Suffering: Weekly Summary

Sunday
Love and suffering are part of most human lives. Without any doubt, they are the primary spiritual teachers, more than any Bible, church, minister, sacrament, or theologian.
—Richard Rohr

Monday
Suffering can lead us in either of two directions: it can make us very bitter and cause us to shut down, or it can make us wise, compassionate, and utterly open, either because our hearts have been softened, or perhaps because we feel as though we have nothing more to lose.
—Richard Rohr

Tuesday
To “let go and let God” is to put yourself into the hands of God, even for just a little while, until the challenges of life are more bearable.
—Diana L. Hayes

Wednesday
Right where you are, in the hurt and sorrow, that’s right where the insight is, that’s where the answer is, that’s where the wisdom is. The transformation is there, the rebirth is there. And you’re not alone.
—Jacqui Lewis

Thursday
Once we step out of our own way, into the dark and empty vessel of the soul, “an ineffable sweetness” will begin to rise, permeating and nourishing the quiet earth, uncovering a resurrection we never dreamed possible: a dazzling darkness, a radiant night, a revolutionary newness of being.
—Mirabai Starr

Friday
Jesus said we must go inside the whale’s belly for a while. Then and only then will we be spit out on a new shore and understand our call, our place, and our purpose.
—Richard Rohr

Lamenting Injustice

In the ancient tradition of lament, this prayer from Latina activist and pastor Rev. Sandra Maria Van Opstal invites us to share with God our heartbreak at the world’s suffering, and ask “How long, O Lord?”

How long, Lord?
How long must we cry out?
How long must the vulnerable sit silent as bombs,
guns, cages, natural disasters threaten lives?
How long must we hear the agonizing silence of so
many in the church?
How long, Lord?

Are you listening? Yes? You do! You do? You do
see us! You do hear us!

(insert time to ugly cry)

We believe you are at work bringing peace. True
peace—flourishing, wholeness, and well-being. . . .

We believe and we feel overwhelmed—sometimes
it is hard to believe that you actually care about
the injustice and suffering. When we don’t see
your work. When we sense the apathy from
the church. When we feel small and forget that
we were designed to be different and make
things different.

When we feel overwhelmed by darkness in the
world—the violence, injustice, poverty,
oppression, abuse.
Give us hope not to be overcome.
Give us eyes to see your goodness for our world.
Give us the strength to hold the pain of injustice in
our world and faith that it will end.
Give us courage to be honest with ourselves about
why and how we are doing justice.

We believe. So. Empower us to disrupt our broken
thinking by learning truth from diverse leaders.
Enable us to discover the beauty of justice and
inspire action in others. Embolden us to display
your goodness in the world. . . .

Experience a version of this practice through video and sound.

Reference:

Sandra Maria Van Opstal, “A Liturgy of Longing,” in A Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal, ed. Sarah Bessey (New York: Convergent Books, 2020), 29–31. Used with author’s permission.

Explore Further. . .

Read Barbara Holmes on communal lament.

Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.

Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.

Image credit: Carrie Grace Littauer, Untitled 2, Untitled 3, Untitled 9 (details), 2022, photographs, Colorado, used with permission. Jenna Keiper & Leslye Colvin, 2022, triptych art, United States. Click here to enlarge image.

Image inspiration: The hollow feeling when loved ones are no longer present, like holes in a log. The pain of a thorn piercing skin. This tree has suffered and witnessed suffering. We too have suffered and witness suffering.

Prayer for our community:

God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything, please help us to love in our very small way what You love infinitely and everywhere. We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer and that will be more than enough, because in reality every thing and every one is connected, and nothing stands alone. To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole, and so we do. Help us each day to stand for love, for healing, for the good, for the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation, because we know this is what You desire: as Jesus prayed, that all may be one. We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God, we offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord, Amen.

Listen to the prayer.

