Relief

Do you notice that when you suffer alone, you whine, but that when you suffer for another, or to relieve their suffering, you don’t whine, and even feel quite good.  So it is not what you do, but the reasons and circumstances that induce your reaction.  Example: my sister Jane, cooked roast pork for dinner on our vacation.  I clean up after dinner when she cooks roast pork,  and it is quite a mess, being roast pork pans and such other pots and pans.  Janie usually is my assistant clean-up person.  But just before dinner she burned her hand on a hot dish.  She became useless to help clean up.  We enjoyed a delicious dinner though, and then I suffered in cleaning up by myself while she sat and attended to her burnt hand and sore back.  But I did not whine.  Why?  I was relieving her suffering by letting her sit and relax and defuse her pains.  Had I been cleaning up alone because of a bunch of lazy and uncaring persons who would not lift a finger to help, then I would have whined and had a long resentment list.  So my sister Jane and her burnt hand are a source of grace for me.  Think about that when next you do good deeds that extend you, for others.  Children are a source of grace for parents.  Co-workers, friends, club associates can all be sources of grace if we see our efforts as that of relieving the sufferings of others.