“A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and
expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures
the depth of his own nature.”
― Henry David
Thoreau, Walden
It’s a beautiful day
at the lake. The walker’s trail is empty of all but a few walkers. There are no
reckless skaters or bikes to avoid. The soft, blue-grey sky is half overcast in
a beautiful texture of silver and gray ribbons of clouds, the harbingers of the
cold front just off our Gulf coast.
It’s warm today,
indeed, too warm for December, reflective of the gradually building climate
change that has just brought us our warmest summer and fall on record. There
are flocks of birds making and then remaking patterns in the sky, periodically
diving to the water at break neck speed. Along the shore white cranes stand on
one leg appearing to gaze far ahead to the distant horizon.
There is a young woman wearing a bikini in a
canoe floating freely in the middle of the lake only yards from the bridge where
I stand. Oblivious to the world, she doesn’t see me. But she also doesn’t see
the sky or the birds. She lies on her front propped up on her elbows, eyes
glued to the tiny screen she holds in her hands, thumbs tapping away.
Near the end of the
bridge I pass a couple of fishermen down below along the banks where the bridge
pilings begin. I’m guessing they are father and son. The older man flicks his
fishing rod toward the lake while the younger sits on a rock, tapping away at his
cell phone. He is oblivious to the rod under his own foot bending under the
weight of a fish.
On the far side of the
lake, I encounter once again the homeless man I see down here peridically, who,
like Francis of Assisi, serenades the shore birds accompanying himself on his
guitar. But today, there are no songs or melodies. The volume from his
cell phone is loud enough I can hear it from the walking trail. His gaze is
glued to the tiny screen. He does not see the birds who have expectantly gathered.
What is it about our
own company that we find so intolerable? What is it about being alone in
silence that becomes so unbearable so quickly? Are we simply well-trained
consumers who have come to believe that if we are not “talk(ing) all the time,”
as our commercial advertisers have taught us Is normal if not mandatory, that
we cannot be happy?
Have we confused being
entertained with being alive? Or is there something more, something dreadfully
frightening about the dark abyss we know lies within us, that prompts us to
rush madly to fill that silent space with noise, trivia, ever more garish
images and gossip, anything that allows us to convince ourselves, for even a
few moments, that that emptiness inside us does not really exist?
“I know. I was there.
I saw the great void in your soul, and you saw mine.”
― Sebastian
Faulks, Birdsong
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Harry Scott Coverston
Orlando, Florida
If the unexamined life
is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or
political, is not worth holding.
Most things worth
considering do not come in sound bites.
For what does G-d
require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with
your G-d? (Micah 6:8, Hebrew
Scriptures)
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