Loss and the Absurd

[reen12]

Did any person of faith ever get to the point where the
suffering and losses of life get to the point where the
whole of life seems absurd?

The proverbial “staw that broke the camel’s back?”
in terms of faith, period?

Or is it just a sense of numbness that will pass?
*

I want to say to God: It’s Your world - keep it.
Just get outta my face.

Anybody ever recover from feeling that way toward God?

reen12*

 

[RyanL]

When I have felt this way (as I did when I lost my mother to a drunk driver), I look to Job. God took away everything from him, and all Job ever did was serve God humbly. Job recovered. You may also turn to the Psalms (maybe 43), where you’ll see much of what you’re feeling now. I will pray for you.

May God hold you in His hand, and never let you be separated,
RyanL

 

[petra]

reen12:

Did any person of faith ever get to the point where the
suffering and losses of life get to the point where the
whole of life seems absurd?

The proverbial “staw that broke the camel’s back?”
in terms of faith, period?

Or is it just a sense of numbness that will pass?
*

I want to say to God: It’s Your* world - keep it.
Just get outta my face.

Anybody ever recover from feeling that way toward God?

reen12

Reen, I am very sorry for your loss. May you be comforted during this sad time.

When I was in college right out of high school, I developed some hormonal imbalances and an eating disorder. This was subsequent to entering into a personal relationship with God and starting to really grow in my faith. More than anything in the world, I wanted to serve Him. I was involved in a campus ministry in which discipleship was a focus. After a few years of growth and study, I started to lead Bible studies. I so wanted God to use me.

But around this time, depression descended on me. The eating disorder had also been developing slowly, first just overeating, then anorexia, then bulimia. My life seemed to be falling apart. There were some perceived spiritual injuries, as well. I was not very successful as a Bible study leader. The women in my group were not consistent and sometimes I would have a lesson prepared and no one would come. I was so eager to serve God, and it seemed as if He didn’t want me. This hurt me deeply. I eventually became so sick, I had to quit my job and drop out of school. Some days I was so depressed, I couldn’t move. I felt marginalized and set aside. I felt guilty that I couldn’t contribute anything to God or the world and felt that I didn’t deserve to breath the air and consume natural resources. I saw a number of doctors, some who did me even more harm. (At one point I was suicidal) I eventually found a great doctor who diagnosed me with polycystic ovary disease. When I was finally treated for that, my life turned around again.

What I learned from that is we interpret quite a bit about the metaphysical from everyday circumstances. My circumstances told me that God didn’t want me and I was useless. In spite of my desire to give my life completely to Him, my ministry efforts were a failure and I began to fail in every other area of my life. My love for Him was rewarded with sickness. That was my interpretation.

But it was a mirage. Circumstances (or at least my interpretation of them) were not telling me the truth. I have learned that the Word of God is truer than anything I think I see around me. What I see around me changes. God’s Word does not. I also realize how limited my understanding is. If I had only known the simple fact that I had PCO, I could have been treated easily and avoided 5 years of hell. I am much more inclined now to acknowlege that the most confusing and painful circumstances appear that way because of my tiny brain and finite understanding. In spite of how things appear, God is perfectly loving, just, and sovereign. These attributes sometimes seem to contradict each other in the circumstances of life. But the operative word here is “seem.”

I also learned not to be afraid of pain. I found that my fear of emotional and spiritual pain was worse than the pain itself. If I just accepted it and willingly experienced it, it actually passed much more quickly.

I don’t know the circumstances under which your loved one passed. But circumstances can sometimes be a mirage with regard to what they seem to tell us about life. I am so sorry you are hurting, and pray that you will find comfort and peace.

Love, petra

 

[Magicsilence]

petra:

Reen, I am very sorry for your loss. May you be comforted during this sad time.

When I was in college right out of high school, I developed some hormonal imbalances and an eating disorder. This was subsequent to entering into a personal relationship with God and starting to really grow in my faith. More than anything in the world, I wanted to serve Him. I was involved in a campus ministry in which discipleship was a focus. After a few years of growth and study, I started to lead Bible studies. I so wanted God to use me.

