Where are all the fathers, the elders that can assure us that all is well and lead us to places we would not go alone?
Another question would be does anyone care? In our society, which is much unlike the Eastern side of the planet (and most of the world for that matter), our emphasis is on youth. Our idols are sports stars who , for many, before they turn twenty (can you say teenagers?) are offered multi million dollar contracts. It’s the same story that’s found in Luke 18.
If religion, any religion, has anything to teach, it is how we should deal with pain. How do we turn trauma into sacred space? Unfortunately, some people wear their pain as a badge, and they make their pain their identity. They receive attention and comfort from others because of the name tag they wear on their lapel: that says I AM A VICTIM. And in our society that is all about litigation and compensation, saying one is a victim gives that person the “moral high ground”.
How did we get to this place?
Katrina was the epitome of the concept. For weeks, the only thing anyone could say was how much of a victim they were and how to blame others were. From local citizens, to city mayors, to state officials, to federal agents, to you name it. It was all about how “someone did me wrong song.” It’s a disease. It’s a pandemic that can have as much devastation as H1N5 avian influenza.
True spiritual transformation is accepting YOUR pain. There are few things that life can teach one in the second half of life, like pain can. But, we can deny this “drawing into spiritual territory”. We can draw back. The Catholic symbol, the paradox, the contradiction, of the slaughtered lamb, standing that Revelation 5:6 shows us that is a key.
What pain are you running from that you should embrace instead and ask God what message there is IN IT that we should be recognizing. This is not easy. We live in the West, a culture wherein the prayers are about keeping us FROM pain, while in the East it is to help us THROUGH pain. A major difference in living life- spiritually.
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