(Throughout this post, I use different names for the conscious sacred energy that exists for many people: God, Higher Power, Spirit, Universe, Divine Love, Source. Notice those names that resonate, those that annoy or shut you down)

When I was asked to lead a weekend retreat on Gratitude last winter, I knew right away I wanted to focus on Suffering – and how we can retain a grateful heart even when horrible things happen to us or those we love.

After all, it’s not very challenging to feel gratitude when everything is swell.

Telling people Suffering was my intended approach to Gratitude was often met with a blank stare.

Oprah and self-help/personal growth writers have done a good job teaching how a grateful attitude can change lives and bringing gratitude practices (gratitude journals, etc) to the mainstream.

For people who believe in a conscious sacred energy, gratitude goes beyond an attitude and becomes a prayer, a conversation with Source. Contemplatives seek to be in this conversation continually, able to praise Source in every moment…..even the rotten ones.

Sounds ridiculous to some people, but let me explain the nature of a contemplative’s relationship with Spirit. Here’s a fancy spectrum I made to show different kinds of relationship:

On the left are those who believe that God is in control of everything that happens. The poster child for this belief is the guy who CNN interviews every hurricane season to ask why he stayed put during the mandatory evacuation. “Because if God decides my number is up today, then my number is up whether I follow the evacuation or not!” You may or may not think this way- but you surely have met those who do.

On the right are those who believe in God, but do not experience God as active or present in their daily lives. They might believe the Bible is the word of God, follow God’s rules and expect to meet God in the afterlife but they don’t experience God as a loving, active presence in the here and now.

In the center are those who believe that God is in a living, two-way relationship with them. How I think of this is that

God/the Universe is constantly luring us to be our most authentic self, giving us signs,

nudging us towards alignment with our deepest values and living our unique gifts in a way that increases love, beauty and healing in the world.

In another post, I can describe HOW Divine Love communicates with us, lures us, gives us signs, etc… but for now let’s just say I believe this communication is continual, and my “job” is to try to be present to it as often as possible.

Being open to this continual conversation can keep us afloat even as we seem to drown in a miserable situation.

It helps to first understand that Source is not to blame for the misery.

The Source that sparked the birth of the Universe communicates with us but does not control us or our circumstances. The Source is Pure Love and pure love never controls, coerces or manipulates. Therefore, Source “self-limits divine power.”

This explains how Spirit does not cause nor intervene when humans are cruel to each other. Spirit is there trying to lure each of us away from war, hatred, abuse and towards loving one another.

Spirit is there comforting us when we suffer at the hands of others or from our own poor choices. We can hold onto this thread of love and genuinely feel grateful for it, even as we suffer.

(From a Christian trinitarian perspective, Source gave completely to us by embodying human form (serving as a living example of how to love while also experiencing human pain so that we know we are not alone in our human suffering) and the form of Holy Spirit (which continues to inspire, comfort, counsel and lure us into Love.)

What about suffering that stems not from the free will of humans, but from natural causes? Diseases, disasters, fatal mishaps…. how can Pure Love allow the cruelty of nature?

Pure Love is also the Creator, the spark that ignites the unfolding of the cosmos and sets evolution into motion. Divine creation has endless diversity – and one thing we can know for sure if we believe Creation reveals the mind of the Creator is that diversity is key to life.

Infinite diversity unfolding through creation (and perhaps all creativity) requires something important: chance.

“Biology wants a wild mix” is what a doctor explained to Heather Kirn Lanier in this powerfully profound essay. Lanier’s daughter was born with a debilitating chromosomal syndrome.

Chromosomes come together then pull apart in a process where a lot can go wrong – but this process is also what allows for the most random mix of ancestral chromosome pairs. In other words, chromosomal syndromes happen because of the same chance that allows for the greatest diversity between humans. (Lanier beautifully describes how she loves her daughter for being her unique self – syndrome and all, even though the syndrome causes suffering.)

No two people are the same. Even identical twins are born with different fingerprints because of random variations in how amniotic fluid swirls around them. Chance allows the biodiversity in our oceans and rainforests. It also allows cancers and hurricanes and lightening strikes.

The price we pay for the chance that creates our own uniqueness and the immense beauty of our wildly diverse planet and cosmos – is that we suffer.

(Lanier asks if we really want to be perfect, non-suffering robots and suggests what a soulless world that would be.)

In sum, suffering happens because of 1) free will which is necessary in love and 2) chance which is necessary for diversity.

Of course, I am not grateful for the pain of an excruciating migraine, or for my child’s sobbing grief or for a dear friend’s premature death. I am not grateful for terrible things happening, but I am grateful for Pure Love being alongside me as they happen.

At the very least, I am grateful for my present breath, and the one after that.

But we die! Why do we have to die?

Well, as a hardcore procrastinator, I wonder how much I would accomplish, create, do for others, if I knew I had infinity to do it. Seriously! I kind of appreciate having a dead- line (ha!) in which to add some love, beauty and healing to the world.

And to make me even more grateful for the breaths I still have.

Acknowledgements: This post owes much to the brilliant theological discussion about free will, chance and suffering in Sidney Callahan’s Women Who Hear Voices: The Challenge of Religious Experience as well as the above mentioned essay Superbabies Don’t Cry by Heather Kirn Lanier. There is also a nod to Richard Rohr’s writings on the divine unfolding of evolution.