A Cup of Conversation – April 2015

Channel surfing the other night, I landed on National Geographic’s Big Cats of the Serengeti. This is where my wife usually exits the room but not before shooting me a subtle yet unmistakable look of disapproval. Okay, I’m drawn to the drama of the plains but not because of some perverse pleasure watching weaker creatures hunted down by ravenous lions. Rather, it is the moment after the chase and fall that lures me in. The brief and almost-human expression of the surviving herd fascinates me. After what can only be described as a tortured mix of terror and relief, the herd immediately returns to grazing as if nothing ever happened. There is something stark and disturbingly familiar about the reality of community on the plains. Some call it survival of the fittest. I call it a fallen world.

Somebody once said any one can prosper in adversity but very few blossom in prosperity. Not many would understand the meaning of that today but great-grandparents understand perfectly. It’s ironic we strive to thrive yet it’s the striving, not the thriving, making us better people. We toil away for possessions, acknowledgement, and leisure. Yet these things in excess desensitize us to honest compassion and costly empathy politicians can never own. The more we have the less we give of ourselves. I believe in free, unfettered pursuit to better life yet also understand chasing abundance can skin the soul.

A local contributing writer observed many people suffering around her with issues of great significance. I too am witness to the same struggle of so many. It’s not our imagination. People today are really hurting physically, emotionally, and spiritually. So what has unleashed the beasts of loss and disillusionment? I personally think we’re at another great tipping point and nobody is going to like how we fall and what takes us down. Yet with pain comes opportunity to healthy change. With austerity comes clarity to see truth about a great many things. I’ve lived very healthy and very sick therefore testify to the difference now in perception of another’s misery. Today I can walk into a full room and spot the quietly desperate, the stragglers too often invisible to someone else. What I choose to do with that determines much about the rest of my days because there will be a reckoning. I know it is coming.

If you’ve been taken down by loss in the form of health, home, or hope, take a closer look. There is purpose still to your brand of suffering and hidden opportunity in the grinding you endure. Clearly there is no profit in suffering for the sake of suffering. However, deeper meaning through loss to benefit another is inexpressible treasure and can never be diminished or taken away. Acquire faith to see the unseen and you’ll make it through to the other side.

Revisit what you believe in and why. Look over your shoulder for the sake of another and don’t be afraid to separate from the herds of self-preservation because there will always be something to run from and things seeking to devour and maim. It’s surprising how fast the stumbled can rise to their feet with a simple hand up. Self-sacrifice is very rare today and we are inexplicably drawn to its gift because…there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13

This is the great and painfully beautiful conundrum of loss.

A Joyous Easter, 2015 A.D.