Dear Friend,   

Our October newsletter, Hope in Suffering, explores how we may respond to suffering be it physical, spiritual, or emotional. David Walker has chosen several different reflections on the topic for your consideration. As you would be aware it is a perennial focus for the great Christian writers and mystics.

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Scripture ~ Thoughts ~ Reflections
From David's Desk

The barrier of self is maya. When it is dispelled, then we in our suffering have tasted the draught of sorrow that wells up from the heart of creation, flowing out to be merged and transformed into the sea of endless joy. When we do not see ourselves in the infinite, when we imagine our sorrow to be our very own, then life becomes untrue and its burden becomes heavy. I understand more and more the truth of Buddha's teaching, that the root of all our miseries is this self-consciousness. We have to recognise the consciousness of the All before we can solve the mystery of pain and be free.

Our emancipation lies through the path of suffering. We must unlock the gate of joy by the key of pain. Our heart is like a fountain. So long as it is driven through the narrow channel of self it is full of fear and doubt and sorrow, for then it is dark and does not know its end. But when it comes out into the open, on the bosom of the All, then it glistens in the light and sings in the joy of freedom.

- Rabindranath Tagore

O souls who dream of a tranquil path and consolations on the spiritual way, if you but knew your need of being proved, to win by suffering this security and this consolation! If you knew how impossible it is without tribulations to attain the end to which the soul aspires, and how it falls back without them, you would never seek for consolation, neither from God nor from creatures! You would prefer to carry the Cross, to nail yourselves there, you would ask no other drink than gall and purest vinegar.

- St John of the Cross: The Living Flame of Love