“Everyone You Meet Is Fighting A Great Battle.”

According to novelist Henry James: “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind because everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”

It’s unclear whether the last part of that (“because everyone you meet if fighting a great battle”) is in fact from Henry James, but it is a phrase that has spoken to me. “Remember everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”

I thought of it as I began reading a new book by Alan Noble, On Getting Out of Bed In the Morning: The Burden and Gift of Life. Noble tells us that he grew up around a great deal of tragedy and trauma, but he thought that this experience and these people were outliers. Most people, he imagined, have it together and lead pleasant and safe lives. He thought he too, despite his background, could enjoy a normal, pleasant life if he played by the rules.

“In fact,” writes Noble, “it’s hard not to think like this, even when you grow up around tragedy and trauma, as I did. It’s hard not to think like this because almost no one wants to tell you otherwise. There’s a kind of unspoken conspiracy to ignore how difficult life is, or to reframe it as something romantic — a heroic challenge to overcome on our way to the good life. In this conspiracy we each try to hide our scars, even from those closest to us and sometimes even from ourselves. Almost every cultural institution, church, government, or corporation promises you a good life if you will just do what they ask. Make the right choices. Marry the right person. Go to the right church. Get the right education. Work the right job. Buy the right products. And you’ll be fine.”

Noble rings a few more changes on this theme, including noting the downside corollary which is, if you don’t have a safe and pleasant life, it’s your own damn fault. Then he says, “I believed all this, and I was wrong. The people close to me weren’t anomalies, they were the norm. While not everyone will experience the kinds of trauma they did, suffering — even profound mental affliction and personal tragedy — is a normal part of human life . . . Once I grew closer to other adults, people who [otherwise] seemed “to have their lives together,” that’s what I discovered. Life is far more difficult than we let on.”

That’s when I recalled the words, “Remember everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”

Years ago I came upon a piece by a nurse, Nancy Kehoe, titled “Wrestling with Our Inner Angels,” in which she shared the formula of Beverly, a woman she knew who experienced a mental illness. I was so struck by Beverly’s formula for dealing with pain and anguish that I wrote in a journal I kept at the time.

“When you are in pain, you must 1) wait for the relief which always comes by God’s grace; 2) function as well as you can with as little self-pity and self-hatred as possible; 3) still ‘be kind to all you meet’ as much as you can; 4) take it one day at a time; 5) treat yourself and others as lovingly as possible. When you have failed, accept God’s and others, and your own, forgiveness as soon as possible; 6) Then with His help, ‘Take up your bed and walk.’” (the latter being words of Jesus to a crippled man he had healed).

Perhaps all this, especially on the eve of the holidays, seems morbid or pathetic. I don’t think it is. What is pathetic is pretending that life isn’t more difficult than we let on. It’s automatically saying, when someone asks “how are you?,” “Fine, just fine.” You know what “fine” means, don’t you? “Feelings Inside Not Expressed.”

Sometimes it’s the best we can do. And sometimes it’s what the situation calls for. But here, let’s be honest and real. Life is more difficult than we let on. Doesn’t mean going around sad all the time, just honest. Words of Jesus: “In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” (John 16: 33)

Noble concludes his Foreword with these words, “If you take away one truth, the one thing in this book I know with certainty, let it be this: your life is a good gift from a loving God, even when subjectively it doesn’t feel good or like a gift, and even when you doubt God is loving. Please: get out of bed anyway.”