Monday, June 13, 2022

Megan Glenn

Hope & Light

One of the questions that arose during the Reading Between The Lines this past week was whether or not we are required to suffer as a prerequisite to knowing God's love, and how we "rejoice in our suffering." I don't know the answer to either of these questions, but I encountered a different daily reading the following day that broadened my thinking on this. I took some comfort in the idea that pain or suffering may be God's way of getting us to "notice" where our cracks are--as Rob has spoken before, cracks are where God's light can shine in. Cracks also make us aware of the places in which we might need to focus some more attention to our lives, perhaps make a change. I also have been contemplating the sisyphean task of "being content," and how sometimes, no matter how many cracks you try to repair in your life, new ones always open up. Perhaps this isn't, as I previously thought, because people are just naturally inclined to find the worst and to complain about it, but perhaps that is because God is always trying to push us to improve, always encouraging us to be the best version of ourselves, and in that, I find great hope.

Our hearts and bodies often give us messages we fail to pay attention to. Ironically, we are all so aware of pain, can hardly ignore it, but we rarely hear what it has to say. It is true that we may need to withstand great pain, great heartache, great disappointment and loss in order to unfold in the rest of our lives. But our pain may also be showing us exactly where we need to change. If we view our bodies as bridges that carry us from our inner life to the outer world, then pain often gives us insight as to where the bridge is experiencing the most stress. Pain lets us know where we might crack, where our lives need to be reinforced and rested, in order for us to keep bringing our inner and outer lives together. - Mark Nepo, Book of Awakening, May 9