Inspiration for life

Today's first reading from Micah was one that helped inspire this blog, has accompanied my ongoing discernment in life, and guides my daily living of the vows.

As I wrote in the first post on this blog almost 10 years ago in the early days of my vocation discernment:

"The following scripture passage has been very present to me the past few months...

'You have been told, O people, what is good, and what Yahweh asks of you: Only this, to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God'. - Michah 6:8

Is it possible that it's really that simple? ... The invitation to act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with God is just too good not to at least check out .... and so I am."

And so I continue each day. As it happens, my congregation's vow formula is also inspired by this Scripture passage. These are the words I said when I professed my perpetual vows:

In response to God's call to seek justice, to love tenderly, and to talk in the way of peace, I, Susan Rose Francois, in the presence of our Congregation Leader, and in the presence of the community gathered here, vow to God, poverty, celibacy, and obedience, for life, according to the Constitutions of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace.

.... each and every day.

On Mustard: the call to be pesty weeds for God

This Sunday's Gospel story includes the parable about mustard seed. The best reflection I have ever heard on this comes from Sister Pat Farrell's 2012 address at LCWR:

Joyful hope is the hallmark of genuine discipleship. We look forward to a future full of hope, in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Hope makes us attentive to signs of the inbreaking of the Reign of God. Jesus describes that coming reign in the parable of the mustard seed.

Let us consider for a moment what we know about mustard. Though it can also be cultivated, mustard is an invasive plant, essentially a weed. The image you see is a variety of mustard that grows in the Midwest. Some exegetes tell us that when Jesus talks about the tiny mustard seed growing into a tree so large that the birds of the air come and build their nest in it, he is probably joking. To imagine birds building nests in the floppy little mustard plant is laughable. It is likely that Jesus’ real meaning is something like Look, don’t imagine that in following me you’re going to look like some lofty tree. Don’t expect to be Cedars of Lebanon or anything that looks like a large and respectable empire. But even the floppy little mustard plant can support life. Mustard, more often than not, is a weed. Granted, it’s a beautiful and medicinal weed. Mustard is flavorful and has wonderful healing properties. It can be harvested for healing, and its greatest value is in that. But mustard is usually a weed. It crops up anywhere, without permission. And most notably of all, it is uncontainable. It spreads prolifically and can
take over whole fields of cultivated crops. You could even say that this little nuisance of a weed was illegal in the time of Jesus. There were laws about where to plant it in an effort to keep it under control.

Now, what does it say to us that Jesus uses this image to describe the Reign of God? Think about it. We can, indeed, live in joyful hope because there is no political or ecclesiastical herbicide that can wipe out the movement of God’s Spirit. Our hope is in the absolutely uncontainable power of God. We who pledge our lives to a radical following of Jesus can expect to be seen as pesty weeds that need to be fenced in. If the weeds of God’s Reign are stomped out in one place they will crop up in another. I can hear, in that, the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero “If I am killed, I will arise in the Salvadoran people.”

And so, we live in joyful hope, willing to be weeds one and all. We stand in the power of the dying and rising of Jesus. I hold forever in my heart an expression of that from the days of the dictatorship in Chile: “Pueden aplastar algunas flores, pero no pueden detener la primavera.” “They can crush a few flowers but they can’t hold back the springtime.” 

How/where are you called to be a pesty weed for the reign of God?

Theology Quotes: Lisa Sharon Harper

I'm taking a course this semester on Spirituality and Leadership. The course has just started but we've already heard a wonderful variety of voices.  This week, our readings include an article by Lisa Sharon Harper, the director of mobilizing for Sojourners. I heard her speak a few years ago at an Interfaith Immigration breakfast in Seattle and was deeply inspired by her commitment to a lived faith that does justice. I just finished reading her chapter, "Singing the Creator's Song in a Strange Land," in the book Learning to Lead: Lessons in Leadership for People of Faith. I am challenged and inspired by this quote, which I in turn share with you in the latest installment of Theology Quotes on the blog.