But around this time, depression descended on me. The eating disorder had also been developing slowly, first just overeating, then anorexia, then bulimia. My life seemed to be falling apart. There were some perceived spiritual injuries, as well. I was not very successful as a Bible study leader. The women in my group were not consistent and sometimes I would have a lesson prepared and no one would come. I was so eager to serve God, and it seemed as if He didn’t want me. This hurt me deeply. I eventually became so sick, I had to quit my job and drop out of school. Some days I was so depressed, I couldn’t move. I felt marginalized and set aside. I felt guilty that I couldn’t contribute anything to God or the world and felt that I didn’t deserve to breath the air and consume natural resources. I saw a number of doctors, some who did me even more harm. (At one point I was suicidal) I eventually found a great doctor who diagnosed me with polycystic ovary disease. When I was finally treated for that, my life turned around again.

What I learned from that is we interpret quite a bit about the metaphysical from everyday circumstances. My circumstances told me that God didn’t want me and I was useless. In spite of my desire to give my life completely to Him, my ministry efforts were a failure and I began to fail in every other area of my life. My love for Him was rewarded with sickness. That was my interpretation.

But it was a mirage. Circumstances (or at least my interpretation of them) were not telling me the truth. I have learned that the Word of God is truer than anything I think I see around me. What I see around me changes. God’s Word does not. I also realize how limited my understanding is. If I had only known the simple fact that I had PCO, I could have been treated easily and avoided 5 years of hell. I am much more inclined now to acknowlege that the most confusing and painful circumstances appear that way because of my tiny brain and finite understanding. In spite of how things appear, God is perfectly loving, just, and sovereign. These attributes sometimes seem to contradict each other in the circumstances of life. But the operative word here is “seem.”

I also learned not to be afraid of pain. I found that my fear of emotional and spiritual pain was worse than the pain itself. If I just accepted it and willingly experienced it, it actually passed much more quickly.

I don’t know the circumstances under which your loved one passed. But circumstances can sometimes be a mirage with regard to what they seem to tell us about life. I am so sorry you are hurting, and pray that you will find comfort and peace.

Love, petra

Just beautiful

 

[Liberian]

reen12:

Did any person of faith ever get to the point where the suffering and losses of life get to the point where the
whole of life seems absurd?

The proverbial “staw that broke the camel’s back?”
in terms of faith, period?

Or is it just a sense of numbness that will pass?
*

I want to say to God: It’s Your* world - keep it.
Just get outta my face.

Anybody ever recover from feeling that way toward God?

reen12
Maureen,

Let me also say how sorry I am to hear of your loss and let me join the others in praying for you and your family.

My experience with saying to God “Your world–keep it and get out of my face” came when I was nineteen and my left lung collapsed. It took me several years–there was a lot of other stuff going on in my life at the same time, as there usually is in a nineteen-year-old’s–but God is patient and I did indeed recover–as will you. For a long time my favorite verse in the Bible was Jeremiah 20:7–“O Lord, you have deceived me and I was deceived; you are stronger than I and have triumphed.”

The grieving process has five stages: denial (“this can’t have really happened”), anger (“how dare this have happened!”), bargaining (“I’ll do _____ if you fix this”), depression, and acceptance. All in all I think I’ve had a remarkably easy life, so I can’t speak from experience, but I would surmise that knowing what is going on would make bearing it a little easier.

• Liberian

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Maureen,

Funny you should ask, and nice to see you again.

Yes, I have felt that way.

Numbness has been a useful tool in helping me learn to control my excessive emotions. It’s like being in shock. Pain is all good and useful but beyond a certain point it really isn’t helping so why not just fail to recognize the pain because it doesn’t help? In other words, I’m looking at numbness as a built-in coping strategy that keep you from otherwise becoming very depressed or maybe going into despair.

From the point of numbness, one can take the logical path toward “surrendering” in other words acknowledging that one can only plan or hope for the future but not control it, also “surrendering” in that what is done is done and the past must have all been God’s will because it was done.

We are given roses and fertilizer. We admire the roses with grateful thanksgiving, and feed the fertilizer to future roses. Sometimes we need to just quit thinking, so one could look at worldly emotional feeling of numbness as a sort of a neutral medium on which to rebuild a way of looking at things that is less disturbed than my last one was by all this trouble. (Did that make sense to anyone but me?) This is not too far from interior silence and yes, can I resist mentioning – contemplative prayer?

