According to FL law

What is Pain and Suffering? The law recognizes two kinds of ?pain and suffering? claims: mental and physical.[1] Mental pain and suffering involves things like fear, embarrassment, humiliation, anger, depression, and other emotions that hinder the enjoyment of living which result from the accident and its aftermath. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can also be a type of mental pain and suffering. [2] Physical pain and suffering includes not only the pain and trauma experienced by the accident victim at the time of the injury, but the pain and discomfort experienced during the recovery process and into the future. This would include compensation for one?s inability to perform physical activities as well or as often as one used to prior to the incident. – See more at: http://southfloridainjuryaccidentblog.com/2014/09/29/pain-and-suffering/#sthash.vMjC3oCX.dpuf

Last year I received a book from our friend Bill McKinnie. He said, Father Phil recommended this book and thought it was a great read. The book is called ?Life?s Great Questions? by Jean Vanier. Jean Vanier is the founder of the L?Arche Community and Faith and Light. L?Arche exists for people with intellectual disabilities. There currently are 135 L?Arche Communities in 33 countries and 1,600 Faith and Light communities in 80 countries. In addition, he is a philosopher, writer, religious and moral leader who has advocated for more than four decades for the poor and weak in our society. Jean Vanier has made a difference in the lives of so many people who were considered unworthy by a majority of those in society. Jean made the lives of those who were abandoned, abused, hated, and lonely, feel welcomed, included, and loved. I invite you to watch this video to learn more about Jean Vanier and the premise that he is coming from in how he approaches life, faith, and relationship.

This book, ?Life?s Great Questions? is a book about questions, not necessary answers. I pray that from what I share, it will take us all on a journey. That we wrestle together with what the meanings are, lean into the mysteries, and experience growth. I pray as we journey together, we journey from one question to the next, explore our different life experiences, explore the Gospels, reveal something about who we are, and in so, revealing something about the life we are living. In the gospel of John, Jesus says these words, ?Come and see,? and they went (John 1:39). I pray you come and see with me as we ask the question today, ?Why is there so much suffering??

As I thought about the word suffering, the word pain came across my mind as well. And I began to wonder if we get those two words confused. Pain is defined as a physical discomfort

from illness or injury. It is also something we can cause others, ?Abby caused physical pain to Emma when she scratched her leg.? Pain is something that is more acute. We can step on a nail, there is pain, and we may suffer from that pain. We may lose a family member and suffer that loss. We fail an exam and suffer humiliation. Suffering is something bigger. Suffering implies enduring or undergoing hardship. Sometimes suffering is something we put up with especially as inevitable or unavoidable. There are also many sources of suffering that we cannot understand. Maybe we can say that our suffering is more or less dependent on our capacity to contextualize it. When we can understand or rationalize a loss, our well-being is less affected. Pain, loss, humiliation?these are all part of reality, part of the human experience. But how much we suffer pain may depend upon our ability to see the whole picture: our ability to accept, for example, that although there is pain now as a woman is in childbirth, soon there will be a new child.

Now, we might make the distinction between pain and suffering by seeing that pain is like the aching legs and scorching heat we experience on a long walk in the desert. But the suffering is far greater if we get lost. Make sense?

We have all experience pain and suffering. In our younger days, we might not have been as aware of all the suffering in the world, but we may have experienced disappointments, difficulties at school or home, and sad occasions. We might remember seeing images on TV about poverty in other parts of the world, or walked by people who are homeless. But we may not have been able to integrate these glimpses with hardship until we ourselves have lived something similar. As we grow older, we have probably lived enough to know that suffering truly is. Perhaps the loss of a grandparent gave us the first taste of the experience of others who have lost family members. Perhaps a friend?s parents are no longer together and we touch the complexity of family. Perhaps we have been in a relationship and experienced what is to have one?s heart broken. When we have suffered, we can become aware of and be touched by the immense suffering around us. With great ease, we can all ask the question, ?Why is there so much suffering??

There are some causes of suffering that we have little control over. People become sick, accidents happen, natural disasters wreak havoc. Why is it that one person has cancer and another does not? Why is it that some people live on a fault line or in a zone that is especially at risk from tsunamis? Why is there such a thing as an Ebola virus? There is no answer to these questions. We are part of nature, subject to its laws and movements. Although it is always good to ask why, sometimes we must accept that we cannot fully understand. What is important is how we live with these events.

In so many cases, the question ?why is there so much suffering?? is incredibly difficult to address. We could do better asking the following:

How can I live in such a way that this suffering becomes a source of life?

How can I love this person in their fragility, in their time of need?

How can I help them to see that they are beloved and precious?

How can life spring from disaster?

Perhaps a community is drawn together in the wake of a hurricane. Sickness and death are often times of incredibly pain, but they can also be amazing passages: sacred times when we are reminded of the wonder of life and the importance of presence. In order to ask these

questions and think through these times with a different lens, it takes a lot of work. Life, need, loved, and relationship.