Collage

I spent the bulk of this thunderstormy Chicago day cleaning and reorganizing my room.  One of my neighbors moved away recently and I appropriated a large Ikea bookcase she left behind which fits PERFECTLY and helps to make my little space here in the CTU dorm look a bit more organized (and a bit less junky).

I also decided to finally do something with the blank wall above my bed.  There's a rather annoying, if necessary, pipe/cord down the middle that is attached to the smoke detector.  That's part of why I never put anything up.  Plus while I kept much of my pre-convent life artwork (to better decorate the community houses where I usually live!), I left it all in storage in Seattle.

In resourceful grad school style, I decided to make a collage of some 8X10 prints of some of my favorite photos, taken by yours truly on retreat and journeys in recent years.

I'm pretty happy with the effect, even with the pipe/cord thing breaking up the 2nd and 3rd columns!  For one thing the greens, blues and browns match the colors of my bed spread and assorted dorm furniture. More importantly, however, I realized that the photos I chose speak to my spirituality, my vocation, and my relationship with God, creation, and self.

On the top left you have a photo taken through the chapel window at our CSJP retreat house on the Jersey Shore.  The standing cross from the chapel is almost lined up with the cross in the window pane with the Atlantic in the background. This picture always reminds me, as our CSJP Constitutions say, that Christ is our peace, the source of our power.

The next photo on the top row is from another ocean.  It took this last year on retreat on the Oregon Coast.  This photo speaks to me of the joy, laughter, and playfulness of our Creator God.

The last photo on that row, and the first on the next row, I believe are photos I took of stones near the koi pond at our Jersey Shore retreat house.  I love the perspective of the photos, as if hope and dreaming are hanging on despite their better judgement and gravity!  Which, in my experience, is not too far from reality.  To dream that we can help make the world a better place and to hope despite all the evidence to the contrary is part of the life of faith.  It is part of the human experience.  And again, in my experience, it is really only possible in a sustained manner in the context of community.

Which leads to the next photo of the street signs.  No, these are not photoshopped!  Last spring I was giving a presentation in Central Washington and took a chance to explore around Wenatchee where our CSJP Sisters ministered for many years in health care and education.  I drove by the school that we started which is still home to today's generation of students and teachers.  I got out to take a better look, and realized that I had parked my car across the street at the corner of Susan Street and St. Joseph Place!  This picture again reminds me of God's playfulness and the miracle that I someway found my way through all the noise to this life as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace.

The last photo is from this past summer.  My college friend Kathy and I spent an afternoon walking in Muir Woods.  I realized many years ago that forests and trees are very important to me spiritually.  They are where I am most calm, at peace, centered.  Redwoods, cedars, and other trees found on the west coast tend to be rather large.  They also tend to be kind of old, and yet still they stand, having witnessed generation after generation of humans, still reaching up and up and up.  In this collage, I love how the trees of Muir Woods are reaching up towards my dreams. And given that this collage is above my bed, my own dreams will reach up through the trees!

All in all, I'm quite pleased with the finished product.  It feels like one year after I arrived here, this space is now closer to complete.  It is certainly not home--my recent visit to west coast groovy sister hq regrounded me in how important my csjp home is to me--but it is certainly a hospitable and cozy space in which to continue my studies in the coming school year!

Romero on What God Demands

Today is the 33rd anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. This week, I'm sharing some of his words on the blog, courtesy of this online version of some of Oscar Romero's writings.

'God's reign is already present on our earth in mystery.
When the Lord comes, it will be brought to perfection' (Vatican Council II, The Church in the Modern World)

That is the hope that inspires Christians.
We know that every effort to better society,
especially when injustice and sin are so ingrained,
is an effort that God blesses,
that God wants,
that God demands.

These were the words spoken by Oscar Romero minutes before his death, as he concluded his homily during mass at Divine Providence Hospital where he lived. He was killed by an assasin who entered the chapel from the back door and shot him, as he stood at the altar.