I am sorry for your loss. Your writing makes me believe you are very strong. I am interested in hearing what ideas you have kicked around or concluded about loss in general.

Alan

 

[john_ennis]

I don’t know how the disciples went away, rejoicing because of their suffering. But they did.
I don’t know in what mysterious way they united their pain with Christ’s, but they did.
I don’t know how you will do it either, but you will. Perhaps it will begin as you remember that your relative–your friend–is receiving greater love than you can imagine.

And is praying for peace to you.
John

 

[barsapp]

reen12:

I want to say to God: It’s Your world - keep it.
Just get outta my face.

John 6, 67-69: Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

 

[E.E.N.S]

There are some good posts here…

Try to remember how short this life is, and the more you give to Christ here, the closer you will be to Him for all eternity! He will give you 100 times that of which you give Him.

This life is a bridge to our eternal life…bridges are meant to be crossed, and some are longer than others…do not build your house on the bridge.

This probably doesn’t help much, but it was just one of the first thoughts that ran through my mind.

Romans 8:28
God bless!

 

[reen12]

To the dear forum members who posted to this thread,

God bless each of you for sharing your own pain and loss
in your desire to bring comfort to me. The anger crested
yesterday, the need to cry out “No!!” “I will not accept this.
I have accepted all else, but not this.”

Thank you for bearing with my anger. I think I turned
toward all of you to bear witness to my anger, in the
hope that you would not turn away, but would “speak”
to me. Each of you did, and Christ will offer you the
mercy that you have offered to me.

Maureen
[reen12]

“In His will is our peace.”

 

[reen12]

Alan,

quote: Alan

Sometimes we need to just quit thinking, so one could look at worldly emotional feeling of numbness as a sort of a neutral medium on which to rebuild a way of looking at things that is less disturbed than my last one was by all this trouble. (Did that make sense to anyone but me?)

Makes sense to me.

Maureen

 

[reen12]

Hi, Barb,

I’m replying to your post, from the I Have Peace thread, here.

quote: Barbara Therese [from I Have Peace thread]

I read somewhere or other that no where is it written that life must be logical and make sense. For often it does not. This came home to me with the onset of my own Bipolar condition. We had a quite happy and aflluent life as a family…suddenly I become very mentally ill. My children were devestated and so was my then husband who floundered and could not handle me being ill and I too was devestated. Soon I was homeless and struck by dire poverty too ill to work. Nothing made sense to me and that was when I made my own leap into darkness after an extended period of problems with my own concepts of what God was all about. I decided to trust and have confidence that God as now Absolute Mystery knew what he was doing tho I most certainly could not see it.
Yes to leap into the absolute darkness of Faith and to Hope in what our Faith presents is Peace…the greatest Peace I
think imagineable! I turned to our spiritual theology which is exquis tely beatiful I turned to our spiritual theology which gave me answers where there was none… and also that I could never doubt The Real Presence in t he Blessed Eucharist. I could not doubt The Mass. I think for a long time I wanted to do so…to chuck away religion completely…but could not!!!..because of The Blessed Eucharist…t hough I felt not hing…I just seemed to know that Jesus was present. Present in Absolute Silence. I also derived great benefit and strength from pondering a reality of history…that Jesus was crucified. I pondered it as a reality…what really happened…of how devestated he would have felt as his own plans were reduced to nothing and he was abandoned … and in great physical pain, torment and agony and in total anguish of mind. His life it seemed had come to nothing and so had mine… …and I believed as an act of the will that as for Jesus…so somehow, somewhere along the line there would be a resurrection for me too. That I think was when I began to fight the illness…to believe that there would be a life for me after mental illness…somehow, somewhere. That belief was fulfilled…tho not as I would have anticipated.

At some stage I read about t he Via Negativa and also the Cloud of Unknowning which of course are part of our spiritual theology…where t here was no sense in a logical manner - I began to make sense for myself in a spiritual manner.

As for nutty…well sanity is an imaginar y line set by societ y to compartmentalize her ‘victims’…it is also an imaginary ever shifting line.

