Today I am over at the Schole Groups blog talking about Suffering, Schole, & Contemplation. Here is an excerpt of the article…
A mother’s suffering,
A child born,
A farmer’s labor,
A flower burst forth,
A student’s wrestling,
A mind illumined,
A savior’s death,
A people delivered.
A sinner’s repentance,
A soul freed,
And love is made known. -Jennifer Dow, 2019
What does each stanza in the poem above have in common? What is the same, what is different? Take a moment to consider.
A pattern exists in nature. Work before fruit, sorrow before joy. Learning, schole, and contemplation are fruits. Highly desired fruit, highest good kind of fruits, but what is the work that precedes them, makes them possible, calls them forth?
True learning, or schole, requires suffering, requires sorrow. The suffering of the mother in childbirth, the suffering of the tilling of the earth, the suffering of wrestling with an idea, the suffering of our Lord, the suffering of coming to terms with what is and uttering those truths to God. Authentic learning requires suffering because it is made manifest through suffering and sorrow. It is the work that precedes it. Josef Pieper, the author of Leisure and the Basis of Culture, says it this way:
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