Living & Suffering

Here's another little part of Karl Rahner's work 'Encounters with Silence' that spoke to me recently:

Only knowledge gained through experience, the fruit of living and suffering, fills the heart with the wisdom of love, instead of crushing it with the disappointment of boredom and final oblivion. It is not the results of our own speculation, but the golden harvest of what we have lived through and suffered through, that has the power to enrich the heart and nourish the spirit. And all the knowledge we have acquired through study can do no more than give us some little help in meeting the problems of life with an alert and ready mind.

Karl Rahner, from Encounters with Silence

It's the experience of living - with it's ups & downs, successes and failures - that
leads to more wisdom and love. I can't 'think' my way into it, though such a safe, contained and controlled approach seems attractive. That's challenging for me, to make that jump from mental to physical, to risk putting knowledge to work.

Comments

[joe]

I think a good analogy would be that food fills you up in a way that thinking about food, or watching the Food Network, won't. And food feeds you best when you have invested your efforts maximally into it: going to your garden and plucking out the ____ you have tended, cooking it according to a recipe you have perfected and serving it with love.

So it is with our life experiences and the openness of spirit we bring to them.

AMDG,

-J.

[Steve Bogner]

Joe - That's a fine analogy. I grew up on a farm in Kansas, so it resonates with me.

[Victor]

You've got to slow down Steve cause before you know it, you'll have accumulated more gifts in heaven that I already have. I hear ya Steve! Maybe I should exchange some of them for a little humility.(lol)

All kidding aside, keep UP the Good Work cause it's all for One and One for All with Christ.

[Steve Bogner]

Thanks Vic - Humility is a great gift; well worth the exchange!