I hope, Maureen, that I have spoken to your points for I think you think far deeper than I do…intelligence can be a lonely hell…if we ar e so intelligent (as happens) that others cannot understand us. I have long thought the challenge to genius is to get the man int he street to comprehend.

Forgive my typing errors…besides my own limitations I have to get new batteries for my mouse today…and my mouse itself is tired and worn out…as is this tired keyboard…but Poverty is superior to need and twere it a real need…then I would have new mouse and keyboard. And thats just the way I look on matters. Life is all about attitude to!

I understood and appreciated all that you wrote above.

I am blessed, in that my sister can follow my thought
easily, as can two friends of 30 and 40 years. And now I find a
new friend in Australia who can comprehend, because
she’s been there. What a joy!

Life is all about attitude to!

My sister made me happy today, by saying that she
really does see life as a journey…we’re all on our way
back to God, and will be with my beloved sister in law
again.
I sometimes forget that this is a pilgrimage, and occassionallly deliver a jeremiad, protesting absurdity that’s not recognized
as absurdity.

I’ve tried many times to read the Catholic mystics,
but I get so annoyed with the imagery…castles etc,
that I’m just turned off. Maybe it’s my mindset:
“For heaven’s sake, say it clearly and with precision
…lose the imagery!”
Sigh. I’m not an apt pupil of the mystics. They
irritate me. I need a dissertation, not a poem.

Yes to leap into the absolute darkness of Faith and to Hope in what our Faith presents is Peace…

You’ve said it all, Barbara Therese. Maybe it’s God’s gift
to us, who bear mental illness, to recognize the reality in
your quote, above.

You’ve referred, elsewhere, to “concepts” getting in the way.
Did I ever need to hear that! Thank you.

Best,
reen

 

[BarbaraTherese]

reen12:

Hi, Barb,

I’m replying to your post, from the I Have Peace thread, here.

quote: Barbara Therese [from I Have Peace

thread]

I understood and appreciated all that you wrote above.

I am blessed, in that my sister can follow my thought
easily, as can two friends of 30 and 40 years. And now I find a
new friend in Australia who can comprehend, because
she’s been there. What a joy!

My sister made me happy today, by saying that she
really does see life as a journey…we’re all on our way
back to God, and will be with my beloved sister in law
again.
I sometimes forget that this is a pilgrimage, and occassionallly deliver a jeremiad, protesting absurdity that’s not recognized
as absurdity.

I’ve tried many times to read the Catholic mystics,
but I get so annoyed with the imagery…castles etc,
that I’m just turned off. Maybe it’s my mindset:
“For heaven’s sake, say it clearly and with precision
…lose the imagery!”
Sigh. I’m not an apt pupil of the mystics. They
irritate me. I need a dissertation, not a poem.

You’ve said it all, Barbara Therese. Maybe it’s God’s gift
to us, who bear mental illness, to recognize the reality in
your quote, above.

You’ve referred, elsewhere, to “concepts” getting in the way.
Did I ever need to hear that! Thank you.

Best,
reen

Hi Maureen…it does seem that we are entirely on the same wavelength…and a blessing !!! And good that we can laugh too that two crazies understand each other anyway!!!..

I too am turned somewhat off by the flowery language of our lets say 1 6th. century mystics. It can give me a literal banging in my head to try to reduce their flowery concepts to modern day thought. They lived in times where such language and descriptive terms were common…times have changed.

I guess this is why I have found so much in Thomas Merton…for me he is the mystic who put it into our modern language. I really think they are all talking about the same phenomena, experience…our 16th. century masters of mystical theology in their language of their day more or less…Thomas Merton exac tly the same phenomena and experience only in our own modern language and concepts etc. etc. I am selective in what I read…some of Thomas Merton I reject…or I just cant get what he is getting at…other things click precisely home and I can insight better our masters of t he 16th century in mystical theology…what they were on about!

But some forms of writings appeal to some…and others to others…and fair enough.

