The God Who Suffers With Us

The inexplicable mystery of God, revealed in Jesus, is of a God who bears our burdens, laments our sorrows, who suffers with us, living and dying in silent solidarity with the poor and the powerless, with a love that is stronger than death itself.  

Confronted with the merciless violence and hatred of this world, His only weapon is mercy, kindness, friendship, forgiveness and sacrificial love.  He invites us to live and to be like Him, as best we can given our frailties, failures and fears.  

What we celebrate in just a few more days at Christmas is that He chose to be born as a child as vulnerable and needy and defenseless as these children evacuated from Aleppo earlier this week.  It is in their need and that of the millions of refugees who have fled this or so many other wars that we must seek Him, bind His wounds, comfort and console Him, welcome Him and give Him shelter.   

Despite the past six years of civil war in Syria and the pitiless destruction of Aleppo, I continue to believe that the merciful, meek, persecuted and peacemakers are truly blessed.   Despite the cynical triumph of the power of depraved and relentless violence this week, I believe that darkness will not have the last word, in our world, in that tortured country, in our hearts, now or in the future. 

Come, Lord Jesus. 

   

World AIDS Day

Ethiopian Icon of St. George

Today is World AIDS Day, which, since 1988 has been an annual opportunity to remember with love the 35 million people who have died from AIDS or AIDS related illnesses since the beginning of the epidemic. It is also a day to call to mind the estimated 36.7 people around the world (including 1.8 million children), who are living with HIV worldwide. In his message for World AIDS Day, Pope Francis called on people around the world to pray for all those living with HIV and for their families.  He called on Christians and people of good will to work together to promote solidarity with those suffering from HIV and AIDS so that "the poor can benefit from adequate diagnosis and treatment." 

  Due to the development of retro-viral drugs, a diagnosis of HIV is no longer a necessarily terminal diagnosis.  However, only about half of the millions of people living with this illness (particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia) have access in 2016 to life-saving therapies.  

The United Nations, the World Health Organization and many governmental, charitable and grassroots organizations continue to work tirelessly to both prevent the transmission of HIV and  treat those infected with the virus.  In his message, Pope Francis encouraged those efforts, saying, :I appeal to all to act in a responsible way in order to prevent the further spread of this disease."  

Health care in the developing world is one of the top three priorities of Catholic Relief Services, which has been a leader in developing ways with its partners to make retro-viral treatment available to those infected with HIV, especially in Africa.  

This short animation "They Say It Couldn't Be Done" explains how they developed a model for providing retro-viral therapies in Africa, Guyana and Haiti.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3AkvB6Z-GQ

Additional information about the work of CRS with those living with HIV/AIDS can also be found at: http://www.crs.org/our-work-overseas/program-areas/hiv-and-tuberculosis

  

Breaking Radio Silence 2.0

 

I''m back.
After a long, long stretch of inactivity on this weblog, I've returned to the (digital) airwaves.  A lot has happened since I last posted, most notably, during the first week of January I managed to injure my back. Not a parachute jump injury or a tae kwan do bout gone wrong, I simply forgot that I wasn't nineteen anymore and stacked a cord of wood (thoughtfully provided us by my daughter Phoebe's boyfriend, Odin, as a Christmas present). It turns out that the movements involved in bending over, picking up and stacking a split cord of spruce and hemlock is just what it takes to herniate one's disk (in my case, at L4/L5.)

After seven months of increasingly severe pain, my doctor confirmed the herniated disk with an MRI and sent me to Seattle for an epidural injection of cortizone, which, since July 15th has been slowly getting better (thanks in large part to my physical therapist-thank you so much!)

It turns out that weeks and weeks in constant pain is both exhausting and distracting. However, it has given me a more profound and sympathetic understanding of the lives of those who live daily with chronic physical pain.  (And to appreciate how many people, especially the elderly and the disabled, bear the struggles and suffering that comes with chronic pain with such grace and fortitude.)   As I shuffled through the winter and spring I  was pleasantly surprised to be welcomed with kindness and sympathy over the past seven months into the company of those similarly afflicted, to greater or lesser extent, with a back injury and consequent back and leg pain.

The upside of no longer being in pain (at least for the time being -- epidurals don't come with a guarantee) is that I've got the energy and focus again for reading, reflection, writing, drawing and painting.

So stay tuned.