Our Collective Destiny and the Power of Suffering

“What a vast ocean of human suffering spreads over the entire Earth at every moment! Of what is this mass formed? Of blackness, gaps and rejections? No, let me repeat, of potential energy.

In suffering, the ascending force of the world is concealed in a very intense form. The whole question is how to liberate it and give it a consciousness of its significance and potentialities. …

May all the sufferers of the Earth join their sufferings, so that the world’s pain might become a great and unique act of consciousness, elevation, and union.”

~ Teilhard de Chardin

In response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine…

Remembering from St. Paul and from Walter Wink that we wrestle not against fellow human individuals but against the Domination Systems, I’d like to suggest that on Friday night, April 5, we engage in some form of spiritual activism. This coincides with the Night of Power / Night of Destiny of Ramadan. I can’t begin to imagine the hell the Palestinians are enduring right now and have been enduring for months without end. But in some way, we can join in the suffering we are witness to by learning, praying, advocating, and giving. There are many possible ways to engage; I’ve provided a few possibilities to consider.

Learn

• Books:
  • The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017 Rashid Khalidi
  • The Invention of the Jewish People Shlomo Sand
• Documentaries:
  • “The Birth of Israel” (2008) Jeremy Bowen:
    • https://documentaryheaven.com/the-birth-of-israel/
  • “Disturbing the Peace” (2016) Stephen Apkon & Andrew Young
    • I found a copy at our local Metropolitan Library System
    • It’s also available to rent on various streaming platforms
• Social media:
  • CAIR Oklahoma: https://www.cairoklahoma.com (This is local for me, who’s near you?)
  • Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com

Pray

• Ask, cry, wait, listen, release, rest—prayer has many forms and many movements. We can always find some true expression of prayer.
• If you want to expand your concept of prayer, consider Teilhard de Chardin – Seven Stages of Suffering: A Spiritual Path for Transformation, where authors Savary and Berne posit the idea that suffering has a great deal of energy that we can redirect toward goodness and change.
• People are diverse and God is vast. For some interfaith exposure, consider the HeartSpace app.

Advocate

• Contact your elected officials
• Find a petition and sign on
• Find and join in with a local demonstration
• Like or share something compelling on social media

Give

• Muslim Aid USA
• Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
• Zakat Foundation of America
• Oxfam-America
• International Red Cross and Red Crescent
• United Nations Relief and Works Agency

The inward pilgrimage

To those on an inward journey of discovery, healing, introspection—whether intentional or thrust upon you—I’d like you to know this:

As you listen inside, the things you hear about yoursef that sound too good to be true—those are what’s real.

The stuff you’ll hear about yourself that sound rightfully condemning are mere shadows.

But even in condemnation, there is good to be found if one looks to what that solid thing is which stands before the light, casting its all-too-familiar shadow. This shadow is so familiar that we’ve imagined its form and shape and substance over time, convincing ourselves of a truth conjured, never stopping long enough to realize we’ve only studied the shadow, not having turned around long enough to stare into the light and discern what’s solid and identify what enduring goodness was placed in us by our Creator.

We are image of unfathomable Goodness.

The journey of sanctification is not a violent conquest of self-mortification but rather a humble welcoming of what is Real and what is Good, however disguised it may seem. We travel a road of healing and embrace—a return into what we always have been, de-cluttering and un-fettering into wholeness, freedom, and purpose.

How are we to love our neighbor as ourself if we despise and war against what’s inside? This is our true task: to learn to love even ourself by learning to receive the love of Creator for us. The one who made us and knows us best loves us most—all parts of us.