Yet, some kinds of suffering are within in our control. If we are willing to grow, we can do a lot to alleviate suffering in ourselves and in the world around us. One of the reasons there is so much suffering is because of the many barriers that are set up in our lives. Barriers are put up and they prevent movements or access; barriers can be circumstances or obstacles that keeps people or things apart or prevents communication or progress. Most barriers are created by people and these barriers cause pain and suffering to others. Why is there so much suffering? It has to do with the dividedness of our reality, the walls we hide behind, and the barriers that separate us. When there are barriers, we are unable to see people as God sees people. When there are barriers, we remain locked away from each other and there is suffering because of our divisions; and separation from building relationships with others and God are blocked.

Let?s look at our scripture passage from Luke 16:19-31 today. 19?There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man?s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. 24He called out, ?Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.? 25But Abraham said, ?Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.? 27He said, ?Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father?s house? 28for I have five brothers?that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.? 29Abraham replied, ?They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.? 30He said, ?No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.? 31He said to him, ?If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.??

In the story, there are various forms of pain and suffering. Lazarus was sitting on the ground, covered in sores. Lazarus probably had leprosy-which was a disease that caused people in biblical times to be removed from society and there wasn?t any way to heal leprosy. Just across the way, there was a rich man having big feasts in his home. The food would fall from his table, and the dogs would eat it. Did this man, who had so much food it was spilling onto the floor, simply not see Lazarus who had nothing?

Or maybe the rich man looked out at Lazarus and said, ?That poor man. Why can?t he just get some courage and go look for a job? Or maybe he thought something like, ?Why can?t he stop drinking and making something of his life? Or why is he so lazy?? If the rich man were to follow this line of thinking, then he is the one who has created a boundary, a separation from himself and Lazarus, and a relationship that began in a place of brokenness because of the pain and suffering of each of the men. The boundary created caused the rich man to refuse to meet

and speak to Lazarus. I also imagined the rich man tried to avoid seeing Lazarus as to avoid the suffering he would feel by forming a relationship.

Divisions make it easy to impose suffering on others without ever facing the consequences. And when we do face the consequences, they can be so difficult, so seemingly awkward, that we cannot accept them. When suffering is evoked in us, we try to protect ourselves by reinforcing division. This is a vicious cycle. The more the rich man refuses to accept his participation in Lazarus? poverty by exercising his greed, the hungrier Lazarus becomes. The hungrier Lazarus becomes, the more disturbed and defensive the rich man becomes, and so on and so forth. To go across and invite Lazarus to his table is a risk. It is also painful because the rich man will be faced with consequences of his greed. But it is the way to end this cycle of suffering. In a way, to end suffering in and with others, one must walk across the room and get to know one another.

I heard this story about these two brothers. The two brothers were in the family room just playing together. At one point, as often happens, the older one about 6 years old, decided that he had enough. He lay on the couch to read a comic book. The younger one clearly thought this was a bad idea. He crept up on this brother and tickled his toes. You can imagine the agitation, which grew into a fury as the little brother persisted, coming back a dozen times. ?Go away!? the older brother yelled in vain. Finally the older brother got down on the carpet. Have you ever drawn pictures in carpet? Other the threads are all pushed in one direction and if you drag your finger against the grain, you can succeed in making a visible line. This is what the older brother did. ?Look,? he said, ?that is your side and this is mine. If you come across the line, I will be really, really, mad.? Do you remember either doing that, watching your children do that, or grandchildren? Drawing a boundary, creating a division. It seemed like a good idea. Kind of like the one for Lazarus: so long as he does not pick himself up off the sidewalk, I cannot invite him into my home.

As the story continued in the living room, a line in the carpet made conflict all the more simple. Now the little brother had to put only one toe across the carpet line and his brother would leap from the couch steaming mad. Forget about peacefully reading his comic book, there was a boundary to defend! After the adults were gone for a bit, they came back into the living room and the two boys were curled up together on the couch reading the comic book together. The line was nowhere to be seen.

This week I want to encourage you to look at suffering a little differently. Look at suffering through the lens of the boundaries we have created. Remember we are not confined to this dividedness. We can choose to walk across the street, to blur the line, and to step over the boundary in order to meet the other. Remember, Jesus steps over many different boundaries. He pretty much was a boundary breaker. He shared loaves and fishes with the poor on the hillside, he became friends with tax collectors, he even ate with Pharisees, the very people who were the most suspicious of him! 12He said also to the one who had invited him, ?When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous (Luke 14:12-14).? It is important to see that Jesus does not say that the people invited will be better off, but that ?you [the well-off host] will be blessed.? By sharing a table, by

inviting those who are very different from us, those who are most rejected, we discover something beautiful. By facing our fears, by uncovering the walls of protection within us that keep us from even being able to look upon our brothers and sisters, the nature of our hearts begin to change. It is when the nature of our hearts are changed that suffering begins to be alleviated. Not only is our human family beginning to be healed, but also our own hearts.