The Perfect Place to Suffer

A fallen world is no place to grow up. It is a damp and foggy place with weak and filtered light. It is a rocky place, with scratchy and sticky things that get caught in your socks. It's the kind of place where children discover who they are only to be convinced otherwise by well-meaning parents, teachers, gurus, and so-called spiritual guides. It is a place of tears, disappointment, and regret. It is a place of suffering.

And yet - somehow I know my opening sentence is false - dead wrong even. It is an example of what we all learned in Psych 1A - "projection." Fallen world? No. Fallen humanity. It is slowly dawning on me that this rocky and painful planet is the perfect place to struggle and discover who we really are and what our situation is precisely because it is a place of suffering. It humbles us...or it pisses us off. The former re-connects us to God...the latter only strengthens our connection to the world of angry spirits that cackle all around us in a cosmic bitching session. The "fallen" world may be painful - but without this pain I would never suspect that anything was amiss.