Pain and meaning

When religion cannot find a meaning for human suffering, human beings far too often become cynical, bitter, negative, and blaming. Healthy religion, almost without realizing it, shows us what to do with our pain, with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably give up on life and humanity.

                                                                                      Richard Rohr, Daily Blog

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faith is not about

avoiding pain

very few poets and saints

had easy lives

faith may, instead,

engage us more deeply with pain

we may participate in it

more profoundly

as, aware of the deep places within ourselves,

and awake to the precious souls around us,

we touch not only our own hurt

but that of others

in faith we see all the

misery and travail in this world

through the wounded heart

of that One

who dwells in us

who is love

Sacred Presence does not remove pain

or even lessen it

but

it does

transform it

and us

turning us from those who radiate bitterness and hate

into healers

wounded healers

but healers , nonetheless

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As we look at auditoriums full of people transmitting hate

and feeding on pain and fear

as we deal each day with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust

we know how desperate our world is for people,

and especially for leaders,

who know how to find a meaning for human suffering,

and who do not slide into the pattern

of being cynical, bitter, negative, and blaming