The picture is from my trip to El Salvador in 2007. The letters engraved on the wall say: "At this altar Monseñor Romero offered his life to God for his people. "

Counting hairs and dark matter

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus tells us: "What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." (Matthew 10)

I remember being more freaked out than comforted as a little girl when my religion teacher paraphrased the whole God knowing how many hairs are on my head thing. First thought as a cynical second grader: Really? Doesn't God have more important things to be worrying about? Second thought: what if I pull a hair out right now? I guess my spirituality has always been on the questioning/mischevious type.

The other day on Fresh Air on NPR I heard an interview with a film maker who happens to be an atheist, raised atheist in fact. He said something to the effect that he explores themes of faith and religion in films  because he is a little bit jealous of people who believe that the creator of the universe cares about them. He told a story about going to a Catholic wedding and understanding for the first time that these two people truly believed that God cared about them and was present in the church. He found that odd, but it helped him understand religious people better.

From my perspective now, with a faith that is still questioning but also grounded in my own deep experiences of God's presence and love in my life, there is more to it. Yes, God is present in the church. But God is present always. In some ways, when we seek God in sacred spaces we recognize that. We know God is always present, but we need to invite ourselves into that presence. Open ourselves to the presence and love of God. Share that experience with others. Ritualize and name the experience as Church, Temple, Mosque so that we can try to grasp the ungraspable. Faith is not so much about blind belief as about showing up. Maybe it was because God knew that about us that Jesus came ... "showing up" as it were to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. What did he do but share, name, ritualize and embody God's love?

When we  show up at church, it is as something small and finite in the midst of something so enormous it too cannot be known or understood. I read in the paper today that scientists estimate that regular matter, such as people and planets, make up 4% of the universe.  They think dark matter makes up another 25% and are burying a dark matter detector in South Dakota to try to learn more. The article did not mention what they think makes up the remaining 71%. Most likely because we have no idea.

Yet we try to grasp, measure, understand. Scientists do that with experiments. Similarly,  people of faith do that through prayer.

Back to the film maker.  I also remember him being amused that people think this God cares more about people than rocks or birds or trees. Again, I think it is more than that.  We have a tendency to personalize everything, even our experience of the universe or God. I suspect God cares about all of it, all of creation, something created from nothing ... it is all good. As far as we know, people are the only ones able to respond to the love that created everything. Of course we can also mess it up and have the power to destroy the world many times over.

Perhaps it is a good thing we don't understsnd it all. But again, I suspect God does. Even perhaps the dark matter, anti matter and whatever else is out there!

Those are my deep thoughts for this Saturday morning!

Grumpy Before God

Do you ever have one of those days where you just wake up grumpy.  No particular reason necessarily, just a general sense of grumpiness.  I had one of those days today.  A 7am meeting (second day in a row, adds this not-a-morning-person), an assortment of complicated work things that weren't quite going smoothly and, oh yeah, fasting for Ash Wednesday didn't help to lessen the general aura of grumpiness that I'm pretty sure was oozing out of my pores. I even got some good news which didn't really alter the grumpy quotient much.

So, after dinner with my housemates when the aforementioned grumpiness was difficult to contain, I decided to head next door to church for some alone time before Ash Wednesday services.  I'd say quiet time, except that the choir was practicing so it wasn't quiet.  But I found my way through the empty church, into the eucharistic chapel, and just sat there alone for a good 45 minutes, bringing my grumpiness to Jesus.

Writing those last five words, I realize that my novitiate era spiritual director would be very happy.  She often challenged me to get beyond my fear of intimacy (which has been a lifelong struggle, both in human and God relationships), to stop worrying about filtering my not-ready-for-prime-time assortment of thoughts and feelings,  and instead to just bring them straight to Jesus.  Easier said than done, I've realized over the years, at least for me, yet when I am able to, there is such grace.

Tonight was one of those graced moments.  I'm still a bit grumpy, but God is bigger than my grumpiness. For that my friends, I am a very grateful girl.

Happy Ash Wednesday everyone.  May our Lenten journey begin.

God is in the tiny whispering sound

This Sunday's first reading from 1 Kings is one of my all time favorites, worth oodles of reflection (far more than is possible in one little blog post):

At the mountain of God, Horeb,Elijah came to a cave where he took shelter. Then the LORD said to him,“Go outside and stand on the mountain before the LORD;the LORD will be passing by.” A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD—but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake—but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was fire—but the LORD was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound. When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave.

