Our pastor was away yesterday, and the priest we did have was a well-liked former associate who left us last fall. In his homily he quoted an old Arab proverb, "All sunshine makes the desert."
Perhaps this is the true worth and value of misery and suffering, rather than virtues to be sought out for their own sake, for some sort of mortification. Suffering offers us a contrast to the things that are good and joyful, and allows us to enjoy their delicate wonder with a true appreciation for these good things. Rain is what we regard as the opposite of sunshine, and yet when it rains is when things grow. And like rain, suffering is often when we do our growing, as we move into a tme of our lives when we learn what our character is, and what it yet needs to become.
Of course, people do not always recover from suffering, just as too much rain makes floods, not flowers. That is where those of us who have been properly watered come in. That is another of suffering's gifts - the wisdom, the ability, and the inclination to help others who've been through what we've been through. When we apply it, we are like streams and brooks, who can help drain the rain from people's lives, and after a time, leave only the fertile soil.
Monday, January 31, 2005
An Arab proverb
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2 comments:
Though I agree with you on that it is best to find joy in every situation and learn lessons even from the most distressing events, I find that it's still part of the human nature to avoid suffering and seek contentment. i wish I could say with confidence that we live in the best of all possible worlds; however, out there there's still a lot to correct in order to improve human life. Moreover, it's probably only a minority of people who learn compassion and empathy from their problems - I view such behavior as an ideal to strive but far from the "normal" in life today.
You may be right that a lot of people today are unable to learn compassion and empathy from the troubles they face. I do think too that their inability to do so is in some measure why they continue to suffer. I'm thinking here of how we may be, by analogy like the animal kingdom - the way sometimes a dog needs the large collar to keep it from keeping a sore open.
That is sort what I alluded to with my flooding metaphor. The people who have been able to gain self-improvement from their own difficulties are the ones who have the real likelihood of being able to help others out of the mire. :-)
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