The Sign of Jonah

Father Richard describes the pattern of transformation Jesus offers through “the sign of Jonah,” which is the mystery of death and resurrection:

Jesus’ primary metaphor for the mystery of transformation is the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:39, 16:4; Luke 11:29). Jesus tells the growing crowds, “It is an evil and adulterous generation that wants a sign” (Luke 11:29), and then says the only sign he will give is the sign of Jonah. As a Jew, Jesus knew well the graphic story of Jonah the prophet who ran from God and was used by God almost in spite of himself. Jonah was swallowed by a whale and taken where he would rather not go. This was Jesus’ metaphor for death and rebirth.

Rather than look for impressive apparitions or miracles, Jesus said we must go inside the whale’s belly for a while. Then and only then will we be spit out on a new shore and understand our call, our place, and our purpose. Paul wrote about “reproducing the pattern” of Jesus’ death and thus understanding resurrection (Philippians 3:10–11). Unless we have gone down, we do not know what up is! Unless we descend, we won’t long for and make inner space for ascent.

This is the only pattern Jesus promises us, and we see it mirrored in other traditions as well. Native religions speak of winter and summer; mystical authors speak of darkness and light; Eastern religions speak of yin and yang or the Tao. Christians call it the paschal mystery; all point to the same necessity of both descent and ascent, usually in that order.

The paschal mystery is the pattern of transformation, and it indeed is a mystery—that is, it is not logical or rational at all. We are transformed through death and rising, probably many times in our lifetime. For some cosmic reason, there seems to be no better crucible of growth and transformation.

We seldom go freely into the belly of the beast. Unless we face a major disaster such as the death of a friend, child, or spouse or the loss of a marriage or career, we usually will not go there. As a culture, we have to be taught the language of descent because we are by training capitalists and accumulators. Mature religion shows us how to enter willingly and trustingly into difficult periods of life. These hard passages are good teachers.

We would prefer clear and easy answers, but questions offer the greatest potential for opening us to transformation. We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves. We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the perilous hidden path of contemplative prayer. Grace leads us to the state of emptiness—to a momentary sense of meaninglessness—in which we ask, “What is it all for?” The spaciousness within the question allows Love to fill and enliven us.

Reference:

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, rev. ed. (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1999, 2003), 44–46.

Explore Further. . .

Listen to James Finley on Turning to the Mystics speak about the dark night, depression, and suffering.

Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.

Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story.

Story from Our Community:

When my daughter was addicted and living on the streets, the only thing that allowed me to get through the agony of possibly losing her was the knowledge that my suffering was in union with Christ, his blessed mother, and all the suffering people of the world. —Annie R.

Share your own story with us.

Prayer for our community:

Listen to the prayer.

Dazzling Darkness

Author and CAC friend Mirabai Starr finds inspiration in mystics Julian of Norwich (1343–c. 1416) and John of the Cross (1542–1591). Both endured profound suffering and yet discovered a deep and Divine love in its midst.

Mystics see through a lens of paradox: dazzling darkness, beautiful wound, the longing that is the remedy for longing. Paradox points beyond itself to a truth that both transcends and includes logic, a truth that is alive, generative, and whole. Such a dynamic mode of knowing demands our complete attention. . . .

What does a religious woman who dwelt in an anchor-hold during the Middle Ages have to do with you and me today? Julian endured a long and cruel pandemic. The disease ravaged her community and carried off the people that she loved. She learned to shelter in place, focusing on cultivating her interior landscape and sharing the fruits of her wisdom through the window that opened from her cell onto the busy streets of her city (think computer screen and Zoom), where she offered counsel to visitors . . . each day.

She found solace, not in the wrathful father-god of her childhood, but in an unconditionally loving Mother-God who could not help but forgive the transgressions of each one of her darling kids. She recognized that everything that is could be contained in a hazelnut in the palm of God’s hand, and that it all endures because God adores every particle of Her creation. She also realized that, even though the night feels impenetrable now, dawn is coming, when we will see with our own eyes that not only is every little thing going to be alright, but that it has been all along.

And how could a renegade monk, who survived the Spanish Inquisition despite the Jewish and Moorish blood that flowed through his veins, have anything to teach us about flourishing in our own dark nights? John of the Cross illumines the transformational power of radical unknowing. He rekindles our latent longing for union with the Beloved and, through sublime poetry and precise prose, blows on the flames so that they dance back to life in our beleaguered hearts.

