The End of Suffering by Scott Cairns

The End of Suffering by Scott Cairns

The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering, but a supernatural use for it. -Simone Weil

Like most people I, too, have been blindsided by personal grief now and again over the years. And I have an increasingly keen sense that, wherever I am, someone nearby is suffering now.

For that reason, I lately have settled in to mull the matter over, gathering my troubled wits to undertake a difficult essay, more like what we used to call an assay, really--an earnest inquiry. I am thinking of it just now as a study in suffering, by which I hope to find some sense in affliction, hoping--just as I have come to hope about experience in general--to make something of it.

Is there meaning in our afflictions?

With the thoughtfulness of a pilgrim and the prose of a poet, Scott Cairns takes us on a soul-baring journey through the puzzlement of our afflictions. Probing ancient Christian wisdom for revelation in his own pain, Cairns challenges us toward a radical revision of the full meaning and breadth of human suffering.

Clear-eyed and unsparingly honest, this new addition to the literature of suffering is reminiscent of The Year of Magical Thinking as well as the works of C. S. Lewis. Cairns points us toward hope in the seasons of our afflictions, because in those trials in our lives that we do not choose but press through--a stillness, a calm, and a hope become available to us.

Cairns, Scott: - Librettist, essayist, translator, and author of nine poetry collections, Scott Cairns is Professor of English and Director of the Low-Residency MFA Program at Seattle Pacific University. His poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Image, Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and both have been anthologized in multiple editions of Best American Spiritual Writing. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006, and the Denise Levertov Award in 2014.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781557255631
ISBN 10	1557255636
Title	The End of Suffering
Author	Scott Cairns
Series	Paraclete Poetry
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Paraclete Press
Year published	2009-11-01
Number of pages	144
Prizes	Commended for Christianity Today Book Award (Spirituality) 2010
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.