The Franciscan Way

The starting point of the Christianity I grew up in was humanity's sinfulness. It is the foundation for all beliefs and interpretation and behaviour towards others and the entire cosmos that follow. It has been and continues to be a path of destructiveness that I have been unlearning for decades. It is not the path that I taught my children.

Instead, in the Franciscan tradition, suffering is the foundation for understanding the nature of reality. But also holds a position of all of creation being made good, a process that is continuous. From this beginning point, the presence of the Christ is a manifestation of the Divine suffering with us not for us.

From the former position, the interaction between the Divine (through Jesus) and humanity, is transactional (the entirety of the cosmos does not figure into this framework only people which is one of the causes of the degradation of life on this earth).  Transactional interactions become the norm for all modes of being; if you believe x, y, and z and behave in the correct manner, then you are in right relation with God,  God's people, i.e. the Church, society and with yourself. The relation is a position of being, that is, a state ones lives in at a point in time. This state is always dependent on oneself which requires constant vigilance so that one does not fall out of this state.

Instead, in the Franciscan tradition, where the foundation is inherent goodness and suffering, the manifestation of the Divine in the Christ is, in essence, one of relationship. Jesus' presence and death was an act of solidarity with creation's suffering. The Christ displays the inherent goodness or diviness in all things while not glossing over that, paradoxically, that suffering is also inherent in all things. This is, at its core, relational and also unconditional.

In the former iteration of my faith, I was unable to love unconditionally, even my own child. This was so painful for me. I learned to see that it was the old beliefs that kept me mired to transactional interactions with my child, and with others and with myself. My child taught me a new way of being; being in relationship with others means recognizing the Divine in others, that everyone is suffering in some way and acting out of a place of that suffering (which can be a place of transformed suffering) to not take that action personally, to not hold it against them. 

The Franciscan Way, teaches a path of unconditional love by being present to the suffering of a good creation.