Point of View: There Are Worse Fates
Mary’s great-grandmother, a star of stage and the early screen, reportedly said — or so the family story has it — on passing by the open casket of a woman who had in life borne the burden of her severe lameness with good humor, “She never suffered as I have.”
Wonderful, no? And so, the other day, I, who was the first of us to contract the wretched cold that several days hence was to render Mary wretched too, said she hadn’t suffered as I had.
She has by now, I’ll warrant, which is why I said on New Year’s Eve in turning out the lights well before midnight that I hoped 2017 would be better — better certainly than the final week of 2016.
As I said last week, being bedridden had given me the chance to read most of the “Book of Joy” interviews with the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu, who link joy and fellow-feeling and forgiveness with suffering, and say that it goes deeper than happiness. Am I to think then that those who suffer the most are the most joyous? Pride always finds a way!
Archbishop Tutu had a story about pride and humility too — of three bishops beating their breasts at an altar, saying they’re nothing, which, in turn, inspires a lowly acolyte nearby to do the same. “When the three bishops heard him, one elbowed the other and said, ‘Look who thinks he’s nothing.’ ”
Perhaps it was good that I was leveled so in the past 10 days, my ego, especially when it came to tennis, was becoming unruly. But now it’s time to rebuild — with a broader point of view, I hope.
(O’en, his pink tongue lolling to one side, is looking up as I write, as if to strengthen my resolve.)
Or will it be quips as usual? Which reminds me of another of the archbishop’s jokes: When a bishop about to ordain candidates for the priesthood was told by one of them that he’d had trouble finding a book on the virtue of humility, the bishop said he needn’t look any further, that he had written the best one on the subject.
There are worse fates than lightheartedness. Though it’s warmheartedness that ought to prevail.