of loss that breaks many people. And while it’s always risky to make one person’s story any kind of iron-clad template, and while my instinct, again, is to couch and qualify (you’re not a failure if your suffering breaks you!), we must surely listen to those whose suffering has sent them off down more hopeful roads! Don’t we?

Anyway, Cave’s response to Zack was buzzing around in my brain as I headed off to the jail yesterday. I lead chapel times for both remand units, and we’ve recently been making our way through The Chosen. The guys love it (one guy recently said, with a wink, “No offense, preacher, but this show is way more interesting than your bible studies”). The first one went off without a hitch. But right before the second group showed up, there was a power outage which did something funny to the projector. Something that lay beyond my admittedly meagre technological expertise to fix. Something that even went beyond the inmates’ tech know-how. (Not that they didn’t try! A few even helpfully suggested beating it with a hammer!) So, our viewing options dashed, we were stuck having to talk to each other.

I didn’t have anything prepared by way of a bible study, so I just threw it open. “Anyone have anything they’d like to share?” I lobbed, hopefully, into the middle of the circle. Silence. Everyone’s shoes prison-issued crocs suddenly become very interesting in such moments. But then, a young Blackfoot man to my immediate right tentatively spoke up. “I have something to share, if that’s ok.” “Yes, by all means,” I desperately gratefully responded. He opened up his well-worn and heavily marked up bible and began to speak.

“You know, I was in court yesterday… and it didn’t go my way. I was hoping to get out, but looks like I’ll be here a while… I’ve been reading this thing like crazy, and this morning, I read this from 1 Timothy: ‘Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.’ And I thought, you know faith takes patience… and even when things don’t go our way, we need to persevere, to fight, to live the life God has called us to… I really believe that for each of my brothers here… we gotta step up and stop believing all the lies, you know, the devil, he’s a roaring lion and he wants to destroy us… but we gotta stay strong, believe.” He went on in this vein for the better part of ten minutes, urging the guys to trust, to be there for their kids and families, to be peacemakers on an at times turbulent unit, to believe that God had a future for each one of them.

In the end, he took a deep breath and said, “Yeah, well, you know, I just wanted to share that.” I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Thank you for sharing. Truly. That was a better sermon than the one I preached yesterday.” He grinned and resumed inspecting his crocs.

My instinct in the jail, as everywhere else, is to comfort, not to confront. You guys have done bad things, yes, but you’re also clearly victims, too—victims of systems and structures that go far beyond the individual and his or her ability to choose. Sometimes this is warranted. But sometimes, as my young Blackfoot friend proved, what is needed is something stronger. Stand up. Resist. Believe. Fight. Take responsibility. People are depending on you. Sometimes it’s useful to have a preacher on hand.

What is true for a troubled young man in Leeds and an older rock star in Australia and a room full of inmates in a provincial prairie jail is true for each one of us. We will all face heartache in some form or another. If it hasn’t happened yet, it surely will. This is the human condition. This is the existential terrain we navigate. This is where God has placed us, and this is where God has called us. And we do, indeed, have a choice. To return to the word of Nick Cave, “Heartbreak can be the engine of obliteration or growth. The choice is ours.”

Image source.