"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." Aeschylus
This quotation summarized the extraordinary insight of Greek tragedy into the mystery of human suffering.
We must suffer to learn and we must learn to grow and we must grow or die. If you read that complex quote slowly, you will see that is unfolding step by step the central mystery of human suffering. And it answers the big question WHY DO GOOD PEOPLE SUFFER?
Even in our sleep--- the dramatic poet insists that it is then as we sleep that the soul rehearses the pains of the day. And we all know that this is a truth. DROP BY DROP
Richard Rohr writes about the encounter between Jesus Christ and Thomas who doubts.
I’ve often said that great love and great suffering (both healing and woundedness) are the universal, always available paths of transformation because they are the only things strong enough to take away the ego’s protections and pretensions. Great love and great suffering bring us back to God, and I believe this is how Jesus himself walked humanity back to God. It is not just a path of resurrection rewards but a path that now includes death and woundedness.
Christ showed his wounds to Thomas and that became part of the INCARNAtION.
All of us are wounded. The great poets show us their wounds and allow us to touch them and in so doing come to understand our own suffering flesh.
by Adam Zagajewski
Issue no. 226 (Fall 2018)
My favorite poets
never met
They lived in different countries
and different ages
surrounded by ordinariness
by good people and bad
they lived modestly
like an apple in an orchard
They loved clouds
they lifted their heads
a great armada
of light and shade
sailed above them
a film was playing
that still hasn’t ended
Moments of bitterness
passed swiftly
likewise moments of joy
Sometimes they knew
what the world was
and wrote hard words
on soft paper
Sometimes they knew nothing
and were like children
on a school playground
when the first drop
of warm rain
descends
never met
They lived in different countries
and different ages
surrounded by ordinariness
by good people and bad
they lived modestly
like an apple in an orchard
They loved clouds
they lifted their heads
a great armada
of light and shade
sailed above them
a film was playing
that still hasn’t ended
Moments of bitterness
passed swiftly
likewise moments of joy
Sometimes they knew
what the world was
and wrote hard words
on soft paper
Sometimes they knew nothing
and were like children
on a school playground
when the first drop
of warm rain
descends
—Translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh
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