Parakalein

Would it be wonderful if there was no pain or suffering in our world?

As I was driving to work this morning I heard an academic minute (NPR) by a microbiologist who was researching why it is that the cellular system has not in the process of natural selection and mutation not discarded "unnecessary parts" that seemed to have no function and therefore were deemed "unnecessary".

He likened it to a construction site building a roller coaster at the sight of a sky scrapper.  An engineer would just eliminate the waste of energy and the waste of space and scrap the roller coaster and just build the sky scrapper.

What the research and study the biologist conducted proved is that while the part seems unnecessary it is preserved because it maintains some hidden role of balance in the system that does not seem necessary but serves a necessary purpose.

I began to muse: what if pain and suffering is exactly that.  While most of us would like to get rid of them they may serve a utilitarian seemingly unnecessary role to balance the system.  All parts of the system are important to the function and survival of the system even if they do not seem so.

So pain and suffering are here to stay.

Perhaps one of their functions is to call forth compassion and courage as partners in living with and making sense of suffering.

I do not like pain and suffering as I watch it happening to others or feel it myself.  It is here and if I hear its message I may hear it say: "Make peace with your pain and suffering and it will lead you into greater courage and compassion".