A life solely about work and doing is terribly out of balance; indeed,
it requires constant motion and busyness to keep from falling apart.
The writer Philip Roth spoke proudly late in life about living
alone and being responsible or committed to nothing but his own
needs. He once told an interviewer that his lifestyle meant he could
be always on call for his work, never having to wait for or on anyone
but himself. “I’m like a doctor and it’s an emergency room,” he said.
“And I’m the emergency.”
That may be just about the saddest thing a person has ever said
without realizing it.
Dorothy Day, the Catholic nun, spoke of the long loneliness we all
experience, a form of suffering to which the only solution is love and
relationships. And yet some people inflict this on themselves on
purpose! They deprive themselves of the heaven that is having
someone to care about and to care about you in return.
The world hurls at us so many hurricanes. Those who have
decided to go through existence as an island are the most exposed
and the most ravaged by the storms and whirlwinds.
On September 11, 2001, Brian Sweeney was a passenger trapped
on hijacked United Airlines Flight 175, which was heading straight
for the South Tower of the World Trade Center. He called his wife
from one of the plane’s seatback phones to say that things were not
looking good. “I want you to know that I absolutely love you,” he told
her voicemail. “I want you to do good, have good times, same with
my parents. I’ll see you when you get here.”
Imagine the terror of that moment, yet when you hear his voice
coming through the phone, not a trace of fear. The same serene
calmness is found in the final letter written by Major Sullivan Ballou
in 1861 in the days before his Federal regiment marched out to
Manassas, Virginia, where he seemed to know for certain that he
would die in battle. “Sarah,” he wrote, “my love for you is deathless.
It seems to bind me with mighty cables, that nothing but
Omnipotence can break; and yet, my love of country comes over me
like a strong wind, and bears me irresistibly on with all those chains,
to the battlefield. The memories of all the blissful moments I have
spent with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply
grateful to God and you, that I have enjoyed them so long.”
barry
(Barry)
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