passus

i went to a talk that explored this idea (or tried to and kind of failed) and i wanted to think it through a bit with words....

one panelist said that suffering came about because of love and free-will. that when we love we make the decision to do so and from this act of free will, when we choose or not choose to love God (turn towards or turn away from), we can either be absent or full of suffering... but this pre-defines suffering to be the absence of God's love in our lives. and suffering exists now because of those few initial humans who decided to turn away from God and the tendency to turn away is written within our genetic code. but also we must "participate in the fall of adam, in order to participate in the salvation of Christ".

so i wonder. if love is the origin of suffering... this seems to go back to the Buddhist ideal that desire is the root of all suffering. what is the one thing we as humans we made to do and want to do with all our being? we want on the deepest of levels to connect with another human. we want that other human being to share with our experiences in this crazy world. we want to be able to connect emotionally, spiritually, sexually, etc. not only with a human but with the same human being over and over again. i think deep down it is because we are trying so desperately to connect with God that it's the only way we know how - by relating to others that look/think like us, that relate the same way. when we try to form these connections with other people, try to represent what we think is subconsciously our connection with God on this earth, we ultimately fail, because we are a corrupt being. we are not God. we were made in His image, but we are incomplete and imperfect. and i think it is in these key points that we put suffering into our lives.

our broken creation full of broken creatures gives birth to and roots suffering in to our world. Buddha was right that desire is the root of all suffering and we are creatures that want to satiate those desires. however where Buddha says that to end suffering we must end desire, i think that although this is a simple solution, it is a solution that will never happen on this broken world. sure, maybe once we are united with our Creator, we can achieve this kind of level of freedom from suffering, but it is our God who will lift the burden from our shoulders. we are not able to do it alone on this world.

we were creatures designed to make connections. loving each other is the only thing that we have in this broken creation that was apart of our original design. that's it. maybe it's definition has been warped but that's because broken love has brought us suffering. we are not able to offer God the kind of perfect love that he can offer us. and that is because we are not God... but we can offer our love to him nonetheless, free will and all that. we are only so capable and God knows that. he knows that we are not perfect and are broken and failing.

another panelist mentioned that in our asking God questions and demanding answers for them, through all that anger, etc. that once the dust settles and we've asked all that we can, we will become closer to God. i believe this with all my heart. God wants us to question him, to challenge him, to try to understand him, all so we can further the idea that it is so important for him to be in/apart of our lives. that we are nothing without him and that we can not do anything without him. we question God in order to try to love him more. the questions we ask are hard ones for us to answer.

i am most certain that when i questioned or even when i was complacent about the existence of God, it was because i needed to stop wandering in the dark trying to search for a light switch that didn't even exist in the first place. once i stopped searching for a light to turn on and i looked around, the room wasn't as dark as i thought it was initially and it actually got lighter. and then i realized that the light filling the room was coming from God within me.

God gives us only so much that we can handle. He doesn't give us any more or any less.

suffering exists. humans can either turn an eye of compassion towards it or turn an eye of complacency away from it (they can say 'oh well, it's not happening to me').

love also exists. we can embrace it and risk everything for a connection with another human that is only a shadow of the greater connection we need to cultivate with God... or we can close our hearts, deny the truth that we know deep within us, and never take a risk...

..or a leap of faith.