He reminds us that when everything in us wants to rush out and fix the problem of our brokenness, both individual and collective, the wisest and most loving thing to do is to be still, letting go of our attachment to the way we thought the spiritual life was supposed to feel and the sense we assumed it should make. Once we step out of our own way, into the dark and empty vessel of the soul, “an ineffable sweetness” will begin to rise, permeating and nourishing the quiet earth, uncovering a resurrection we never dreamed possible: a dazzling darkness, a radiant night, a revolutionary newness of being.

But maybe not quite yet.

We are not alone. The wise ones who walked before us have left luminous footprints for us to follow in our own apocalyptic times.

Reference:

Mirabai Starr, “Dazzling Darkness,” Oneing 10, no. 1, Unveiled (Spring 2022): 83, 87–88. Available in print and PDF download.

Explore Further. . .

Read Mirabai Starr on the abyss of grief.

Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.

Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story.

Story from Our Community:

Share your own story with us.

Prayer for our community:

Listen to the prayer.

Stay Where the Pain Is

Father Richard teaches about the trustworthy authority that belongs to those who have stood with and “held” the suffering of their lives and the world—rather than fled and avoided it. Jesus and Mary model such “staying power”:

Jesus on the cross and Mary standing near him are powerful witnesses to transformative spirituality. They return no hostility, hatred, accusations, or malice directed at them. They hold the suffering until it becomes resurrection! That’s the core mystery of Christianity. It often takes our whole lives to begin to comprehend this.

Unfortunately, our natural instinct is trying to fix pain, to control it, or even, foolishly, attempting to understand it. The ego insists on understanding. That’s why Jesus praises a certain quality even more than love, and he calls it faith. It’s the ability to stand in liminal space, to stand on the threshold, to hold contraries, until we are moved by grace to a much deeper level and a much larger frame. Our private pain does not take center stage, but is a mystery shared with every act of bloodshed and every tear wept since the beginning of time. Our pain is not just our own. The normal mind can’t deal with that. That’s why mature religion always teaches some form of contemplation—to break our addiction to this egoic, disconnected thinking. [1]

CAC friend Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis reflects on a friend’s wise counsel shared in a time of need. “Stay where the pain is,” she said:

Once, mourning the toughness of 2020—a year marked with political upheaval, racial violence, the isolation and death from a pandemic, raging environmental fires, and the fire that took my sanctuary—I was feeling very low and frankly so weighed down with grief, I didn’t really know how to move forward. I kept throwing myself into work, running fast to do something about the pain. But, ever wise, [my friend] Lyn said:

“Wait, stay right there. Stay where the pain is, where the suffering is, where the struggle is. Stay there. That’s where it’s going to come. The insight. The knowing. The wisdom. Right there, Jacqui. It’s not here yet, but it’s coming. And when it comes, I’ll midwife it with you. It will come, we will do it together. Just wait for it. It will come.” . . .

Right where you are, in the hurt and sorrow, that’s right where the insight is, that’s where the answer is, that’s where the wisdom is. The transformation is there, the rebirth is there. And you’re not alone. Your friend, your lover, your family, your helper—someone from your posse will midwife it with you. The healing will come, and you will emerge, shaped in the merciful womb of the fiercest love. The pain of birth is excruciating. But someone who loves you knows how to reach in and grab you and hold on to you until you make it through. You’ll emerge lighter, less encumbered, ready for new stories, transformed by old ones. [2]

References:

[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, A Spring within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations (Albuquerque, NM: CAC Publishing, 2016), 121.

[2] Jacqui Lewis, Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World (New York: Harmony Books, 2021),88–89. Italics in original.

Explore Further. . .

Read Richard on a contemplative stance amidst suffering.

Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.

Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story.

