For just over a week we West Coasters have experienced temperatures that got to -11 C. The snow fell and accumulated, water lines froze to the barn necessitating hauling water from the house for the cows. I shoveled the driveway at least six times. How inconvenient. On one of those snowy days I was sitting in the warm house listening to Richard Rohr in an interview exploring his latest book, The Universal Christ slightly inconvenienced that I couldn’t get on with some of the jobs I had planned on getting to before the snow and cold interrupted me. Rohr says that those in the developing world do not have these conveniences or comforts and thus have a far easier time engaging with the suffering Christ, the suffering God.
How do we engage with the suffering Christ if our comfortable convenient lifestyles prevent this from happening? What has to change? It is not that we must seek out ways to suffer but it certainly calls us to reorient our lives so that they are fully engaged with those who have and are suffering. We join Christ’s suffering by joining those who suffer. I believe it also means we must question each of our comforts and conveniences, especially if we feel a sense of entitlement to them. Most certainly our lives will be richer in every way when are ‘living with’ those who do not experience life as we do.