Why is there so much suffering?

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?

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.

Why is there evil in the world?

So we cannot say where evil came from or why there is evil in the world. The important things is to be aware that some kind of evil spirit does seem to exist. I don?t mean that there is a devilish-looking fellow creeping about, ready to spring from under the stairs or a closed door. I am talking about a way of being, about an evil that we all too easily become part of. It is all too easy to plant seeds of hatred, greed, and judgment. It happens quite unconsciously! When we are repulsed by evil to the point that we must turn away and pretend we never saw anything, we allow a division to form within us. How subtly evil works! In protecting ourselves, in turning away, in failing to witness to life, we become complicit in evil.

?Sarayu turned to Mack; at least that was his impression. ?Mackenzie, evil is a word that we use to describe the absence of Good, just as we use the word darkness to describe the absence of Light or death to describe the absence of Life. Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good; they do not have any actual existence. I am Light and I am Good. I am Love and there is no darkness in me. Light and Good actually exist. So, removing yourself from me will plunge you into darkness. Declaring independence will result in evil because apart from me, you can only draw upon yourself. That is death because you have separated yourself from me: Life (pg. 136).?

What is the nature of love?

?Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant?or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;?it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.?It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.?

If we start by saying that nature of love is that first meeting between the mother and child. It is a physical meeting through touch, body, eyes, smile, tears, laughter. In those early moments, a child discovers that he or she is loved. And because she is loved, she is someone. Love will always entail the eyes and the physical touch in some way. Love implies always speaking to the person behind the behavior, behind the capacity and knowledge. Behind the angers, fear, anguish, there is you! Love is not just a way of looking, it is also a way of listening, of being present, of understanding, of helping the other to change and to grow. This means that love implies humility. To love the child who is acting so aggravatingly or to love the grandparent that is always forgetting my name, demands some effort. To love someone who is not looking and is not paying attention, or to knock on door of someone we do not really want to see, is a challenge. Love is not about helping people to be the way that we want them to be or the way we think that they should be. Love is unconditional. Loves implies that we have the desire to help people to be fully themselves.

Is death the end of everything? What happens when we die?

Jean Vanier said, ?I remember the farmers going out onto the slopes when the snow was gone. They wore great packs of cow manure and they would spread it on the ground, like butter on toast. They did it with such delicacy and respect, confident in the new life that would spring up from this waste. This is the wonder of compost. In the movement of life, even death is not wasted. The scraps and peelings, the rotten fruits, the moldy bread, the parts of our food that in digestion have nothing more to offer our bodies in terms of energy or vitamins, the utter waste, gives life. Nothing is wasted?The mystery of compost should give us confidence to live experiences, to accept change, to risk loss and to be open to the movement of life. Today we have toilets. We send our garbage far away in great trucks. When we do something that is clearly wrong, we want to send it away to never see it, to forget about it. But the reality is that our growth comes from those experiences. We make mistakes, and we learn from them. We hurt others and we experience the wonderful gift of forgiveness, which can bring us into a deeper bonding with one another. When we have made a mistake, when we are living in a way that is not about growth, that is not about new life, we must have the confidence to leave this path. Then we must sort the rotten vegetables from the good and cut away the weeds, celebrating that the compost will bring nutrients to the new plants. Compost is internal to growth. Death is integral to life (Life?s Great Questions, pg 112-113).?

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross says, ?the human body is identical to what happens when the butterfly emerges from its cocoon. The cocoon can be compared to the human body, but it is not identical with your real self for it is only a house to live in for a while. Dying is only moving from one house into a more beautiful one?As soon as the cocoon is in an irreparable condition?be it from suicide, murder, heart attack, or chronic disease, it doesn?t matter how it happened?it will release the butterfly, your soul so to speak. At this second stage, symbolically speaking, after the butterfly leaves its material body, you will experience some important things which you simply out to know in order not to be afraid of death anymore (On Life after Death, pg 3-4).?

Death is not the end of everything, for from the greatest of all composts, death, will arise a new life.

What Matters in Death and in Life?

Seek wisdom, communion, love, and to be in relationship with one another.

The Word (John 1:1) was in communion with God, meaning that we have a mysterious experience of becoming one. Jesus invites us to be in communion with him, the Word made flesh. Moments of communion give us a taste of what we are moving towards as we grow in love.

Communion is about mutual presence. It means I am with you, and you are with me. I am because I am with you, my deepest being is revealed because we are together. This requires humility and vulnerability, my sense of self fading into a reality of togetherness. Mutual presence is about allowing compassion to grow, revealing our radical togetherness. What does radical mean? It means ?root.? And so radical togetherness means that we are bound together in the roots of our humanity, growing to fulfillment. This journey begins with a moment, a taste of communion. We may have a moment of communion when we bear witness to something extraordinary and truthful, something that touches the depths of our hearts and awakens our longing for justice and peace. Communion is not something that we achieve or obtain, it is a moment on a journey that tells us we are moving in the right direction.