Comments on: To Suffer Slings and Arrows: Finding Meaning in Death and Suffering https://halfkindled.com/to-suffer-slings-and-arrows-finding-meaning-in-death-and-suffering/ , but striving to become on fire. Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:47:51 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.39 By: Katherine https://halfkindled.com/to-suffer-slings-and-arrows-finding-meaning-in-death-and-suffering/#comment-372 Thu, 06 Nov 2014 21:41:30 +0000 http://halfkindled.com/?p=218#comment-372 Beautiful thoughts Kathy. It is hard to see so many people today living in an “existential vacuum” as it were, looking for true and lasting fulfillment, and despairing that they will ever find it. The idea that life is meaningful and worth living can become quite the radical concept. Very touching comparison to assisting the dying on their “way of sorrows” just as Simon of Cyrene did. Thanks for sharing!

]]> By: Kathy Langlois https://halfkindled.com/to-suffer-slings-and-arrows-finding-meaning-in-death-and-suffering/#comment-371 Thu, 06 Nov 2014 19:51:50 +0000 http://halfkindled.com/?p=218#comment-371 Death and suffering are such deep subjects. Our society today shuns any meaningful discussion of them. I am dumbfounded at the attitude of having to escape suffering at all cost and that there is no life eternal. If life has no meaning, then why is it not OK to kill or mistreat ourselves by drinking, drugging, reckless behavior, etc? Why should murderers and violent criminals be punished? Life DOES have meaning, and therefore everything in our lives has meaning. We can only find that meaning through developing a relationship with the creator of our lives – God. Lack of this relationship yields a void which leads to seeing things as senseless.

When we pick up our cross and accept our suffering as a way of becoming closer to God, we reflect the meaning of life. Our priest once said that nobody got to heaven without suffering. We all hear ‘No pain, no gain’ when it comes to exercise and losing weight and excelling in athletics. Why would we not have to suffer to gain the greatest achievement of all – life in paradise?

May God bless each of us and provide us the strength to carry our crosses. Pray for those who do not understand and do not have the strength to carry. Maybe we should help carry their crosses as Simon of Cyrene helped Jesus.

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