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One further point: What really hurts is not so much suffering itself as the fear of suffering. If welcomed trustingly and peacefully, suffering makes us grow. It matures and trains us, purifies us, teaches us to love unselfishly, makes us poor in heart, humble, gentle, and compassionate toward our neighbor. Fear of suffering, on the other hand, hardens us in self-protective, defensive attitudes, and often leads us to make irrational choices with disastrous consequences.

Fr. Jacques Philippe – Interior Freedom
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MS. TIPPETT: The kingdom of God?

BROTHER THAY: Yeah, because I could not like to go to a place where there is no suffering. I could not like to send my children to a place where there is no suffering because, in such a place, they have no way to learn how to be understanding and compassionate. And the kingdom of God is a place where there is understanding and compassion, and, therefore, suffering should exist.

MS. TIPPETT: That’s quite different from some religious perspectives which would say that the kingdom of God is a place where we’ve transcended suffering or moved beyond it.

BROTHER THAY: Yes. And suffering and happiness, they are both organic, like a flower and garbage. If the flower is on her way to become a piece of garbage, the garbage can be on her way to becoming a flower.

Transcript: Thich Nhat Hanh, Cheri Maples, and Larry Ward — Mindfulness, Suffering, and Engaged Buddhism | On Being

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“The health problems cascade from there. The economy is built on physically grueling jobs. An injury causes pain, which causes depression. Depression makes it harder to work. People gain weight. The weight gain leads to sleep apnea and sometimes to diabetes. Diabetes can exacerbate vision problems.

To top it all off, there are few doctors in the region, and Virginia rejected the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, which would have insured an additional 170,000 people. Because getting to a doctor is hard and expensive, people self-medicate with prescription painkillers, alcohol, and tobacco. Eventually, said Smiddy, the pulmonologist, “they become dysfunctional. They’re weaving behind the car. They’re setting the stove on fire. It’s not that they’re bad people. They’re probably faith-based people, family people. Most are just trying to function.””

Life in the Sickest Town in America

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There is no denying the seductive nature of convenience—or the cold logic of businesses that create new jobs, whatever quality they may be. But the notion that brilliant young programmers are forging a newfangled “instant gratification” economy is a falsehood. Instead, it is a rerun of the oldest sort of business: middlemen insinuating themselves between buyers and sellers.

via The secret to the Uber economy is wealth inequality

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In the days leading up to his birth, I’d jolt awake in a cold sweat from nightmares of raising a six-year-old athlete, begging me to go outside to play football or baseball or some other dreaded physical activity.

Crisis averted.

via Playing With My Son.

I wish I hadn’t gotten rid of all my old game systems!

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Incidentally, for offering a home to Paddington — or harbouring him, as the Home Office would have it — Mr and Mrs Brown could potentially face prosecution under section 25 of the Immigration Act 1971, entitled “Assisting unlawful immigration to member State”. The maximum sentence is 14 years.

via An immigration lawyer reviews Paddington.

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It seems to me that we have to move past the church’s current doctrines on sex if we are to fully seek justice for the victims of this pathology and if we are to ensure that never again is a phrase that actually means something. It is not enough to ask for a change in governance and even that has been hard; what this evil signifies is the need to root out this pernicious obsession with sexual sin.

— Andrew Sullivan (Catholicism’s Crimes Against Humanity)

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The death penalty—like all state actions—exists within a context constructed by humans, not gods. Humans tend to have biases, and the systems we construct often reflect those biases. Understanding this, it is worth asking whether our legal system should be in the business of doling out an ultimate punishment, one for which there can never be any correction. Citing racism in our justice system isn’t mere shaming, it’s a call for a humility and self-awareness, which presently evades us.

–Ta-Nehisi Coates