My Gandhi quote of day from India was “My method of conversion, not coercion; it is self-suffering, not the suffering of the tyrant.” This quote reminds me of a couple things in my life. One is a lesson of garden. If a garden is hurting from anything, weather or bugs, it suffers through the storm till it can heal itself. Another one is a lesson of life that with adversity and suffering it does no good to lash out on others but take the suffering in and make the best of it until healing.

A more grounded example is Dawn of the DMZ community gardens. When her homes for the disabled were unjustly blasted a few years ago by a reporter she quietly endured the lost of persons and finances it cost her until she restored her homes again. Now she is facing a loss of one of the DMZ community garden, incidentally called the healing garden, unless she can come up with more soil and plants for the garden. She quietly has put the word out to friends, taken out a personal loan and praying and hoping for the best.

Once I was with her when she was in the city development office checking on grant they had promised her if she spent so much to improve one of her houses. She did all that she needed and more but they were not going to give her the matching grant she sorely needed. I got upset at the city officials for their refusal to give her the grant, they even saying they hand ‘lost’ her file. She calmly presented her point and when she could see we were going nowhere just said it was time for us to leave. Without the promised grant it took a year or two to have enough money to complete the house she calls the ‘project house’ but she did it.

Self-suffering is not looked on as a virtue in our society and we, I, find it hard to practice. But like the parables in the Gospel at the Liturgy say today sometimes we must give all or sacrifice all to get what we want, be it a precious pearl or basketball rims in the county park. So bring on the self-suffering, but just a little bit at a time.

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