In the lifestlye I lead, I guess one of the main reasons I am in Catholic Answers Forums is because it is an opportunity to express on my own level … my own Parish has problems with me because they know I have a mental illness. If I blink twice as it were…the parish gets nervous!!! At times I feel like wearing a sign…I DO NOT HAVE TWO HEADS ! … hence I am misunderstood (oh woe is me! ) … in the main those that visit Bethany are not Catholics and usually in some sort of need. I have really come to look upon CAF as a sort of community to which I belong. Altho all around me are my community. But perhpas in a special way CAF because I can express my opinions on Catholic related subjects and just as it tumbles as it were out of my head. Because we are all Catholics and tend to comprehend one another if not agree…and another fair enough!

Forgive the t errible typing, but my mouse and keyboard are playing up and if I force the issue the keyboard tends to lock and I have to keep rebooting.

Send my best Maureen…and especially at this very trying time … why do we love when at the same time precisely we open ourselves to equal potential to be hurt!! Some philospher or other said “To be fully human one must be prepared to be hurt”…how true! Life is so often mad, absurd…and we humans with it!!!..

Barb
Bethany Sth Aust
Sat.2.7.05 7.01pm
Hail Mary!

 

[BarbaraTherese]

reen12:

Did any person of faith ever get to the point where the
suffering and losses of life get to the point where the
whole of life seems absurd?

The proverbial “staw that broke the camel’s back?”
in terms of faith, period?

Or is it just a sense of numbness that will pass?
*

I want to say to God: It’s Your* world - keep it.
Just get outta my face.

Anybody ever recover from feeling that way toward God?

reen12

Hi there again Reen!..

Yes! The first time I lost it with God was when I became mentallly ill and was spending more time in hospital than with my children and then husband. I was so angry! Friends distressed at my state of ranting and roaring at God called my director who had just lost a cousin but came speedily to my side when I reminded him that Jesus said “Let the dead bury their dead!”. The anger I felt that day knowing I was once again headed for hospital knew now bounds, nor could any calm me! It was in hospital that I woke up to something…the absurdity of life!..the question was not “Why me?” but “Why not me?”…bad things I recognized happened to basically good and productive people. Life was ridiculous and it would never again take me completely by surprise.

The next time I lost was when the brother closest to me at 29 yrs of age was murdered. I was so very angry at God! Life I knew by then could be unkind and cruel, heartless…as I now found The Power behind life! Unkind Cruel Heartless…all my concepts of a Merciful God who Loved collapsed. Nothing made sense to me any more.

The final time I lost the plot with God was when a dear friend I trusted betrayed me … shared my secrets and people were laughing at me. This time I would take no more so I took a major overdose so I would die and face God and be abe to tell him exactly what I thought of Him. That was why I attempted suicide. The doctors were stunned at the amounte of medication I took and yet did not die nor damage in any way my internal organs. And when I came out of a three day coma I was blind furious that I did not face God but was alive!

It was while I was revcovering from my suicide attempt in hospital that I came to terms with it all! I suddenly almost comprehended Jesus on the cross…the absurdity of it…the ridiculous… the insane…and then I knew one had gone before us and lived through the absurdity too…but He kept Faith. And almost suddenly I knew I too must keep faith through all the absurdity, riduculousnes and insanity.

So yes… there is a life after waking up to it all…but it wont spare you the madness of it all!..the walk through hell!

Regards Barb
Bethany Sth. Aust. SAt. 2.7.05 9.04pm

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Hi Alan…

I have cut from your Post:

***Sometimes we need to just quit thinking, so one could look at worldly emotional feeling of numbness as a sort of a neutral medium on which to rebuild a way of looking at things that is less disturbed than my last one was by all this trouble. (Did that make sense to anyone but me?) ***

It sure makes sense to me too! … and it raised a smile too!

Regards Barb, Bethany
Sth.Aust. Sat. 2.7.05 Hail Mary full of Grace!

---

---

 

[reen12]

Barbara Therese !

quote: Barbara Therese

It was in hospital that I woke up to something…the absurdity of life!..the question was not “Why me?” but “Why not me?”…

I’ve used the same words: “Why not me?” It sure
simplifies things, doesn’t it?

You made me think. Did Jesus, standing before
puny Pilate, not think,* humanly*, how absurb this
was…standing there, before Roman pomposity?
Or the crowds shouting to release Barabbas, when
all that Jesus had done was heal, and restore and
love?
Isn’t it at least a little like that, to think of my
sister in law, taken so early, when her life was
the living out of the works of mercy?

