I was left with an image in my head similar to this one; a flat world, stretching on into infinity, sparsely populated, with the houses close in all abandoned as people created increasingly isolated existences for themselves.
It is inevitable that people living and working in close quarters will find themselves getting irritated by annoying habits. It's all too easy to react by closing off and shutting out that which we declare to be intolerable; to leave the relationship, the neighborhood, the church or the job (ignoring, of course, the all-too-likely possibility that what we find distasteful in others is merely an echo of what we despise in ourselves).
There can be extraordinary grace and growth when we can step outside our petty differences to forgive and accept the foibles of others. But the only way we can do that is through love: love of both ourselves and of others. Which brings to mind something I read long ago in a short story of JD Salinger's entitled "For Esme with Love and Squalor."
I don't quite remember the context any more, but there was something about a soldier finding a copy of a book or story by Dostoevski, with lines reading, "Fathers and Teachers, I ponder: What is Hell?" And scrawled in the margin beside those lines were the words "Hell is the suffering of being unable to Love." Yes, we can shut out all those who do not think and act as we would prefer them to. But in cutting ourselves off from others we may also be cutting ourselves off from love -- and, over time, that can lead to a pretty lonely existence.
Uh-oh: the lyric machine in my head just went off again: guess I just have to share this video...
4 comments:
Great post and oh how fun to take the music time-machine back to a different age.
A few months back I commented in a letter to a friend that the unhappiest people in this world are not those who are unloved, but those who cannot love. Love Is. Just as God Is. And who we are is determined by how fully we embrace that reality.
And, just to tell you, Diane, I read your blog holding my breath. Your words often echo something I have just thought ... or read ... or encountered. The synchronicity of it astounds me.
Wonderful post -- but I don't remember them looking so young! Ever!
Yes, I was astonished when I saw how young they were... Time machine, indeed!
...and thank you so much, Cheryl, for those kind words. I love those synchronicities. And I have to say, this post today sort of came out of the blue; it doesn't seem to have much to do with anything going on in my life or my reading at the moment. But this picture really leaped off the page so I just followed where it led; glad it worked for you!
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