Story from Our Community:

My story is simple and repeated a million times over. As a chronic, albeit recovered, alcoholic, I have been given an undeserved gift of a second lifetime. Was it me? No. Did I participate in the process of redemption? Yes. Woven into the fabric of Fr. Rohr’s teaching is the truth that I, and everyone else, is a co-Creator with God. This realization has, in the midst of great personal suffering, given me the freedom to live a life of relative peace and serenity. —William L.

Share your own story with us.

Prayer for our community:

Listen to the prayer.

Let Go and Let God

Womanist theologian Diana L. Hayes describes how Black women in her life rely on God to help carry their suffering. She draws on her upbringing in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in which seemingly impossible difficulties are sustained with God’s help:

The mothers of the black church, those elderly women who have worked hard all of their lives, often with so little reward, have a way of saying, whenever something goes wrong or someone is burdened more than they feel they can bear, “You just have to ‘let go and let God.’” As a child, I would look at these strong black women who I knew had been through so much in their lives, and who were still going through difficult times, and wonder what they meant. . . .

They had experienced both the joys and the sorrows that human life has to bring. Yet, they could, when necessary, simply “let go and let God.”

They could “let go” of the pain of losing a child through illness or misfortune or of watching another child or their husband slowly give up hope of getting a meaningful job, of having something tangible to produce at day’s end. They could “let go” of the racism that confronted them at every turn. . . . They could “let God” carry those sorrows for a while. God did not take over the pain, the frustration, or the anger—it was still there—but they could rest their burden with the Lord for just a little while until they found the strength to take it up and carry it again. Some would say they were passive. . . . But they would be wrong.

Through her own suffering, Hayes has come to understand what the mothers of the Black church meant by “let go and let God”:

Today, as I battle with my own fears and doubts, my own frustrations (about who I am and where I am going) and yearnings for a life free from pain, free from prejudice and discrimination, free from the constant struggle to survive and simply be me, I have come to realize that there are times when life becomes infinitely more tolerable if the burden is shared, with human friends, yes, but even more important, shared with a God who loves and watches over me like a “mother hen brooding over her chicks” [Luke 13:34]. It is that same God who has said, “Behold, while you were in your mother’s womb, I knew you and I named you [Jeremiah 1:5]. How could I love you less now?”

To “let go and let God” is to put yourself into the hands of God, even for just a little while, until the challenges of life are more bearable. . . . It is not a form of “otherworldly” escape, for the pain, the anger, the fears, the frustrations are always, sadly, a part of life, not because God wants it so, but because of our own human failure to make it different.

Reference:

Diana L. Hayes, No Crystal Stair: Womanist Spirituality (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2016), 51, 52, 53.

Explore Further. . .

Read Barbara Holmes on crisis contemplation.

Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.

Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story.

Story from Our Community:

Share your own story with us.

Prayer for our community:

Listen to the prayer.

Opening a Doorway

Father Richard describes two paths that suffering can take us down—a path that fills us with bitterness, resentment, and blame; or a path that softens our hearts to grow closer to God. For many of us, suffering is a cycle. We go back and forth, holding on and letting go, healing, hurting anew, and healing again.

When we are inside of great love and great suffering, we have a much stronger possibility of surrendering our ego controls and opening ourselves to the whole field of life. In great suffering, things happen against our will—which is what makes it suffering. Over time, we can learn to give up our defended state, because we seemingly have no choice. The situation is what it is, although we will invariably cycle through stages of denial, anger, bargaining, resignation, and (hopefully) acceptance. The suffering might feel wrong, terminal, absurd, unjust, impossible, physically painful, or merely beyond our comfort zone. Can you see why we must have a proper attitude toward suffering? So many things, every day, leave us out of control—even if it is just a long stoplight. Remember, however, that if we do not transform our pain, we will surely transmit it to those around us and even to the next generation.