I can’t even think about your losing your brother in that
way, Barbara Therese. My mind refuses to grapple
with that loss. How dreadful for you, to have
experienced that.

I feel like I’ve been given a new lease on life, by what
you’ve written. It’s not a choice between the absurd or
Christianity. It’s Christ understanding absurdity *with *me.
Would it transgress, theologically, for me to think of
Him as: Lord of [even] the Absurd?

Best,
reen
PS:

Life was ridiculous and it would never again take me completely by surprise.

Barbara Therese

]

I’ve not smartened up enough, yet, to have reached that
blessed point.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

reen12:

Barbara Therese !

quote: Barbara Therese

I’ve used the same words: “Why not me?” It sure
simplifies things, doesn’t it?

You made me think. Did Jesus, standing before
puny Pilate, not think,* humanly*, how absurb this
was…standing there, before Roman pomposity?
Or the crowds shouting to release Barabbas, when
all that Jesus had done was heal, and restore and
love?
Isn’t it at least a little like that, to think of my
sister in law, taken so early, when her life was
the living out of the works of mercy?

I can’t even think about your losing your brother in that
way, Barbara Therese. My mind refuses to grapple
with that loss. How dreadful for you, to have
experienced that.

I feel like I’ve been given a new lease on life, by what
you’ve written. It’s not a choice between the absurd or
Christianity. It’s Christ understanding absurdity *with *me.
Would it transgress, theologically, for me to think of
Him as: Lord of [even] the Absurd?

Best,
reen
PS:

Life was ridiculous and it would never again take me completely by surprise.
I’ve not smartened up enough, yet, to have reached that
blessed point.

Hi there Reeny…trust you wont mind me giving you a nickname!..First if I have been of any help, then let us praise The Lord…often he uses the very least as his ‘agents’ because that reveals more clearly His Qualitites…and in this case inspiriation and light to you!!! In all things, my hands are empty, and if there is anything to be found in them, then The Lord has placed such there!

I love your reasoning I truly do!!! You are gifted Reen to show to others t he absolute absurdity of life! We creatures deal in logic and reason…and expect life to do so…until someone mad and crazy comes along who is just as absurd as life…and then we give them nasty names…like Schizoaffective, Bipolar etc. etc. We are the absurd Reeny! … yet interestingly enough absurdity is part of life…so we absurds fill that part of human creation filled in the main by the chronically sane (and another re asonin of yours I loved and dre w smiles from me!!!

How brilliant of you to insight that Jesus is also Lord of The Absurd…we a re not orphans R eeny, we absurds!!! Do you and I really worry if we transgress theologically…I dont think so not that we ever have to date really … I think perhaps theology should take a long hard look at this title: Lord of the Absurd and the Absurds!!! We belong, Reen, because we fulfill that part of life t hat the chronically sane cannot…absurdity!
Yes! Jesus indeed went before us in absurdity. Initally at the INcarnation…the height of absolute absurdity that God should become a creature…not to Lord and Rule as t he chronically sane would conceive…but to bring hope t o all t he absurds…we Reeny having amental illness ar e masters of the absurd! And it is absurd that 3/4 of the world struggles with obesity while 1/4 starves to death as I type and women and children too!!! It is absurd that the moment we are conceived we being to die! We are born to die…logically speaking!..stripped of our spiritual concepts.

If you have found a way that brings you Peace, then let us Praise and Thank The Lord…for it is his loving gift of Grace to you that has effected your state. The thing is Reen Christ was fully human and did not understand absurdity … he accepted and went through it…as we must! The very nature of the word absurd means…non compus mentus (I do not understand! or I am not ‘with it’…and we are not, we merely accept it and endure it as all must whether t hey insight it or nay! )

Reen as I’ve told you before I think…you have so much to offer…hang in th ere and keep a Posting and a thr eading!..and keep a reasoning as you write…it is so beautiful to see your mind unfold in the unique and previously not sighted…the true meaning of creativity. Reen you think outside squares…and the squares cannot comprehend!!! Listen you that have ears to hear! Problem is, most dont, I dont think! smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_1_122.gif

Love in the Confraternit y of Christ smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_1_27.gif …
Barb in Bethany
Sth.Aust. Sunday 3.7.05 6.51pm
He is Risen…and another absurdity!!!..a joyful one…hence absurdity is not ALWAYS NEGATIVE! … neither are we absurds!!!

