learning on Suffering

Suffering is a dreadful teacher but often the beginning of the best in us. Suffering and creativity arc often interdependent. Pain produces a terrible tension released in our creative response. Suffer...

Faith does not grow in spite of suffering, but through suffering, when hope learns to contradict reality.

IDENTITY AND SUFFERING The key to understanding today’s readings lies in the first half of 1 Peter. Two themes dominate Peter’s encouragement to these early Christians: identity and suffering. Knowi...

Books on the problem of pain divide neatly into two groupings. The older ones, by people like Aquinas, Bunyan, Donne, Luther, Calvin, and Augustine, ungrudgingly accept pain and suffering as God’s use...

A Note of Understanding The Lectionary and the Liturgical Calendar Preaching from the lectionary isn’t always easy. When the assigned texts align with major moments in the liturgical calendar—Christ...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Paul’s Relationship to Philippi There is practically no debate that Philippians was written by Paul. This letter is an intimate portray...

An experienced gardener knows the value of not watering their tomatoes. Well, there's a little more to it, but that's the headline. Suppose you go to the nursery in the spring and get a tom...

Context 1 Peter is traditionally attributed to the apostle Peter. It is addressed to Christian communities in diaspora, scattered across Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), who were experiencing social m...

Context 1 Peter is traditionally attributed to the apostle Peter. It is addressed to Christian communities in diaspora, scattered across Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) who were experiencing social ma...

Summary The Text: 1 Peter 3:13-22 In the first chapter of this letter, Peter sets out the reason for writing. He affirms the eternal state of the believer:  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lo...

Summary The Text: 1 Peter 3:13-22 In the first chapter of this letter, Peter sets out the reason for writing. He affirms the eternal state of the believer:  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lo...

According to Bill Tripp, a member of the Karuk tribe in Northern California and a forest manager, Fire is that which renews life. A lot of people have been conditioned to look at it as a threat and...

On December 2, 1943, a German air raid in Italy sank over a dozen ships docked in port. Among them was an American vessel carrying over two thousand mustard gas bombs intended for the war. Soon, toxic...

The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.

Trivia time! What natural disaster is the most destructive to a forest? Chances are that the first thing that comes to mind is a forest fire. After all, fire is pure destruction to plants. What possib...

The Church has water and tears, the water of baptism and the tears of repentance.

The St. Francis Satyr is a tiny butterfly on the endangered species list. This butterfly only lives on the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina. Before heavy conservation efforts took place, the...

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way.

Cross-bearing is the long lesson of our mortal life. It is a part of God’s salvation, called sanctification. It is a lesson set before us every moment of every day.” “If life were an art lesson…we cou...

When people fail, we are inclined to find fault with them, but if you look more closely, you will find that God had some particular truth for them to learn, which the trouble they are in is to teach t...

We cannot afford to forget any experience, not even the most painful.

One of the reasons failure can be so crushing is that we set goals of success, instead of improvement and learning.

Leader: Christ bids us: /“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, an...

Ever loving and eternal God, source of the light that never sets and of the love that never fails. Life of our life, Father of our spirits; draw near to us, and by the remembrance of your ancient merc...

O my Savior, help me. I am slow to learn, prone to forget, and weak to climb; I am in the foothills when I should be on the heights; I am pained by my graceless heart, my prayerless days, my poverty o...

Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. A...

And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring.

Pray as you can, not as you can’t.