When I was in Friday harbor the other day I stopped into a bookstore.  In the Spirituality section, most of the books seemed to actually be from the New Atheist movement which I found to be interesting.  Putting books that claim there is no God in the spirituality section gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "spiritual but not religious."


I was raised Catholic, and obviously now consider myself to be Catholic, but in between there were about 10 years where I was agnostic on my best days, and wondering about the existence of God on some other days.  Suffering, of course, was where the rub most often lay.  If God were all powerful, how come things like earthquakes and genocides and pandemic diseases could still happen?  Even after I found my way back to an active practice of my faith, the suffering question often stumped me, in particular after 9/11 and during my mom's long encounter with cancer.  Suffering just sucks, and on my worst days I was pretty angry with God for letting it happen.


In the months after my mom's death, my anger continued to grow, as did my wonderings about God.  One day, a wise priest friend commented that anger is a pretty intimate emotion.  It's kind of hard to be angry with someone you don't believe in.  So I realized that yes, I do believe in God.  And I realized that the God I believe in is a God of love, compassion, justice and mercy.  This was the beginning of a movement in my heart that is hard to put words on.  


On the one hand, my need to understand the "why's"--why does God allow suffering to exist--lessened, as did my understanding of God as a puppet master or grand problem solver (or creator of problems).  On the other hand, my experience of God as being present to me, and to the world, in the midst of the reality of suffering, in the face of the reality of evil, began to grow.  Jesus, the incarnate Word, fully human and fully divine, knows human suffering, lived/lives in it, through it and with us for the sake of the world.  There's a mystery there that I will never understand.  But I can recognize God, more and more, in the small things.  In the friend who came over in the middle of the night to give me a hug the night my mom died.  In the love lived daily by parents the world over for the amazing little people in their care. In the passion for justice that leads people to sacrificial acts for the sake of the marginalized.  When I look for God in the small things, I am overwhelmed by God's love for us.  I can see why Elijah felt the need to hide his face in his cloak.

Life & God Moments

Seven years ago this month, my mom passed away after a long struggle with cancer. So much happened for me during that experience, seeing Mom suffer, journeying with my family, saying goodbye. My relationship with God also changed, as did my relationship to life. One paragraph or blog post can't do justice to it all, but I reevaluated my life plan and began to realize my heart's desire might also be God's desire for me. Let's just say questions were raised.

And yes, it's fair to say that these questions led me to consider religious life. By the time one year had passed, I was fairly certain that I wanted to become a Sister. I didn't enter religious life because my mom died, but journeying with my mom did help me to get to know God in different ways and realize that there was no sense waiting to live my life if that makes sense.

My Dad was a little sad, it seemed, and so to cheer him up around the one year anniversary I told him my secret, that I was exploring religious life. He'd always wanted me to be a Sister you see, and I thought it would make him happy which it did.

A few weeks later, my Dad was hospitalized and had emergency surgery. I flew back to be with him, and in the days following the surgery his brain was doing interesting acrobatic tricks and had him thinking all sorts of interesting things. But he remembered that I was going to become a Sister, which he proudly told all of the medical staff who were willing to listen. I had visions of my siblings coming to visit, and thinking that this Sister thing was one of his interesting imaginings. So in the course of half an hour, armed with a cell phone and standing in the hallway outside the ICU unit, I proceeded to call each of my siblings in turn. It went something like this ... "Hi, this is Susan. Dad's pretty stable, although he's also saying lots of crazy things. He might tell you that I'm becoming a nun. That's true. We can talk about it later after all of this." And then on to the next sibling. It was certainly an interesting way to share my nun news.

Why am I thinking about this now? Well, six years after that surgery, my Dad is having another very similar medical emergency in the same hospital. One of my other siblings is on their way to DC this time as the first family responder. I'm holding Dad in prayer, keeping in touch, and planning my own trip soon. In the meantime though, I'm thinking back to those very dark yet interesting days.

