I had a busy week with family and community in NL, but treasured connections are always welcome.
Today is Good Friday, and after a year of illnesses and death in my family as well as in so many other families and parts of our world, I am preoccupied
with what it means to love and to open my heart to suffering I cannot alleviate. Today I name this reality as the past year's hard lesson. My insight today, on the day of the Christian year when suffering is most looked upon with helpless longing to alleviate,
I finally name that a lot of the helping I have done for a lifetime was an attempt to fix and solve. It had an agenda - mostly mine. The hard lesson of the crucifixion and what I realize after the past year is that at this late date in my life I am trying
to learn to be with suffering, to be fully present to those suffering, not to fix, solve, or end it, but to be present in a loving way, to alleviate where I can, but also to be present to my own helplessness. What an insight, what a shift this has been today!