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Quote by Ian Harber

“There are two ways suffering can change you. The first is by breaking you down, leaving you afraid, paranoid, and void of hope. The other is by breaking you open, leaving you with a wider heart, and expanding your capacity for love. Jesus, in his suffering, was broken open for us. When we share in Christ’s sufferings, we too are broken open and able to love others more than we could before. Because of the suffering you have endured in the past, you are able to persevere and endure even more suffering in the future. Each season of suffering prepares you for the next one. As you persevere in suffering, you become more resilient in the face of trials.”

Quote by Ian Harber

Book:Walking Through Deconstruction: How to Be a Companion in a Crisis of Faith
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Walking Through Deconstruction: How to Be a Companion in a Crisis of Faith

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Ian Harber

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“In submitting to suffering, Jesus absorbs and transforms it into our salvation. Hanging on the cross, the sky went black, and Jesus absorbed the darkness of the world into his body and spirit. Overtaken by it, he lay in the grave for three days. On Easter morning, he was raised in victory over death, defeating the darkness that overtook him on the cross with the light of life. This is what it means to persevere. While suffering is the result of the evil and brokenness of the world, we, like Christ, absorb the darkness of suffering into our bodies, transform it, and release it back into the world as light. We absorb hate and release it back into the world as love. We absorb lies and release them back into the world as truth. We absorb death and release it back into the world as life. We don’t see ourselves as simply victims of suffering but as agents of transformation who mock death and scorn shame, knowing that God’s victorious rule and reign over all evil will be made manifest through our perseverance.”

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Book:Walking Through Deconstruction: How to Be a Companion in a Crisis of Faith
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“I consulted a trauma expert who travels to communities devastated by natural disasters. When she meets with suffering people, she often asks this question, “Where are you feeling the pain in your body?” She wants to know if they want to talk about their emotions or if they need to talk about what’s happening physically to them. I used this advice when I recently met with a grieving friend. I wasn’t sure what to ask her, so I sat with her, cried, and then asked, “How are you feeling the grieving in your body?” She loved the question. Nobody had ever asked her this, and she wanted to talk about all the trembling and nausea she was feeling.”

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Book:The Six Conversations: Pathways to Connecting Again in an Age of Isolation and Incivility
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“Many of us want one of the other events: we want to be part of a political revolution, a scientific discovery, an artistic innovation, and - because our society tells us that this is the event that in the end makes up for all our misery - we want to fall deeply in love and stay so. Suffering, in turn, is not an event that any of us want. Unfortunately, it is probably the one that many of us are more likely to experience than any of the others. As tempting as it is to try to offer a more sanguine conclusion to the distilliation of ideas that this book has attempted to accomplish, I cannot end on a polite lie. I know that if falling in love is an event, losing that love is no less so.”

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Book:Distillations: Theory, Ethics, Affect
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“And when the rush fades, we are left hollow, staring at the wreckage of who we were. The mirror reveals no rebel, no hero, only a shadow of a self we barely remember. Still, we return. The cycle repeats, not because we do not see the cost, but because the void terrifies us more. Better the burn, than the weight of the fall.”

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Book:VERSES OF THE BROKEN: Echoes From A Fractured Mind
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“Not all deceptions are palatable. Untruths are too easy to come by, too quickly exploded, too cheap and ephemeral to give lasting comfort. Mundus vult decipi, but there is a hierarchy of deceptions. Near the bottom of the ladder is journalism: a steady stream of irresponsible distortions that most people find refreshing although on the morning after, or at least within a week, it will be stale and flat. On a higher level we find fictions that men eagerly believe, regardless of the evidence, because they gratify some wish. Near the top of the ladder we encounter curious mixtures of untruth and truth that exert a lasting fascination on the intellectual community.”

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Author:Walter Kaufmann
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