4.3.23   Most of all in this life, we don’t want to suffer. We don’t want pain, or interruptions to our plans or anything to come to us that is not on our agendas. We Americans are experts at not accepting anything that creates suffering in us and complaining about the least little thing that […]

  In our country, we focus on our personal goals, we do our best to reach them, and we resent any disruptions of our work on those goals, be it a small one, like we’re rushing to meet a deadline and the traffic is slowing us down horribly, or a big one like the death […]

  “The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life.[1]   Suffering of all different kinds seems to be our lot in life on […]

One of the least understood ways of dealing with the pain and suffering in our lives and in this world is to not resist the pain and suffering, to not resist what is already in our lives or someone elses. Everyone in this world suffers to a greater or lesser extent and nothing, not education […]

  Life can throw us curve balls. Suffering can come upon us suddenly. We can lose our job. Get sick. A dear one can die. A hurricane can destroy all that we own. And more. With each time of suffering we are thrown into the wilderness, into a place of transition and seeming danger where […]

             “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” This second of the Beatitudes addresses all those who have lost someone or something dear to them. There is an emptiness in the people who mourn, a loss that hurts terribly. And yet death is the most natural of things that happen to every […]

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome this world.” John 16:33. I came across this verse through “Jesus Calling,” a daily devotional. And it startled me. It’s not a verse that is quoted often, but it is one that explains a lot about what the world is like, what we […]

This winter I have been struck by the beauty of the bare trees…by how we can now see behind them and through them…and especially by how their inner structure is now revealed. When trees are fully leafed, we only get rare glimpses of the branches or of what is behind a tree. In winter we […]

“Mary, did you know that you baby boy is Lord of all creation?  Mary, did you know that your baby boy will one day rule the nations?  Did you know that your baby boy is heaven’s perfect lamb?  This sleeping child you’re holding is the great I am?”   On Christmas Eve this year it […]

  The time between the mother’s diagnosis of cancer and her death was just about a year, a year that Alyssa Monks, an artist, spent in taking care of her mother. And this is what she learned from this experience: “We’re all going to have big losses in our lives…They bring us to our knees…So […]