I know that the physician was trying to be empathic. But her words had the opposite effect.
Not only did I have to adjust to a medical problem, but I also had to feel like a loser for getting sick in the first place.
Fortunately, I was studying Buddhism at the time, with its central teaching that suffering is inevitable. Rather than feeling cursed, I was helped to understand that heartache is part of life.
Now that I'm a conservative, and religious to boot, my belief about sorrow has expanded. I view my life as not just mine, but as part of a larger tapestry stitched together by the Divine.
As a mere mortal, I'm not in a position to know what life is doing to me or where it is leading me. A life devoted to God involves trying to accept His will, even when circumstances are heartbreaking.
This idea of surrender is anathema to a liberal nation, where crusades are launched for "economic and social justice." Say to an aggrieved group member, "Maybe you have something to learn from your experience," and observe the shocked, offended, and possibly violent response.
One of the most noxious ramifications of liberalism is that suffering is now viewed as wrong, even shameful. Thus, people try to rid themselves of unhappiness by dumping it on others.
Young, innocent blacks turn militant by the constant reminders of slavery. Gays living quiet lives are radicalized into firebrands railing about unfairness.
But these constant demands and complaints will not ultimately lead anywhere. Although life is replete with blessings, there are formidable bumps along the way.
My clients are astonished when I tell them that life is not supposed to be easy, and that we carve out our characters and our souls from the hard times.
Further, suffering is the great uniter: It has the potential to connect us to people all over the world. Pain reminds us that everyone is, at times, pierced by grief, loneliness, and sorrow.
One of the greatest tragedies of progressivism is that it robs citizens of the dignity of suffering. People become convinced that the vicissitudes of a human life are their own private misery.
More than this, people are kept far away from the mercy of God, the central Source of love and succor. And many on the Left are not just alienated from God. They abhor life so much that they despise God.
This is one of the saddest -- and most fearsome -- aspects of Obama and the Left. Leftists are raging not just at capitalism and racism -- but at God Himself and the world He created.
The progressives have no understanding of the way this human realm works. By fighting reality, they create for themselves a hell on earth.
And they are trying to produce a hell for all of us as well. They are attempting to bring us down, down, down with them, into the same black hole.
Obama and the Left inhabit an Unbearable Darkness of Being, where they strike out wildly, frenetically, at everyone and everything. Their assaults are like the flailing of a small child, trapped in a universe big and vast and daunting, with no possible way out.
So you must not be frightened
if a sadness rises up before you
larger than any you have ever seen;
if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows,
passes over your hands and over all you do.
You must remember that something is happening to you,
that life has not forgotten you
that it holds you in its hands,
and will not let you fall.
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Robin of Berkeley
Robin is a recovering liberal, and a licensed psychotherapist who lives in Berkeley, California. The above information is intended for entertainment and educational purposes, rather than to offer any kind of definitive diagnoses. Check out Robin’s personal blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment