DLQ 10 Quiz 3 Suffering & Social Conscience

_____ AND _______ often play a mysterious role in the unfolding of our callings

pain and trouble

What can offer spiritual opportunities that have the potential to put us in touch with the sacred dimension of experience from which callings emerge?

Experiences of personal suffering, or encounters with the pain of others

True or False: Suffering always has redemptive or transformative effects upon our consciousness or character.

False — it is important not to romanticize or spiritualize suffering

True or False: Pain can call forth the best in us, but it can also bring out the worst

True

Painful life experiences are a kind of initiation into the role of the _______

Wounded healer

How can personal suffering lead to a vocation in helping or healing professions?

• Personal suffering awakened a calling to compassionate service.

• At the heart of it all is the great mystery of redemptive suffering

In The Road Less Traveled, what is the road that Peck is referring to?

the path of emotional and spiritual growth

In The Road Less Traveled, what is the way most of us prefer?

Easy way because the path to genuine growth and maturity can sometimes be so rough, rugged, difficult

Because of our _______, all of us are inclined to resist the process of growth

Egocentrism

Something in us doesn't want to change, and so we cling to the known rather than take the risk of following the Voice into the unknown

True or False: The text argues that resisting change is an unnatural and pathological response to the "Voice," as there are spiritual guarantees that following the unknown will not lead to disappointment.

False

In the context of spiritual transformation, what is described as sometimes being the "only way" to obtain a "new heart"?

Through a "broken heart."

The call to authentic personhood involves a commitment to _____ and _____

continual growth and change

Continual growth and change requires …..?

Willingness to undergo the emotional and spiritual pain and discomfort, a necessary and inevitable part of the process of knowing ourselves

True or False: Self-protective, defensive efforts to avoid the pain of self knowledge almost always ensures we have no problems

False — Self-protective, defensive efforts to avoid the pain of self knowledge almost always end up bringing us other kinds of trouble

____ is always a substitute for legitimate suffering

Neurosis

Identify the concept: According to the passage, this specific type of "misery" is described as the price individuals pay for refusing to embrace the pain and risk associated with an authentic life.

Neurotic misery

True or False: The text suggests that by refusing to take the "risky business" of personal growth, individuals actually save their time and energy for more productive pursuits.

False — we end up spending our time and energy trying to escape the process of becoming ourselves

What specific phrase does the author use to describe individuals who spend their lives avoiding the challenges of becoming the persons they are "meant to be"?

"Troubled guests" on the earth.

True or False: The text describes the process of "becoming the persons we are meant to be" as a safe and guaranteed path to happiness.

False. (The author explicitly characterizes it as "risky business" involving pain and risk)

In the phrase "troubled guests on the earth," what is the primary source of the "trouble" mentioned?

The anxiety and energy spent trying to escape the responsibility of becoming one's authentic self.

The call to love also entails _____ and _____

pain and risk

We experience ______ with every step we take in the direction of becoming more loving persons

growing pains

Becoming loving persons mean ___?

we increase our capacity to give and receive genuine love

What does mature love require?

Energy and will to make the moral effort to extend ourselves on behalf of others

According to the text, how is the task of "one human being to love another" ranked in comparison to all other human tasks?

Described as "perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks," the "ultimate," and the "last test and proof."

Identify the concept: The perspective that all other forms of work and effort in life serve merely as a "preparation" for this specific, final labor.

The work of learning to love.

True or False: The passage suggests that young people are naturally experts at love because of the intensity of their emotions.

False — Young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love, they have to learn it

What happens when we live in a way that is out-of-synch with who we really are?

Get sick in one way or another with painful physical or emotional symptoms

Painful physical or emotional symptoms we experience can be interpreted as a ________

wake-up call, as a kind of cry for help from our soul

In Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore suggests that the soul uses painful or disruptive symptoms to _____ when we are ______

convey a message to us from within when we are falling into error or living in a way that is out-of-synch with who we really are

What are examples of the painful or disruptive symptoms of the soul?

• nagging anxiety

• knot in the stomach

• stubborn depression we can't seem to shake

• boredom or burnout in our work

• persistent inner sense of spiritual restlessness or emptiness in spite of apparent contentment on the surface of our life

What happens when we ignore the symptoms?

it persists underground, forever pressing for actualization

Why shouldn’t we try to fix or cure the annoying or uncomfortable symptom?

Because it signals that we are unable or unwilling to hear what our soul may be trying to tell us

If it is a cry for help from our soul, then the right thing to do is to ______

pay attention

Instead of ignoring our own pain, we need to begin by compassionately listening to it, by _____

allowing it to have a voice

Through the symptom the _____ demands attention. The symptom is the first herald of an ______ which will not tolerate any more abuse.

psyche

awakening psyche

What is the best approach when we feel the symptoms?

• slow down

• try not to panic

• make an effort to listen patiently and carefully to learn what our painful feelings may be trying to tell us

According to Jung, what is the ultimate opportunity we "miss" if we simply try to get rid of a neurosis rather than learning to be thankful for it?

Opportunity of getting to know ourselves as we really are

Identify the concept: An "opportunity or invitation to learn something about ourselves" and characterizes it as a "potential blessing in disguise."

Neurotic symptom (or neurosis).

True or False: The primary goal when encountering a neurosis should be to eliminate it as quickly as possible to restore mental health.

False — should not try to "get rid" of it, but experience what it means and what its purpose is

Reflection on our symptoms not only can help us to diagnose what is wrong or missing in our life but can also give us ________

clues as to what we need to do to get better

The _______ knows what we do not know and what we must learn about ourselves and life to become well

unconscious

Getting the messages of our symptoms can teach us what our soul needs, _______

what it may be craving or longing for

If we are willing to learn, symptoms can teach us _____

humility

What is the spatial metaphor for where we are located emotionally or spiritually when we are sick or suffering?

down

Identify the concept: The psychological process where symptoms remind us of our vulnerability and lack of control, effectively "bringing down" the ego from its ruling position.

humiliation of symptoms

According to the author, what is the "traditional mark of the soul" that we acquire through the humiliation of our symptoms?

Becoming humble (or humility)

What do symptoms do?

• humiliate; relativize the ego

• restore the ego to its former ruling position

• remind us that we’re not God

• put us in touch with our need for a power greater than ourselves to heal and save us from whatever is ailing us.

The Wounded Healer

A person whose own painful life experiences and sufferings become a primary source of healing for others

In the vocational theme of the wounded healer, what must a healer do with their wounds for them to be a source of healing?

They must be tended properly

Identify the concept: An ancient, primordial form of religion practiced in indigenous cultures that dramatically illustrates the vocational pattern of the wounded healer.

Shamanism

Besides the shaman, which specific historical figure is cited in the text as an example of the "wounded healer" life pattern?

Historical Jesus

What is the specific "vocational theme" or pattern associated with individuals who use their trauma to help others?

The way of the Wounded Healer

“Initiatory Illness”

• Painful physical illness or psychological crisis

• Visions and dreams with religious imagery of death and rebirth, spirit journeys, or encounters with good and evil spirits associated with illness and healing

Why can shamans help with people who are sick?

Because they have experienced what the patient is suffering and have overcome, survived, learned from it, and been transformed by it

What experience of Jesus is parallel to a shaman’s intiatory illness?

Jesus’ forty-day ordeal in the wilderness

Jesus’ visionary experiences in the wilderness are also reminiscent of the _____ of the shaman

“soul journeys” or “spirit flights”

The gospels also suggest that, from the beginning of his public life, Jesus strongly identified with the mysterious ______ figure

“Suffering Servant of Yahweh”

“Suffering Servant of Yahweh”

The one who brings good news to the poor, heals the brokenhearted, brings liberty to captives

Identify the concept: In the Christian tradition, Jesus is seen as the fulfillment of this specific, countercultural redemptive figure foretold by a prophet.

"Man of Sorrows."

What do the "wounds" of the "man of sorrows" specifically become for other people?

source of healing and redemption.

True or False: The figure of the "man of sorrows" is described as a "countercultural" redemptive figure whose role was foretold by a prophet.

True

People who experience callings to compassionate service resonate with image of _____

wounded healer

What are the 2 primary ways individuals in the helping professions often trace the "early inklings" of their callings to become wounded healers?

