Word of Wisdom: Comfort

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” C.S. Lewis

Some time ago I was in Paris, where I ended up one afternoon at the wine shop of the brother of a friend of a Canyon Pathways community member (got all that?). I had a great time with my new acquaintance, enjoying a tour of the shop, hearing about his personal journey, and learning more about winemaking in Burgundy than I thought possible in just one hour.

As we discussed the process, I asked him if it was true that a vine needs to be stressed to produce quality grapes that will result in excellent wine. “Oui,” he replied, and then introduced me to a French phrase well known to winemakers: la vigne doit souffrir. “The vine must suffer”.

A catchier version in English goes like this: “a struggling vine makes the best wine”.

While this topic is beyond my pay grade and worthy of several tomes, a short explanation is that a “struggling” or “suffering” vine will develop a deep and robust root system, aiding in the production of more quantity and higher quality fruit, as more of the complexities of the terroir—particularly through nutrients and trace elements of the subsoil—give direction to the flavors of the grapes.

Too rich of a soil, waterings of too much quantity and too much consistency, too many “preferential conditions”, and the vine will “relax” and focus its energies on shoots and leaves, but produce little (or less quality) grapes.

Too much comfort leads to little fruit, it seems.

A friend confirmed this for me when I shared my learnings with him. He had tried to grow grapes in his backyard, but his “pampering of the vine”—as he described it in hindsight—led to all leaves and no grapes. Perfect topsoil and calculated waterings on a daily timer led to a leafy, non-suffering vine. “It was too comfortable—it just wanted to make leaves and look pretty, and had no interest in producing fruit,” he lamented.

We might call this the conundrum of comfort.

Much of our energy in life is spent in the pursuit of comfort—in the many ways, large and small, that we endeavor to prevent or eliminate suffering, inconvenience, hardship, unease…uncertainty. We work for, long for—complain about not having—the metaphorical rich topsoil and tap water on a timer that we believe would supply all our wants and alleviate the need to push our roots through rocky subsoil.

But it is that very discomfort we seek to avoid that deepens our personal root system, making us more stable, more resilient, more fruitful, and even more unique and interesting in our character and flavor, as it were.

And yet, we know intuitively, intellectually, and even theologically that comfort is good and at times necessary to health and flourishing.

How do we make sense of this conundrum that comfort creates? Let’s look to the word itself.

The word comfort began to appear in the English language in the late thirteenth century, with a meaning similar to how we might use it today: “to cheer up, to console, to soothe when in grief or trouble”. The noun form came into use earlier, meaning “a feeling of relief in affliction; solace, consolation”.

Feeling relief or freedom from affliction doesn’t sound all that bad; it’s precisely why we seek “comfort”. But there’s more to this story when we push deeper, so to speak.

The word came into English from the Latin confortare, meaning “to strengthen much”—a combination of com-, an intensive prefix, and fortis, meaning “strong” (from which we get words like fortress and fortitude).

To comfort, it turns out, is to strengthen. To put strength into someone. Far from simply cheering, soothing, or eliminating stressors, to experience comfort is to grow stronger—like a vine, usually because of those very stressors. Ultimately, it seems, we gain comfort through them…not comfort from them.

At least, if we are living like sons whose lives are producing fruit.

How do we know this? By looking to the First Son, the one who told us that he is the vine; the true vine, who was like a root out of dry ground, suffering many things so that out of him his branches would experience life and fruitfulness, taking on his nature and being pruned so that the fruit would extend to many others throughout the vineyard as we also live like a son.

And how do we experience comfort in the midst of the sufferings and stressors of that sonship? By looking to the Father, who is a good vinedresser. One who is not indifferent to or unaware of our sufferings, but attends to us in the midst of them, strengthening us beyond what is visible on the surface and supporting us when the weight becomes too much. How? By sending us comfort; indeed, by sending the Comforter, who produces exquisite fruit in and through us by the very stressors we are enduring. So that, over time and through many dry spells, we receive his wisdom and understanding, his counsel and strength; maturing slowly and steadily so that we can lead like a father, through every season of our lives.

That’s a vintage worth waiting for.

“For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” II Corinthians 1:5