“To rest in your own suffering
Is evasion of suffering. We must learn to suffer more.” ~T.S. Eliot, Family Reunion
Yikes.
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| Photo courtesy of Plant With Purpose |
Along these lines, Ken Wytsma, the founder of the JusticeConference said on Friday night, to over 4,000 justice hopefuls, “I hope you
get crushed.”
I. Hope. You. Get. Crushed.
He went on to describe how a seed needs to be crushed and buried
before something life-giving can grow.
Sex slavery should crush you.
Lack of access to water should crush you.
War and rape and genocide should crush you.
Violence—physical and political and economic and
structural—should crush you.
Should we rest in this crushing, this suffering? Do we stay and
find comfort that our hearts and consciences are granted the sensitivity and
empathy to be crushed in the first place? Or is this evading the very thing
that is crushing us? Must we learn to suffer more?
Yes and no.
I think we should stay. I think we shouldn’t numb.
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| Photo courtesy of Plant With Purpose |
But I also think we are called to leave. To sprout tendrils of
hope and release roots of redemption. To take part in the very redemption—redeeming,
revaluing, renewing—of our suffering for the sake of others.
In that way, let us not be content to rest in our suffering, but
learn to suffer more for the sake that others might live, might hope, might be
freed from even greater crushing.
What
do you think this quote means? How do you take Eliot’s words? What do you think
of my take on crushing and suffering?
I take Eliot's words in light of my own dealings with grief. I can choose to remain in my grief over, say, my father's death, but to do so keeps me from ever truly living again (and thus, inevitably experiencing grief again).
ReplyDeleteThat makes a lot of sense, Adrian. Keep up the work of moving beyond grief! You could probably write a Life to the Fullest post on that topic ;)
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