Modern grief 2 — To shirk suffering is also to shirk those who suffer

Posted by Charles

Over at the Heart of Mopsus blog, here,  the Rector of Swanvale Halt took part in an Easter Friday Walk of Witness and reflected as follows:

Christians insist on publicly remembering a single, immensely violent event on a sunny Bank Holiday when everyone else is enjoying themselves; certainly most of my friends, to judge by Facebook which is the measure of all things, were doing and describing a variety of lighthearted activities while I was deliberately and voluntarily turning my mind to pain and horror.

The relationship between these different modes of feeling and thinking is complex. Our natural human tendency is to avoid the painful and problematic, quite understandably and rightly, and yet our understanding of who we are, what we are capable of, and what life can include, is superficial and incomplete if we spend all our time avoiding such dark elements of our common experience – and perhaps that even encourages us to avoid those who suffer, or misjudge them. As always, in my opinion, the Church has down the centuries got this wrong: but I think, by contrast with the heathen world growing up around it, the truth and rightness of the sacrifice of Christ is becoming clearer than ever.