If there were no suffering, would there be compassion? If we lived in a perfect world, then humans would have to be perfect for it to work. But if we were perfect, what kind of lives would we have?
We grumble at all manner of things. We have pain. We get hurt. We can’t protect our children from life’s lessons. We get betrayed and betray others. We endure stupidity for which there is no cure. And we don’t get what it is that we think we want or need. Half the time we don’t even know what that is.
We are born, get sick, suffer and die. And the older I get, the more I think that this whole cycle, everything, is meant to reflect the beautiful. I do not mean that we should idealise or romanticise suffering. That would be foolish and dangerous. Nor do I feel we must suffer in order to experience gratitude – though it sometimes helps. Rather I imagine that the paradox of bitter-sweet must be lived if we are to know fullness. We stand on the threshold of this tension. We straddle these paradoxes continuously and it is a very delicate balance to hold.
In love, in friendship, there must be a balance of freedom and togetherness. We are one. We are two. We are more. Complex. Multi-faceted. The diamond. The rock. The pebble and the mountain.
Some of us get stuck in one thing or the other. Unknowingly. Consciously. Because that seems like a safe option. And we like safety. We need safety. We find our grounding in identifying ourselves this way or that. And who knows, sometimes those labels can be useful. They can help us to figure out who we are, what we are and what we find important. But they can also tie us in knots. We become entangled. We start to see the world through only one lens when there are infinite ways of seeing. And then we put others into boxes and can no longer imagine who they might be outside the box.
Hatred is a lack of imagination, said Graham Greene. I think he’s right.
Perhaps this is a world-wide problem. We have accepted the consumerist model which teaches that happiness is something which can be bought. Happiness is a product. Spirituality is a product. Needs are capitalised upon and we associate our needs with products and production. Satisfaction is measured by the number of square metres in which we live, or the brand of shoes we wear.
The square metres, the shoes, the big car, are all just distractions. Noise. Trying to make the every day more palatable. As if there were something wrong with the mundaneness of the mundane. As if chopping wood and sweeping floors needed to be something else. As if there always needs to be more. And the paradox. There is always more. Can you feel it? It is enough. There is more. The gateless gate.
A friend posted the following quote on their Facebook:
“If we are absolutely grounded in the love of God that protects us from nothing even as it sustains us in all things, then we can face all things with courage and tenderness and touch the hurting places in others and in ourselves with love”
(James Finley).
We are protected from nothing, yet sustained in all things. Simultaneously.
I responded:
“God is unendingly generous because he permits suffering”.
This does not mean that God wants us to suffer. Nor does it indicate that suffering is good. But there is a grain of understanding, indecipherable understanding, somewhere in me, that can glimpse beauty within, despite, notwithstanding, beyond, the suffering. Like the laughter shared with my dying mother, amidst the frustration, pain and anger. The memory of her furious, standing at a locked kitchen door in the middle of the night, trying to break the door down with her walking stick, because she didn’t know how late it was and she wanted to eat.
This is not justification for pain, or overstretched optimism. We can be realistic. We can be idealistic. A friend with cancer. A loved one dying. We are all dying. We just don’t want to think about it.
Watching a bird in winter on the feeder. Murmuring a blessing as I drive past a dead cat on the road. Somewhere she has been loved. Piling dead leaves and branches into the compost bin. One day they will nourish the soil and help flowers grow in my mother’s memorial garden. Watching a video of a child horrendously burnt in Palestine by Israeli bombs. And the freeing of prisoners in Syria following the downfall of the monster Assad. The sun setting. The rising of the moon across the waters in Bahia. All of this unfolding of life. And as a sign of great love, God gave us free will. God gave us imagination.
Does it all come down to imagination? Does it come down to a willingness to stand at a threshold of known and unknown? And to imagine? And to dream? And to paint? And to sing?
Perhaps it also comes down to humility? To admit that this isn’t it. To admit we have enough – and yet we need more. To imagine God in every single creature we meet on our path. The dancing puppy. The fretful child. The cashier. The distant sibling. My ailing mother. Your parent with dementia. The grand oak and the refugee.
May we see beauty in all things, revering even the stone, a “tabernacle of memory”, carrying the “tone and textures of human and animal experience,” (John O’Donahue) and in the broken-hearted among us. And may we imagine a better future for everyone and everything on our beautiful planet.
An advent blessing for all and a Merry Christmas 2024:
Wherever we are, may we share our own blessings as an act of generosity and compassion to the whole world.
May our blessings reach those in places of war and be comfort to the wounded and to those who are engaging in wounding. We are all loved by one God.
May our blessings touch those who are serving others through small and large acts of kindness, a smile to a neighbour, a shared coat, a word of comfort or a place at the table this Christmas. We are one.
May our blessings flow like a river to the lowest point, and into the dark places. We know that seeds need darkness before they emerge into the light. We remember that the place we are in might be dark because we are shaded beneath the wings of our Lord.
And may our blessings return to us in the small and large ways in which we receive acts of generosity towards ourselves. We are part of the flow of generosity, giving and receiving. We are interdependent.
Let joy and peace make a home in this flesh, as we align our intentions, speech and actions with the Way of the Divine Christ.
May our Christmases be plentiful and generous.
May there be peace. May there be peace and joy. May there be peace.
Kim, this is it.
We are one, we are two- we cannot know one without the other just as we cannot know happiness without knowing pain or sadness. Yes.
Your writing is wonderful.
And the greatest blessing of all is the beauty in the quotidian. And imagined.
Beautifully expressed, thank you. I will read it again ❤️🙏🏼❤️