Through painful personal experiences or close proximity to the pain of significant others, both of which sensitize them to suffering.

This specific type of insight is developed through "personal encounters" with problems, providing first-hand knowledge of what it is like to deal with an "infirmity" and how to heal it.

A particular kind of wisdom and compassion (born from being "familiar" with suffering).

What makes wounded healers qualified?

personal knowledge and experience that becomes one of their primary qualifications (not the only one) for helping others

What is generated within a healer when they have personally experienced and successfully navigated their own healing process?

A certain faith in the healing process

Identify the concept: This capacity for connection with those who are ill is described as something that "can only come through having suffered."

Empathy (or a capacity for empathy)

How does Sister Dianna Ortiz describe her healing process following her abduction and torture?

traumatic experience of death followed by a slow and painful process of rebirth

Identify the concept: Sister Dianna Ortiz's determination to use her personal experience of traumatic victimization to build "communities of healing" and advocate for human rights.

vocation of a wounded healer in the social and political realm.

What is the proper idiom for the prophet in cutting through royal numbness and denial

language of lament and grief

What is the task of the prophet to the king?

invite the king to experience what he must experience

What are the two distinct "ways" or levels through which a wounded healer can use their own pain for the benefit of others?

1. Prophetic public efforts to heal a sick society

2. Compassionate personal attention to the hurt of individual persons.

True or False: Suffering does not always have a redemptive outcome

True

Painful life experiences have the potential to _______, to make us ___________

deepen and mature us

wiser and more compassionate

True or False: Painful life experiences always deepens and matures us, to make us wiser and more compassionate

False — not always

What can make us numb, bitter or self-absorbed?

Pain

What can cause us have little energy or interest left over for anyone or anything beyond ourselves?

Pain because it can make us so preoccupied with our own discomfort

We should be careful not to romanticize or spiritualize ______ too much

suffering

What is one factor that determines whether suffering will have a redemptive outcome?

our attitude toward it

Suffering only cures us if we ___?

have the right attitude

True or False: The form that the trouble takes and the degree of pain associated with it makes a difference in the outcome of suffering

False

The “right” attitude enables us to discern ______ in our sufferings

meaning

What makes it possible for us to make spiritual sense of the senseless, to bear the unbearable?

Meaning

Whether suffering becomes an occasion for spiritual triumph or defeat depends entirely on our capacity to _____?

discover a meaning or purpose in it

Everything can be taken away but one thing, the last of human freedoms, which is to ___?

Choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances

What can determine whether we will experience suffering as a blessing or a curse?

Finding the correct spiritual attitude in any given difficult situation

When we are contending with painful life problems, finding the blessing has to do with ___?

Discovering the hidden spiritual meaning or message contained in the problem, the “blessing in disguise.”

True or False: Jacob wrestled with God until daybreak and refused to let go until he received a blessing.

True

Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you ______ me.”

Bless

What new name was given to Jacob after the wrestling match?

Isarel

True or False: What attitude of Jacob allowed him to receive the blessing?

Persistence—refusing to give up until he was blessed.

What can suffering reveal about a person when they “hang in there” through pain?

The truth of who they are, which can lead to healing and redemption.

Allowing suffering to reveal the truth of who we are can become a process that is inherently ______ and ______.

Healing and redemptive

Why can enduring suffering sometimes become a healing process?

Because pain can reveal deeper truths about a person’s identity and meaning.

Any particular painful experience becomes an occasion for deepened loving connection with ____ or ______

God or other humans

What is the relational dimension of the experience of suffering?

Even in the midst of grave misfortune there is access to God.

The Uniform Deliverance

1. Uneasiness - sense that there is something wrong about us as we naturally stand.

2. Solution - sense that we’re saved from the wrongness by making proper connection with the higher powers

In Viktor Frankl’s experience in the concentration camps, what “solution” helped him endure the suffering?

Making a proper connection with the higher power of love.

True or False: According to Viktor Frankl’s story, the greatest threat in the concentration camps was only physical survival.

False — it also violated prisoners’ dignity and need to be treated as human beings.