Passing-Thought

love AND sorrow?

i recently discovered that hard times have fallen upon a brother of mine, yet he is not taking it so hard. I say, "I am sorry" and want to really mean it. He asks, Is commiserate rehabilitate?

"blessed are those who mourn..."
I want to believe that it is. That love grieves for those who suffer, even if those suffering don't feel the extent of their trouble. I want to know the magnitude of it (without necessarily having to know private details). And that such pathos can bring true healing. Through such sorrow, confronting the reality of pain, we can find true joy. That sorrow for those confronting death in its manifaceted forms is a prophetic critique of a world-order that pushes novocaine values to numb us with the self-help gospel, promises for paper-plastic peace, and a fast-food consummer marketplace for meism.

misery is drug in veins of many. while i don't want to live in denial of actual misery, i also have no interest in keeping wounds fresh. i like love in which there is no pity - in all relations, whether i'm giving or receiving end. ...if i show you that i pity you, you feel pitiable. some people like that feeling and KEEP themselves: not only pitiable, but pitiful like beggars grown dependent on donors. trust breeds trust. love, love. pity, pity. cursed are those who say "blessed are those who mourn", and intend for people to just live their earthly lives as pitiful and miserable, as though they always need to have some sort of pious crisis. blessed are those who use the phrase sparingly, and then say something like: get off your ass and get to work! be salt and light!

I recognize that misery, like its Dollar General antedotes, is a potent drug. The latter a hallucinogen to escape from facing problems, and the former a self-injected tracer to show others all your problems. I have known close friends and relatives addicted to it, more or less, and the victim mentality (against others or self and sin). I have learned (through interacting with them, and recognizing my own shared weaknesses) more and more to encourage people who carry such attitudes (and remind myself) to discover opportunities for loving those who seem to hurt them the most, to not make sin or one's past an idol greater than God and his grace in Christ, and to demonstrate the love of Christ that surpasses anyones deserving, a liberty that isn't confined by other peoples opinions or judgments about you (as if humans could control the liberty of God's free and sovereign grace), but overflows even to the feet of those who wrong you.

Amen: A sorrow and compassion which does not also offer words of wisdom to deliver the oppressed from their oppression, to cast out demons, is impotent. At the same time, there is also more wisdom and power in sitting in silence in sackcloth and ashes, than rushing to be Job's accuser. Deeds of "love" without sorrow, pity, compassion, will not the flesh rise up to render them hollow? uncaring, unconcerned, inhuman.

An immortal widow who eternally mourns the loss of her husband (like Arwen dreams she will for Aragorn in Lord of the Rings) may be hopelessly romantic, but there is no justice in it for her or her husband. Angels are impotent to raise the human dead! But what do we make of the same widow's character if she decides not to mourn on the principle that it will do no one any good, and remarries even before the time of her former husband's funeral has been finished?

"Jesus wept."
He is paradagmatic for my conception of love in union with Him. Apart from His sorrow, my heart will surely rot with hardness (towards the weak) or bitterness (towards the strong). Yes, his weeping can raise the dead and will restore the cosmos to right order.