 

[reen12]

I’m with you, Barb!

Read your post after a longgg day. I grinned throughout
the reading.

Off and on, all day, I kept thinking: Christ is Lord of the
Absurd…He is my big Brother, Who stood before Pilate.
Unknown to me, He has been with me, throughout each
*moment *of absurdity in my lifetime.

I thought He didn’t understand. I knew life was absurd.
I thought I had to choose between what I *knew *to be
true [absurdity] and Him.

God bless you, Barb, for helping me to reason this out.

quote: Barbara Therese

It is absurd that the moment we are conceived we being to die!

Yes! Since I was a kid, I started to “register” the absurd,
only then I didn’t have a word for it.
Later, I saw people wrapping themselves in expensive
clothes, preening themselves on titles, all striving for
the perfect, untouched life [no grief, no loss, no illness].
And I thought: This is* nuts*!
Maybe it takes a looney to “register” all this so early.
I knew Christ had suffered so, but it never occurred to me
that He saw the absurd.

He is Risen…and another absurdity!!!..a joyful one…hence absurdity is not ALWAYS NEGATIVE!

Now* there’s* an insight to cherish.

Many, many thanks, Barb,
Reeny

 

[reen12]

[contd.]

I got so fed up a couple of weeks ago, that I decided to
embrace Judaism…I’d had enough of my fellow Christians,
dogma, infighting, “manual mindsets”, and thinking Christ
didn’t understand the absurd, so why bother.

That’s why I call it a new lease on life, to see Christ as
Lord of the Absurb [and the Absurds…as you put it.]
The “church-types” will never again have the power to
disaffect me in the same way, with this insight I’ve been
now graced with.

Reeny

 

[BarbaraTherese]

[contd.]

I got so fed up a couple of weeks ago, that I decided to
embrace Judaism…I’d had enough of my fellow Christians,
dogma, infighting, “manual mindsets”, and thinking Christ
didn’t understand the absurd, so why bother.

That’s why I call it a new lease on life, to see Christ as
Lord of the Absurb [and the Absurds…as you put it.]
The “church-types” will never again have the power to
disaffect me in the same way, with this insight I’ve been
now graced with.

Reeny

Hello again Reen…I never thought of the term Lord of The Absurd and thus the Absurds until you mentioned absurd and Lord of the Absurd…one of the reasons why I have enjoyed so much as I skipped around the Forums watching your mind unfold as you typed it seemed to me…I had one of those gut level instincts that you were far closer to The Lord than you realized…very much living in your Now which is all we really have huh? Yesterday is only a memory and what guarantee have we that we shall live to see the next few minutes, less!..so all we have is this Now …which is why I feel we are in eternity now . Jesus rather confirms this by telling us that His Kingdom is within us. Bob Dylan put it rather well: “today is tomorow’s yesterdays”. And Jesus gave us his image “today’s worries are enough for today…who by worry can add a cubit’s measure to their height” or words to that effect. I am hopeless at reference details…and at times the precise wording too! The gift is yours, Reen, I picked up on your clue: Lord of The Absurd…tis all!..hang in there and cling to Faith and place your Hope in what Faith teaches. You may not feel it…but if you reflect on the life of Jesus we see all he had to put up with and just kept on hanging in there!!!

If the Kingdom of Jesus is within us as Jesus has told us…where can we go to find Him…but within!
“If you keep my commandments (of which the most important is to love and be loving) we will come to you and make our abode with you”.

Jesus tells the pharisees off for ‘multiplying laws’…we’re pretty good at this too huh…we even have to have specialist canon lawyers to interpret our laws for us…at Judgement a nun once told me the question will not be “What have you believed?” but “How have you loved?” huh?
Send my best my spiritual sister in The Lord …keep on unfolding Reen to me it is a delight to see…your honesty and your being in touch with yourself against all comers…such courage is denied me and is well so for The Spirit blows where He will…

In the Introductory to The Divine Office we read these words as an introduction: “every day keep encouraging one another as long as this day lasts”…

Barb