Reflection by: Abdul-Malik Ryan, Assistant Director, Religious Diversity and Pastoral Care
The Catholic singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen memorably captures the experience and effect of facing suffering, abuse, and hardship in his anthemic “Born in the U.S.A.” In the narrator’s words, “You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much, Til’ you spend half your life just covering up now.”[1] I was recently reminded of this line both by the seemingly endless strain of different attacks many of us experience in the world, both directly or indirectly, and also in reading the book Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics by Kurt Gray.[2] Gray, a social psychologist and conflict researcher, argues that human psychology has been shaped by evolution to be extremely attentive to threats in order to avoid harm. Contrary to the idea that humans have always been apex predators, Gray argues that through most of evolutionary time humans have been very vulnerable. Although our environment has become safer for most, we are still “wired” to be incredibly sensitive to harm and threats of harm, and we seek to protect ourselves from those harms. One of the factors that makes societal polarization so frustrating and extreme is that different experiences or perceptions of harm lead us to believe that those who disagree with us are at best insensitive to the hurts we experience. At worst we believe they are dangerous and threatening to us.
Sometimes it may be hard for us to imagine the lives of those saintly figures of the Vincentian family we revere. We are separated from them by large amounts of time and sometimes by geography or cultures. The worlds we live in are much different from those in which they lived. This may be especially true of the women we look up to like Louise de Marillac and Elizabeth Ann Seton. They are introduced to us as saints, appearing to us veiled, and looking out at us from artwork or the pages of books. In the case of these two saints though, and perhaps most human beings, when we really take the time to know them, their life experiences are revealed as quite remarkable. Both of them were wives and mothers. They knew social and religious discrimination, times of relative economic comfort and times of hardship. They both suffered the deaths of a husband and of children. They were known to have times of darkness and uncertainty, but inspired by their faith they opened to others, founding communities of sisters that would serve countless people in need.
Sometimes those who experience scarcity, hurt, and loss end up turning inward and away from others, seeking protection from all the harms out there. Who could blame us? Indeed, we must use the wisdom of our experience to anticipate and plan for threats and harms that await those for whom we are responsible. Yet there are others who use such painful experience and knowledge to open their hearts and arms to those who are suffering. These are the ones that inspire us and create legacies of hope in dark times. They use their knowledge of loneliness to create communities. They use love and gratitude to awaken creativity amid narrowness and difficulty, making way for new possibilities.
For reflection:
How can we see and acknowledge suffering without feeling overwhelmed? What can we do to awaken creativity in difficult times? What can we do to allow others to be hopefully creative?
[1] Bruce Springsteen, “Born in the U.S.A.,” Born in the U.S.A. (1984). See: https://www.springsteenlyrics.com/lyrics.php?song=bornintheusa
[2] Kurt Gray, Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics (Pantheon, 2025), 368 pp.