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10:30 am Worship

Monday, January 13, 2025

Psalm 146: 1-4

¹ Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
² Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them.
³ When they breathe their last, they return to earth,
and in that day their thoughts perish.
⁴ Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help!
whose hope is in the Lord their God…

What can make us happiest?

An old Chinese story: A farmer’s horse ran away. Neighbors quickly commented on his bad luck. No one can know, the old farmer responded, what is good and what is bad. When the horse came back, accompanied by a wild stallion, the neighbors rejoiced in his good luck. Again, he told them. No one can know what is good or what is bad. Then the farmer’s son broke his leg while trying to tame the wild stallion. The neighbors were now certain the whole chain of events was bad luck. Who can know what is good or what is bad, the farmer asked? Finally, a war broke out, and the farmer’s son was able to remain home because of his broken leg, while all the neighbor’s sons were conscripted into battle, some of them to die there.

As I have continued reading “The Book of Joy,” which consists of interviews with the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu, I found myself amazed that two of the most joyous religious leaders on earth could be so joyful. Both men have suffered immensely, Tutu in the long-running battle against apartheid in South Africa and the Dalai Lama when he lost his nation and the cultural center of his own Tibetan Buddhism in an invasion by Chinese soldiers.

Both men lost friends. They watched, helpless, as countless thousands and tens of thousands suffered and died. South African prisons filled with black victims. So too the Chinese gulags. Through it all, they each remained faithful to the truths they knew, sought to survive through peaceful means, and overcame obstacle after obstacle. Both men were honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, and each exudes a personal peacefulness greater than that exhibited by most others.

What if the only path to joy lies through suffering?

“Many people think of suffering as a problem,” the Dalai Lama said. “Actually, it is an opportunity destiny has given to you. In spite of difficulties and suffering, you can remain firm and maintain your composure.” (The Book of Joy, 146.)

In a special Tibetan spiritual teaching known as the Seven-Point Mind Training, one learns that three categories of people are special objects of focus because the groups are the ones which challenge us most. They are family, teachers, and enemies.

“Three objects, three poisons, and three roots of virtue,” one lama taught.

He suggested these groups give rise to three things which poison our minds: attachment, anger, and delusion. These poisons lie at the heart of much suffering. Through spirituality, however, we can find the opportunity to transform the poisons into virtues. Nonattachment, compassion, and wisdom.

Suffering offers us the opportunity to move toward understanding, love, and an ability to surrender ourselves.

Was this the Via Dolorosa?

Blessed (happy?), Jesus said, are the poor in spirit.

Hymn of the day: Dark Night of the Soul. Online at Rossford UMC - Media.

Rev. Lawrence Keeler