Suffering, of course, can lead us in either of two directions: (1) it can make us very bitter and cause us to shut down, or (2) it can make us wise, compassionate, and utterly open, because our hearts have been softened, or perhaps because we feel as though we have nothing more to lose. Suffering often takes us to the very edge of our inner resources where we “fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31), even when we aren’t sure we believe in God! We must all pray for the grace of this second path of softening and opening. My opinion is that this is the very meaning of the phrase “deliver us from evil” in the Our Father (Lord’s Prayer). In this statement, we aren’t asking to avoid suffering. It is as if we are praying, “When big trials come, God, hold on to me, and don’t let me turn bitter or blaming”—which is an evil that leads to so many other evils.

Struggling with one’s own shadow self, facing interior conflicts and moral failures, undergoing rejection and abandonment, daily humiliations, or any form of limitation: all are gateways into deeper consciousness and the flowering of the soul. These experiences give us a privileged window into the naked now, the present moment, because impossible contradictions are staring us in the face. Much-needed healing, forgiving what is, and “weeping over” and accepting one’s interior poverty and contradictions are often necessary experiences that invite a person into the contemplative mind. (Paul does this in a memorable way from the depths of Romans 7:14–15 to the heights of his mystical poetry in Romans 8.)

Reference:

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2009), 123, 124–125.

Explore Further. . .

Read James Finley on Jesus and suffering.

Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.

Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story.

Story from Our Community:

Back in 2011, I was off balance. I retreated to a small home; I had no idea what I was doing, I only knew I was lost. Slowly poetry began to pour out of me. A wise voice spoke to me and revealed a path forward—a new way to be. Through great suffering and turmoil, this gentle loving voice has brought me to a place of great peace and love for the oneness of all creation. —Karla D.

Share your own story with us.

Prayer for our community:

Listen to the prayer.

Love and Suffering

Father Richard Rohr teaches that God uses love and suffering, and especially suffering, as universal paths to reach and change us.

Two universal paths of transformation have been available to every human being God has created: great love and great suffering. These are offered to all; they level the playing fields of all the world religions. Only love and suffering are strong enough to break down our usual ego defenses, crush our dualistic thinking, and open us to Mystery. In my experience, they like nothing else exert the mysterious chemistry that can transmute us from a fear-based life into a love-based life. None of us are exactly sure why. We do know that words, even good words or fine theology, cannot achieve that on their own. No surprise that the Christian icon of redemption is a man offering love from a crucified position!

Love and suffering are part of most human lives. Without any doubt, they are the primary spiritual teachers more than any Bible, church, minister, sacrament, or theologian. Wouldn’t it make sense for God to make divine truth so readily available? If the love of God is perfect and victorious, wouldn’t God offer every human being equal and universal access to the Divine as love and suffering do? This is what Paul seems to be saying to the Athenians in his brilliant sermon at the Areopagus: “All can seek the Deity, feeling their way toward God and succeeding in finding God. For God is not far from any of us, since it is in God that we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:27–28). What a brilliant and needed piece of theology to this day!

Love is what we long for and were created for—in fact, love is what we are as an outpouring from God—but suffering often seems to be our opening to that need, that desire, and that identity. Love and suffering are the main portals that open the mind space and the heart space (either can come first), breaking us into breadth and depth and communion. Almost without exception, great spiritual teachers will have strong and direct guidance about love and suffering. If we never go there, we will not know these essentials. We’ll try to work it all out in our heads, but our minds alone can’t get us there. We must love “with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, and our whole strength” (Mark 12:30).

Finally, there is a straight line between love and suffering. If we love greatly, it is fairly certain we will soon suffer, because we have somehow given up control to another. That is my simple definition of suffering: whenever we are not in control.

Reference:

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2009), 122–123, 127.

Explore Further. . .

Read James Finley on John of the Cross and suffering.

Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.

Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.

This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story.

Story from Our Community:

Share your own story with us.

Prayer for our community:

Listen to the prayer.

Suffering: Weekly Summary

The Sign of Jonah

Dazzling Darkness

Stay Where the Pain Is

Let Go and Let God

Opening a Doorway

Love and Suffering

Category Archive

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Suffering: Weekly Summary

The Sign of Jonah

Dazzling Darkness

Stay Where the Pain Is

Let Go and Let God

Opening a Doorway￼

Love and Suffering

Category Archive

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Opening a Doorway