Our suffering actually belongs to that of the Greater Whole.

The experience of intense suffering - whether physical, mental, emotional or spiritual - is one of the great challenges of life, one that each of us experiences at some time or other.  When this occurs, we feel isolated and alienated from the rest of humanity, as though the suffering is only our own.  During such times we seek liberation, yet wonder if we will ever be truly free of the suffering.

One way I've found of dealing with the intensity of suffering is to release it - by an act of faith - to the Greater Whole.  I then treat the suffering not as simply my own, but as that of humanity, of the Earth, of the Divine.  Indeed, as great mystics like St. Francis of Assisi and St. Mother Teresa remind us, God suffers.  That is in fact a major point of the Cross event.  When I view the suffering I experience as belonging to Someone Else who indwells me,  I do not feel quite so alienated any more.  In fact, I am then free to offer consolation to the One who is suffering within me.

Some of the early Christian mystics viewed Christ as a place where divine and human natures exchange places - a sort of "crossroads," which is one possible interpretation of the Cross event.  Because of the mutual self-emptying of both God and humanity in Christ, human suffering turns out to be God's suffering, and God's creativity turns out to be human creativity.  Here, another word for God might be "Divine Humanity" or "the Sacred Earth." Applied to the rest of us - as members of Christ's "body," regardless of our religious persuasion - this means that when our suffering is revealed as belonging to the Divine, we then acquire the ability in turn to become the power of Divine creativity.

During such times, we find the grace - especially through artistic endeavors - to act like an oyster, turning an irritating grit of sand into a pearl.  The suffering does not thereby end, but now, at least, we are able to transcend our sense of isolation and alienation, which is - after all - a large part of what contributes to the intensity of the suffering in the first place.

Photo: Ponderosa pines and Douglas-firs killed two weeks earlier by the Hewlett fire, Greyrock Trail, Roosevelt National Forest, CO, June 4, 2012