There’s a Christian concept with which I’ve struggled since my rather recent conversion. It’s the idea that pain is “sacred” and both can and should be embraced, experienced fully and given time to transform and teach.

It’s not new. Or solely Christian.

On the Hopi Reservation where I lived for a long time with in laws and friends, young teens face a somewhat “painful” initiation way down in the kiva “womb” of Mother Earth. For several days they’re deprived of food and sleep. And then, after that ordeal, they face a weekend of ceremonial dances in the Arizona sun with the whole village watching.

Similarly, my ex, a devout Sun Dancer, goes up to South Dakota to be pierced through the pecs with a bone “skewer” that is then tethered to a tree — again after fasting for several days — to suffer and pray on behalf of all his relations. Including you. And every other living thing. Or…all things, period, really.

If that piercing and suffering stuff sounds familiar, yes, it’s rather like that Jesus fellow you may have heard of, who was nailed to a “tree” of a different kind. And suffered, again, for all of us, according to Scripture.

In each case, those who suffer for us are transformed in some remarkable way. The Hopi initiates learn, just before they don the ceremonial katsina garb they will dance in all weekend, that the sacred spirits who danced in those same garments throughout their childhoods were, in fact, their male relatives. And now, it’s their turn.

It’s somewhat stunning to be told that you are “divine.” And that from that day forward, it’s up to you to carry on the spiritual traditions that have sustained your people for centuries.

God is not some distant deity in the sky. The Creator is…all of us. And we are stewards of that creation meant to do sacred work right here, right now.

St. Teresa of Avila put it this way:

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

Likewise, Sun Dancers also become, for a short while, healers that crowds of attendees rush to touch once they’ve pulled free of their tethers. Again, rather like that Other One who was “pierced” and could heal with a touch of his hand.

It’s believed that the ordeal they’ve faced makes them something more than just human, if only for a short while.

Through these ceremonies all involved learn not to fear but rather to revere and even welcome pain. To face these transformational “deaths” is an honor and a blessing and a portal to a “higher love” and more meaningful life.

You gotta hurt like hell first. But you raise your face to the sun and sing sacred songs until you enter a whole other dimension. And everyone sings with you. For you. Grateful for your sacrifice. Sending you energy to endure it.

So we are all in it together. And everyone, when it’s over, will be healed and strengthened by it.

For the past few days, as I reeled from Trump’s endless antics and insults, I felt anguish. Shame. Anger. Confusion. A host of emotions. Sometimes all at once, sometimes one after the other until I felt as if I couldn’t stand another minute.

I wanted to stay focused. I wanted to stay fierce. But my soul was sapped. Every time I thought I could see that light at the end of the tunnel, Trump would say or do something — or fail to say or do something — and down we’d go, even further into the abyss.

The man is relentless. On purpose. Like the kid who’s always disrupting the class or picking on other kids because he can’t read and doesn’t want anyone to find out.

He can’t do his job. So he lies and lashes out.

The only person he’s really fooling is himself — his base knows. They’re just enjoying him so much they don’t want to let him know that yet.

And he can’t help himself. It’s his “go to” strategy and without it, he’d have to see himself as we do.

I don’t blame him for not wanting to go there. That’d be a dark day, indeed.

But he’s given us a lot of dark days, too. And for some reason, recently, it has all been particularly excruciating for me.

But then today, I read this in theologian Richard Rohr’s daily newsletter:

“We shouldn’t try to get rid of our own pain until we’ve learned what it has to teach. When we can hold our pain consciously and trustfully (and not project it elsewhere), we find ourselves in a very special liminal space. Here we are open to learning and breaking through to a much deeper level of faith and consciousness. Please trust me on this. We must all carry the cross of our own reality until God transforms us through it. These are the wounded healers of the world, and healers who have fully faced their wounds are the only ones who heal anyone else.”

And then, I heard Brian Popin on the radio, telling me to try this: