EPISODE 202

Did you cry at any point as you watched Pope Francis in action during his visit? If you did, when was it? What made you cry?

Now it wasn’t just John Boehner! I noticed as I watched the Pope inter-acting with individuals, and especially with individuals in acute need or distress, that it was those encounters that touched me personally. (I was abreacting all over the place.)

I don’t have spina bifida. I’m not in a wheelchair. I’m not six years old, nor 84 (yet). Nor am I homeless. But hey: Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child! My tears flow freely, and often not freely enough. In other words, I identify with distress and need. I identify with exclusion, tho’ you might not know it. I identify with rejection and exile, tho’ again, you might not know it.

The point is, everybody’s at their own point of need. Everybody’s got something they’re thinking about that’s painful.

Pope Francis, walking in the steps of the great Understander, the great Sympathizer, touched the core pain. He touched the core pain of many, many people. It was busting out all over.

I think we’re each walking in “The Tracks of My Tears”. (Thank God for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.) And when they bubble up, you can just smell the healing.

COMMENTS

---

One response to “PZ’s Podcast: Pope Francis – SPECIAL EDITION”

1. Carlen Maddux says:

   09/28/2015 at 9:10 pm

   A mutual friend of ours, Paul, often liked to say: “We comfort with the comfort by which we have been comforted.” Clearly Pope Francis has been comforted in ways we’ll never know, as evidenced by the deep comfort he conveys.

   Reply