There is nothing like dealing with an ailing parent to make you grow up yourself. Really, I think, my relationship with God is what has changed through these 10 plus years of dealing with parental medical issues. It's hard to put my finger on it, but somehow in going through all of that anger with God, the "Why her" or "Why him" or "Why me"'s. The heart breaking reality of seeing a loved one suffer and realizing you can't really do anything other than be present in heart, mind and body when possible. The scary moment of realizing that we are all of us mortal beings and things happen to remind us of that daily. All of this mix somehow helped me to change my vision of God from someone up there who moves strings down here and causes things to happen, to developing a relationship with God in my inner most being and in the people around me, who is there in the tough times, who knows suffering, who knows the goodness of people, and in some mysterious way is present in love through all the messy stuff. There's something very human about the experience, meeting something that is "of God" in the most interesting ways.

The preliminary news from this current medical crisis is that his surgery went well. We have been able to tap into some supports over the past few months to help us help him mange his care from far away. But it doesn't make it any less scary, heart breaking or worrisome. Prayers are very welcomed for all families sorting through unexpected medical emergencies, mine included.

Persistent God

The God of the Old Testament was very present to me on retreat last week. One day, I was reflecting on the story of the call of Samuel:

The LORD called to Samuel, who answered, "Here I am."
He ran to Eli and said, "Here I am. You called me." "I did not call you," Eli said. "Go back to sleep." So he went back to sleep.
Again the LORD called Samuel, who rose and went to Eli. "Here I am," he said. "You called me." But he answered, "I did not call you, my son. Go back to sleep."
At that time Samuel was not familiar with the LORD, because the LORD had not revealed anything to him as yet.
The LORD called Samuel again, for the third time. Getting up and going to Eli, he said, "Here I am. You called me." Then Eli understood that the LORD was calling the youth.
So he said to Samuel, "Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, 'Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'" When Samuel went to sleep in his place,
the LORD came and revealed his presence, calling out as before, "Samuel, Samuel!" Samuel answered, "Speak, for your servant is listening." (1 Samuel 3)

The story of Samuel reminded me of a song by Sufjan Stevens ("He Woke Me Up Again") which in turn caused me to reflect on the amazing persistence of God in my life. I tried to capture the essence of this prayer experience in this video reflection.

God movement

This was my fifth silent retreat, my fourth silent directed retreat. Last year I went on a preached retreat which, while full of wonderful moments of prayer and solitude, left me yearning for a silent directed retreat again this year. There is just something about spending a whole week in silence, with God and the gentle companionship of a director. In my fairly limited experience, something "of God" happens when I enter into the quiet with my whole heart.

Last week was a continued experience of the mystery and wonder of spending time in the quiet with God. It's very hard to put words on, and really was a deeply personal and intimate experience. But something shifted for me in my relationship with God last week. There was a deepening of my relationship, an incredible experience of love that still leaves me breathless.

One of my favorite activities on retreat is to take photographs. I've been doing this since my first silent directed retreat when I was a Candidate with the sisters. My skills as a photographer seem to greatly increase during these weeks ... I think it has something to do with seeing with the eyes of my heart. In any case, this picture speaks to me of the invitation to move with God. It's taken at sunset over meadow garden that Sister Clare has created for the birds and the butterflies (which were in abundance but not in the photo). There's movement in the photograph. Just as life is not static, it seems to me that our relationship with God isn't static either. Our loving God invites us to move, to change, to dance ...

oregon coast

Many moons ago I was part of a discussion group at my parish around "Sense of Place"--the idea being that we each have a place where we make most sense and the world makes the most sense. To make a long story short, I confirmed what I already knew ... that the Pacific Northwest was my home, and that the Oregon Coast is the place where I most deeply connect with God.

In my agnostic but seeking days, I used to spend many weekends at the Oregon Coast. Walking on the beach, looking at where the forest meets the ocean, I felt calm and connected to something more. When I became Catholic again, my weekend trips decreased in frequency but increased in intensity. In fact, four years before I actually listened to my deepest longings, I was walking on the beach when I first felt this incredible pull, tug or push--all of the above?--that I wanted to serve God and become a Sister. That crazy thought/feeling/desire was quickly filed away for a few years until it seemed a little less crazy.

