Merton on Suffering

Sometimes blogging feels more like bringing wisdom written long-ago to the attention of others, rather than coming up with anything new.

I had been kicking around some ideas for a post on the avoidance of suffering and the pain it causes when I came across this from Thomas Merton. He just captures it perfectly:

  "Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture."

~Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain, p. 91

Tortured by little and trivial things...how convicting.

Fear of being hurt...I realize this truth from time to time, and then I lose it again.

When I was sitting at my father's bedside in ICU and expecting him to die soon, a friend reminded me by text (see, even texting can be redeemed) not to run from my suffering, but to gently sit with it. Not to allow my fear of being hurt to chase me away, but to allow my mind and heart to be fully present in that dark moment. It was great advice. I wish I could remember to do it in the daily moments and not just the big, scary times of life. 

Mindlessness as a form of Privilege

In turning my attention to things in my daily life, I have become aware of this truth:

That being mindlessness (being inattentive) can be a form of privilege.

I've known this is true in certain areas of my life for some time, but I never realized how deeply it runs.

I've learned that not thinking about sexual orientation, ethnic status, gender, socioeconomic status, is a privilege that comes with being a middle-class straight white man, in a culture where these things are dominant. I've learned that being able to "forget" how these things deeply impact a person's daily experience is a privilege, and one that adversely effects others around me.

My intent is not to draw attention away from the injustice of all this, but I'm starting to realize that my inattentiveness starts to pop up in a whole range of contexts where I have the privilege to not have to pay attention or care.

I can ignore the ramifications of my food choices, because of where I live, my wealth, my mobility, and my unfettered access to any kind of food, from any place, whenever, and however I want it. I don't know when certain foods are "in season" because I've never had to think about it - it still just shows up in my grocery store.

Even more problematically, I can ignore how my choices degrade local and far-away ecosystems because my privileges allow me to live in an insulated world, encapsulated from the consequences of my actions. Others do not have this privilege. Others will go hungry, live in war zones, suffer damaged ecosystems, and not be able to do anything about it, while I continue to ignore it and live however I choose.

In the process of becoming a mindful person, a mindful, attentive follower of Jesus, I am learning that the privilege I have had to ignore these issues is vastly destructive in its impact on others.

Recently I bought the cheapest relish on a store shelf, later reading that it came from India. I have no issues with India making relish and exporting it, but it's hard to believe that saving 20 cents over the national brand that was manufactured in the US, didn't come with more than 20 cents of consequences for other people. Not to mention the fact that relish could be made in my own backyard, with no burning of fossil fuels involved, for probably the same price.

But it's been my privilege to ignore these issues. I didn't need to care about where the relish came from, because I wasn't the one facing the consequences burning diesel fuel to ship a jar of relish 7000 miles.

But Jesus teaches us a different way. We learn that all of us are connected - like brothers and sisters connected, and that my deep bonds with the rest of humanity and creation mean that their suffering is my suffering. I may not have been aware of it, but now I am, and I have choices to make in how I respond to it.

Probably going to start with making my own relish.

Doing Something

It might seem that one who writes a blog would love to just kick ideas around and write about them.

The truth is however, there's a big part of me that's sick of just contemplating and talking and writing. We contain this radical message of transformation and redemption but often we mull it over for so long that it loses its power and becomes, well, just another interesting set of ideas.

So my family and some friends of ours are doing something.

We want to stay on this journey of thinking differently about food and our relationship to creation, and following Jesus in community, but we also want to express this with our lives.

You can read about it here: wortley-food.blogspot.ca

We're just getting started, but it's a start.

It may not seem revolutionary to grow a bunch of tomatoes on your front lawn and let people help themselves. But it is an expression of an inner revolution that's occurred in our lives. A change in our hearts that recognizes that the life of Jesus must be lived in the neighborhood, and not kept in religious gatherings.

Objects Are Closer Than They Appear

Our brains are capable of amazing things.

Next time you're driving think about this:

On the passenger side of the vehicle there is a mirror, and on it is written a warning "Objects may be closer than they appear".

Now if I was making a safety manual for a product, I would hesitate a little before designing a product where this warning was something consumers would count on to avoid from driving two- tonne pieces of steel into each other. But strangely, it works. It works the vast majority of the time, and works often enough that the insurance industry trusts it.

It's astounding because it points to a phenomenal achievement of the human brain - the ability of our frontal lobe to impose a reality that contradicts what our eyes are telling us. We look in that mirror and see cars at a certain distance. But our brain (without having to read that instruction printed on the mirror every time) tells us not to trust what we see, but instead act on an unseen reality that is more true and reliable.

Does anyone else find this exciting? Does anyone else realize that to drive, is, to exercise faith.
Even the most hardened skeptic among us; those who hold firmly to "I'll believe it when I see it", step into the realm of faith when they look in a mirror and act in a manner that defies what their eyes perceive.

Humans are, by virtue of having a well-developed frontal lobe of their brain (among other things), highly capable of this sort of activity - this mode of living that chooses the reality it will act in congruence with. We are not slaves to our senses, thoughts, reactions, or, even our conditioning.

Sometimes we divide ourselves into categories such as "religious" or "non-religious",  or "spiritual" but "not-religious". But every time we choose to act in a manner that reflects a reality we believe in, especially when it defies our senses, we are in essence acting in faith.

As people we act in faith more often than we likely recognize. The question probably isn't, "are you religious?", but "what sort of things do you have faith in?".