L'Chaim

 

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord."

-Isaiah 55:8

 

~*

In our Western mindset, "suffering" is seen as inherently "bad", something to be avoided at all costs.  Our paradigm suggests if we are suffering, that "something must be wrong".  Whereas in other, more ancient cultures, suffering is seen as simply an integral and inevitable valid state, an intrinsic fundamental part of  the Life cycle itself.

No suffering, No Birth

 

When we attempt to subjugate suffering with pills, potions, drink, diversions, we stagnate in the very suffering from which we are trying to escape and stifle the intended end result: new Life.  When we resist the process, we stand in the way of the very excavation which will make room in our hearts to hold what comes after......

 

and there is an "after"

suffering need not have the last word,
if we'll let God finish His sentence.

 

When suffering is seen as some sort of stigma, we miss the opportunity, the doorway granted,

 

into new depth

 

into deeper communion

with each other

with our God

with the One "acquainted with grief"

 

we miss the Gift.

 

As we enter into this Season, celebrating the Birth which allowed all of us to be Reborn,

Let us remember the suffering that precipitated that Promise,

the death which preceded - and was servant to - the Life

Let us, in turn, see sorrow in a new light,

suffering for all that it is worth,

not as an end

but as a means to the intended end

which is,

of course,

and always,

 

The Beginning

 

~*



"I have come that they may have Life,

Abundant Life."

-John 10:10