Suffer with others.

What do you do in the face of apparent chaos toward one another? First, place yourself in the proverbial shoes of another. Try to understand why another feels certain actions are the only appropriate ones. What has failed in their lives that has generated the actions you witness? You can never fully be in another’s shoes, but even asking the questions sensitizes you to the fact that all that is done is done with intention, whether wisely or unwisely directed.

There is no truth to believing that God has no place in this. There is no truth in believing that God created the suffering. But God did create a world in which there will be injustices, there will be moral challenges, there will be times when one society runs in opposition to the beliefs and actions of another society, because it is in finding a resolution to those conflicts that your own life expands into a reality that is full of value and promise and merit, and is guided ultimately by love and compassion.

Yes, you are given life to experience life, but experiencing alone is not enough. You are given life to reflect upon that experience. You are given life to find what it means to be compassionate, to be with love, with understanding, with suffering, for what is compassion if it is not suffering with another? And if you suffer with another, you identify yourself in a very powerful way with another. It is that connection, that relationship, that compassion that is evidence of God within the stormy seas.

Try to understand. Try to reach out. Try to listen to what others say. Try to comprehend a different perspective. You are never asked to agree with but rather to understand and to have compassion. Suffer with those who are motivated to create the suffering that appalls you. Allow your spirit to reach out and include and embrace the spirits of all. In doing this, you are embracing the God and the godliness that is within all human beings and in all of nature.