Still, there is something about the Oregon Coast that allows me to experience God's deep and abiding love for me and all of creation like no where else. This weekend, after a four year absence, I found my way back to the coast for a bit of quiet, alone time and renewal. What a gift.

(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia and a Creative Commons 3.0 license)

groping for god

I've always found Paul's speech to the Athenians (today's 1st reading from Acts Chapter 17) to be inviting and comforting. Perhaps it's because I've spent so much time in the Pacific Northwest, among the self-proclaimed "spiritual but not religious" crowd. Many of the spiritual but not religious crowd, recognize the divine in the world around them. Sometimes better than religious folks do.

Today, I was struck in a whole new way by this passage, in particular one line.

Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said:
“You Athenians, I see that in every respect
you are very religious.
For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines,
I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’
What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and all that is in it,
the Lord of heaven and earth,
does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands,
nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything.
Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.
He made from one the whole human race
to dwell on the entire surface of the earth,
and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions,
so that people might seek God,
even perhaps grope for him and find him,
though indeed he is not far from any one of us.
For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’
as even some of your poets have said,
‘For we too are his offspring.’
Since therefore we are the offspring of God,
we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image
fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.
God has overlooked the times of ignorance,
but now he demands that all people everywhere repent
because he has established a day on which he will ‘judge the world
with justice’ through a man he has appointed,
and he has provided confirmation for all
by raising him from the dead.”

So that people might seek God or perhaps even grope and find God.

The desire to seek God is in my experience pure gift. The desire is so strong some times, and I will admit made stronger at those moments when I experience the amazing wonder of God's creation--whether in nature or other human beings.

What I find so comforting and beckoning in this passage as I read it this morning though, is not the description of the desire--which usually hits me. It's not just that I seek and then will find. First, I grope. Which is such an apt description for my sometimes clumsy approach to finding God. And that is not only ok, but is the desire of God! How cool is that.

Soundtrack of My Life - Dear God

This Holy Week on the blog we’re taking a listen down memory lane … or the soundtrack of my life. (See Sunday’s post for an introduction). Simply put, I find that certain songs define certain moments in my life.

Seeing as it is Holy Week, it seems appropriate somehow to write about a song that always draws me back to my room on Upper Main in Stewart Dorm circa 1990 … “Dear God” by XTC.

Dear God, sorry to disturb you
but I feel that I should be heard loud and clear
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears
and all the people that you made in your image
see them fighting in the street
cause they can’t make opinions meet about God
I can’t believe in you

Back in the day, I considered myself a recovering Catholic. After 12 years of Catholic school, I’d stopped going to church. I found myself increasingly frustrated with a male-dominated church that focused on sexual morality, while the world was falling apart around us. The Catholic Church didn’t seem particularly relevant to modern life, and so I left.

I went 3,000 miles across the country to the Pacific Northwest where religion didn’t seem to be much of an issue. It was easy to be non-religious at Lewis & Clark, which while I was there was named the #1 school where God is not by US News & World Report—or something like that. Meanwhile, I watched the 1st Gulf War from the large screen tv in my dorm lounge (man that makes me feel old) , marched with 10,000 others through downtown Portland and stayed up all night in my dorm room debating what the political landscape would look like in a post-cold war world and lamenting all the horrible things being done in our name. Suffering it seemed was all around. And while I still believed in God, I had a hard time figuring out how it was that God “let it all happen.” Hence the affinity of my 18 year old self with this song.

20 years later—now I REALLY feel old!—of course, I’m a nun. Funny how that happened! While I’m still deeply concerned with the existence of suffering in the world, I’m no longer mad at a God that “lets it all happen.” Most of the time anyway. Not that I’ve figured it all out, but it just seems to a 38 year old me that suffering simply is—in many cases caused by other people—but that God is there with us in the midst of it all. Ready to listen to our complaints. Ready for us even not to believe. Hoping we’ll reach out to our brothers and sisters and act in solidarity for justice.