A very down to earth piece on suffering and the danger of positive thinking
July 8, 2009
Read it here.
Hat tip: JD Flynn
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Wow.
From the Article:
I can only trust that someone might be willing to venture into the dell with them, if only for a moment, neither of them helpless but both of them hoping in a God whose will is our peace.
The service of the author, her willingness to “venture into the dell” with those suffering, is really the most effective way to help the people she describes.
Mother Theresa used to say that the hardest thing for the poorest of the poor was not so much the material facts of their deprivation (though that was harrowing enough), but that they felt forgotten and invisible.
Makes me also think of the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus; the sin of the rich man was not so much the size of his bank account, but that he stepped over a suffering brother human being every day, heartlessly and without allowing himself to recognize the reality of Lazarus’ humanity.
It is very tempting, and very dangerous, to avoid exposing ourselves to the suffering of our brothers and sisters; to see their pain is to, in some sense, “own” it. Their suffering becomes our own, when we acknowledge their human kinship. I imagine that was among the worst pains of the Cross.
More so than the obvious homeless, disabled or ‘down and outs’ of society, severe loneliness can and does exist in the people amongst us without us ever knowing. How often do we ever consider our neighbour enough to ask after them how they are doing by going out of our comfort zone? Hidden loneliness exists. How much do we know or care about the people next door, our work colleagues or even the contributors on this site?