Do we transform our pain … or transmit it?
More strong, gentle wisdom from Fr. Richard Rohr ...
Is your religion helping you to transform your pain? If it does not, it is junk religion. We all have pain—it’s the human situation, we all carry it in a big black bag behind us and it gets heavier as we get older: by betrayals, rejections, disappointments, and wounds that are inflicted along the way.
If we do not find some way to transform our pain, I can tell you with 100% certitude we will transmit it to those around us. We will create tension, negativity, suspicion, and fear wherever we go. Both Jesus and Buddha made it very clear to their followers that “life is suffering.” You cannot avoid it. It is no surprise that the central Christian logo became a naked, bleeding, suffering man. At the end of life, and probably early in life, too, the question is, “What do I do with this disappointment, with this absurdity, with this sadness?” Whoever teaches you how to transform your own suffering into compassion is a true spiritual authority. Whoever teaches you to project your doubt and fear onto Jews, Moslems, your family, heretics, gays, sinners, and foreigners, or even to turn it against yourself (guilt and shame) has no spiritual authority. Yet these very people have often preached from authoritative pulpits.
Adapted from The Authority of Those Who Have Suffered
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Ted Kennedy meets Jerry Falwell …
Fans (and critics) of either man should read this speech - from the late Sen. Kennedy, delivered back in 1983 at the late Jerry Falwell's (now) Liberty University. It addresses the role of faith in public life - as vital an issue 26 years later as it was then. In this long, hot summer of overheated rhetoric, both the tone and content of the speech offer much to readers today, especially these comments on how we debate moral (and, I would add, theological) issues ...
... we must respect the motives of those who exercise their right to disagree. We sorely test our ability to live together if we too readily question each other's integrity. It may be harder to restrain our feelings when moral issues are at stake - for they go to the deepest wellsprings of our being. But the more our feelings diverge, the more deeply held they are, the greater is our obligation to grant the sincerity and basic moral decency of our fellow citizens on the other side.
You can download the speech to read in its entirety here ... Here's a short clip from the beginning of the speech. (Thanks to Gary Stone for the links.) A truly gracious moment in American religious-political history -
PS: Jim Wallis offers a beautiful tribute to Kennedy here.
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Washington Post blog … the 4th R
You can catch my latest contribution to the On Faith blog here....
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A prayer …
I've been especially focusing my thoughts on the beatitudes in recent days. After the jump is a prayer that they inspired.
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Ramadan 2009: Day 10
The first week of the fast is completed ... and it has been a good week - good in terms of prayer, good in terms of self-control, good in terms of a humbling awareness of my weakness and limitations, good in terms of being intensely mindful of those who are hungry and thirsty day after day after day. It hasn't been easy: the thirst is tough late in the afternoons, I tend to feel a little sick and weak after about 2 pm, I've received quite a few amazingly nasty emails, and some of the blog chatter, I've been told, has included some predictable inaccuracy and depressing rhetoric. (I generally avoid those kinds of blogs.) But the negatives seem trivial and small in comparison with the blessings and encouragements. Two special encouragements ...
My fasting partner Eboo Patel writes about interfaith solidarity as well as anyone on the planet, because he lives it through Interfaith Youth Core. He talks about our shared fasting experience here. Quotable:
I hope this interfaith solidarity during Ramadan is a sign of the times. I pray that we are moving towards a world in which people are rooted in their own traditions but find dimensions to admire and learn from in others, that Ramadan is a time during which people from a variety of backgrounds come together in the common purpose of growing closer to God and one another. That is the heart of Islam, of all of our faiths and traditions.
And Ben Ries, a new friend (whom I met at Ichtheology at Yellowstone in July), is one of several who felt the call to join in the fast after reading about it here on this site. He shares his beautiful experience in an article here.
Two more after the jump ...
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