Redemptive suffering 9/22/18Richard Rohr edit 
https://cac.org/redemptive-suffering-2018-10-22/
The mystery of the cross has the power
to teach us that our
suffering is not our
own & My life
is not about "me":
instead we are
actually living
inside of
a larger
force field
of life & death.
One moves from “me” to “us” inside of this field of deep inner experience
the gateway to compassion
& thus redemption.
Suffering
participation
w/ Jesus &
all humanity
Colossians 2:9–10For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
a time will come when... there is no longer such a sharp distinction between my self and other selves.
conversion:
reconstituted
sense of the self.
Galatians 2:20:I no longer live, but the Messiah lives in me,
& the life that I am now living in this body I live by the faithfulness of the
Son of God who loved me & gave himself for me.
Etty Hillesum spent her last weeks of freedom supporting people who were facing deportation to Auschwitz. In her diaries she wrote:
Never any bitterness about what was done to them, but always love for those who knew how to bear so much although nothing had prepared them for such burdens.
We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.
Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.
Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.
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