One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person's pain without trying to 'fix' it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person's mystery and misery.
01462 – Not “Fixing Things” is Hard
read more
01430 – Forgiveness is Not Instinctive
To forgive is extraordinary. And divine. And uncommon--and not instinctive. In fact, forgiveness runs precisely counter to our instincts. It tugs us beyond the place where we would want to declare our pain, nurse our hurts and invoke sympathy. It encourages us to give...
01424 – Jesus Always Went where the Pain Was
There is no side to take in the Twelve Step Program! It is not a worthiness contest. There is only an absolutely necessary starting point! The experience of "powerlessness" is where we all must begin. And Alcoholics Anonymous (A. A.) is honest and humble enough to...
01372 – Eloquent Sermons
I am sometimes amazed, even alarmed, at the extent to which people judge ministers by their preaching, and preaching by its rhetoric. To do so is to make the entirely spurious but nearly universal assumption that God is better served by a poet than by an accountant....
01351 – Are You Human, or Just Alive?
If you feel pain you're alive. If you feel other people's pain, you're a human being.
01347 – Letting Suffering Teach Us
Many of us are tempted to think that if we suffer, the only important thing is to be relieved of our pain. We want to flee it at all costs. But when we learn to move through suffering, rather than to avoid it, then we greet it differently. We become willing to let it...
01346 – Pain is Part of our Humanity
My own pain in life has taught me that the first step to healing is not a step away from the pain but a step toward it. When brokenness is, in fact, just as intimate a part of our being as our chosenness and our blessedness, we have to dare to overcome our fear and...
01287 – Acknowledging Pain vs. Inflicting Pain
There are too many people today who instead of feeling hurt are acting out their hurt; instead of acknowledging pain, they're inflicting pain on others. Rather than risking feeling disappointed, they're choosing to live disappointed. Emotional stoicism is not...
01270 – Did God Suffer?
Years earlier I had read some writings of Jurgen Moltmann, a German theologian who argued that God "experiences" our sufferings and grieves with us. Our soul is so connected with God, he said, that it's impossible for the Divine Being not to share our aguish. Now...
01265 – Forgiving vs. Being Reconciled
Forgiving and being reconciled are not about pretending things are other than they are. It is not patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the pain, the degradation, the truth. from No...