Post 105

Some thoughts for Easter:

I am not opposed to Easter, but I've been thinking about it, and I think it's kinda sad that we need Easter. Please don't misunderstand: I don't mean to imply that I think it's sad that we need the Atonement of Jesus Christ; what I mean by saying I'm sad that we need Easter is--well--shouldn't every Sunday be an Easter celebration of sorts? I mean, isn't that kinda the point of assembling as Christians and breaking bread in similitude of the Last Supper, which was itself a symbol of Christ's sacrifice? And shouldn't we ponder daily on the greatness of God's Love and offer prayers of gratitude and praise? If we were really doing what we ought to be doing, how could a yearly holiday possibly add anything to our daily and weekly rituals--except for maybe the obligatory capitalization that we append to all holidays....

Now for a dramatic change in subject:

I think that loneliness is a substantial element of the human condition; it is the ubiquitous (though sometimes imperceptible) white noise of the soul--always there, just sometimes downed out by other emotions. I site the extremely young and the extremely old as my examples: I went to an Alzheimer's ward on Saturday, and it was amazing to me how lonely those folks were. I was there with my parents to visit an uncle, and some old lady walked up and grabbed my mother and I by the hands and started saying something about--I dunno--people with Alzheimer's, I quickly learned, don't make much sense even when you can understand the words they say. As soon as my dad found out what room my uncle was in, my mom pulled away from the old lady and followed my dad down the hall. The old lady clutched my hand tightly, looked into my eyes, and, nearly breaking into sobs, said, "You won't leave me--will you?" I was disarmed, and I let her pull me over to a couch, where I figured I'd sit next to her and listen to her jabber--something I was more than willing to do, given the sincerity of her loneliness--but my mother called me away, so I freed myself and went down the hall.

Of course, the old lady had Alzheimer's, so I'm sure that she quickly forgot all about it, though she seemed quite distraught at my hurried departure--but I didn't forget, and I found it very difficult to leave her. Now, I realize that, even if I had stayed and chatted with her for several hours, she would have forgotten all about it fairly quickly--I saw her less than an hour later, and she seemed to have no recollection of ever having met me, let alone of begging me to sit next to her on a couch--but the tear-filled eyes of an octogenarian, looking up at me from eyes as full of fear as a child faced with being alone in a dark room--they get to me, those eyes; they really do.

Little kids hate to be alone--hate to be alone. And I think that that is something we never really grow out of. Sure, we manage to bury the fear of solitude deep within ourselves, but I think it's always there. I am one who enjoys some alone time occasionally--indeed, I seek it out almost nightly--but I also realize that hermitizing is a crippling practice. God made us to be--

Wait a minute....

Kay, I was right: I was about to plagiarize a thmusing--unintentionally, but definitely. On 9 March 2008, Thmazing said, "Ever since I made the discovery almost a decade ago that God made us social creatures, I've never stopped riffing on the subject. Because it's true. We were built to need each other."

Right. We are social creatures--it's part of our hardwiring. And I believe that loneliness is a universal ailment. My hope is, of course, that one day I will get married, and my idle fantasy is that, from that day on, loneliness will simply go *POOF!*, but I don't really believe it. In fact, I'm afraid that, because loneliness will be less frequent, it will be far more potent when it hits.

But there is One whom we can always depend upon, One who will never leave us alone. And I imagine that no one in the history of this old world has ever been better acquainted with loneliness than He was--the most misunderstood Man to ever live, One who never had peers, One who was rejected by His own people.

Happy Easter.