[1994] The stubborn realities of offensive suffering make the temptation to anesthetize ourselves with distractions seem irresistible. Many Cabaret masters of ceremonies are nearby, urging us to flee to experiences where “life is beautiful”. We eventually realize that the relief they offer is shallow, providing no more than a veneer over our insecurity and our troubled conscience. By thinning out the ‘good’ in life as well as turning away from the ‘tragic’ in life, cabarets leave us most removed from reality.
To live and work among the vulnerable requires balance for experiencing both joy and heartache. We begin to recover this balance when the unsatisfactory and empty consequences of despairing resignation or escapism drive us back toward indiscriminately facing life’s varying circumstances. More positively, we need an approach to spirituality and ethics through which we acquire instincts analogous to an old farm animal making its way alone back to the barn or a boxer continuing to answer the bell though dulled by several rounds of fighting. We need an approach to spirituality and ethics that encourages familiarity with a host of witnesses, the recollection of whose faithfulness draws the weary servant back to his/her post. We need an approach to spirituality and ethics by which the search for meaning in offensive life circumstances does not harm the sufferers by destroying their integrity. We need an approach to spirituality and ethics that permits expressions of doubt and confusion when the search for meaning fails.
It seems that many – sufferers as well as those who care for them -- who lose the footing they brought to tragic suffering are not argued out of those ideas/views. Instead, they have seen more than they or their approach to spirituality and ethics can bear. Suffering can eclipse/melt down every concept of ‘God’ with which I am familiar. But an attempt to regain balance must stop short of concluding that the realities of innocent suffering should be avoided. The sufferers cannot so flee.
Every person who dares to be genuinely present with the disadvantaged and dismembered should expect to grow faint. When they do, they face what may be their most crucial spiritual and ethical test. They should affirm what vision they still have, confess their disappointments, and seek for relief. Then, by lack of an alternative that maintains their integrity or by the recollection of encouraging experiences with the disadvantaged and dismembered, they can find the resolve to return to the journey with renewed courage.
To live and work among the vulnerable requires balance for experiencing both joy and heartache. We begin to recover this balance when the unsatisfactory and empty consequences of despairing resignation or escapism drive us back toward indiscriminately facing life’s varying circumstances. More positively, we need an approach to spirituality and ethics through which we acquire instincts analogous to an old farm animal making its way alone back to the barn or a boxer continuing to answer the bell though dulled by several rounds of fighting. We need an approach to spirituality and ethics that encourages familiarity with a host of witnesses, the recollection of whose faithfulness draws the weary servant back to his/her post. We need an approach to spirituality and ethics by which the search for meaning in offensive life circumstances does not harm the sufferers by destroying their integrity. We need an approach to spirituality and ethics that permits expressions of doubt and confusion when the search for meaning fails.
It seems that many – sufferers as well as those who care for them -- who lose the footing they brought to tragic suffering are not argued out of those ideas/views. Instead, they have seen more than they or their approach to spirituality and ethics can bear. Suffering can eclipse/melt down every concept of ‘God’ with which I am familiar. But an attempt to regain balance must stop short of concluding that the realities of innocent suffering should be avoided. The sufferers cannot so flee.
Every person who dares to be genuinely present with the disadvantaged and dismembered should expect to grow faint. When they do, they face what may be their most crucial spiritual and ethical test. They should affirm what vision they still have, confess their disappointments, and seek for relief. Then, by lack of an alternative that maintains their integrity or by the recollection of encouraging experiences with the disadvantaged and dismembered, they can find the resolve to return to the journey with renewed courage.
