When I hear that phrase, I picture two guys looking at the scene before them. One guy scratches his head and asks the other, “What do you make of that?”
It’s a great question because it belies the fact that we don’t see things as they are; rather, we see things as we imagine them to be. We have to make sense (i.e., create understanding) of things to store them in our minds.
It’s a great question because it belies the fact that we don’t see things as they are; rather, we see things as we imagine them to be. We have to make sense (i.e., create understanding) of things to store them in our minds.
How we make sense of things becomes a critical factor in how we experience joy and suffering in this world. Over the past few years I’ve read several stories of how ordinary individuals have taken tragic situations and used their experiences to bring joy and healing to themselves and others.
You’ve read many of these, too. It’s common for us to respond, “I couldn’t do that.” What we forget, however, is that they didn’t think they could do that, either. In fact, they didn’t transform their tragedy right away. It often took many months of one-day-at-a-time healing.
But, what’s the alternative? If not transformation, then what? In our community, family literacy efforts recognize that when you teach a family to read you often end a generations-old cycle of illiteracy. The doors of education open wide for parents and children, and even wider for grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Similarly, when we heal deep pain, we often break the lineage of hurt or keep it from taking root. We transform our present as well as our legacy.
If we set our intention on transformation and allow ourselves to look deeply into our own suffering, it will guide us and we will know what to do and what not to do to change our hearts. We will eventually arrive on the other side suffering and find ourselves.
Quote
We can tell a lot by what a person does with their suffering: do they transmit it or do they transform it. Richard Rohr
Web
In 1993, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a brief essay on transforming suffering (read it now)
You’ve read many of these, too. It’s common for us to respond, “I couldn’t do that.” What we forget, however, is that they didn’t think they could do that, either. In fact, they didn’t transform their tragedy right away. It often took many months of one-day-at-a-time healing.
But, what’s the alternative? If not transformation, then what? In our community, family literacy efforts recognize that when you teach a family to read you often end a generations-old cycle of illiteracy. The doors of education open wide for parents and children, and even wider for grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Similarly, when we heal deep pain, we often break the lineage of hurt or keep it from taking root. We transform our present as well as our legacy.
If we set our intention on transformation and allow ourselves to look deeply into our own suffering, it will guide us and we will know what to do and what not to do to change our hearts. We will eventually arrive on the other side suffering and find ourselves.
Quote
We can tell a lot by what a person does with their suffering: do they transmit it or do they transform it. Richard Rohr
Web
In 1993, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a brief essay on transforming suffering (read it now)
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