Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, August 25, 2007


My major regret in life is that my childhood was unnecessarily lonely.

- Truman Capote, who died on this day, 1984

Truman’s loneliness was, I think, always reflected in his face. Certainly in his behaviour. Certainly in his self-destructive tendencies. I wonder what he meant by “unnecessarily”? Did he think that he should have behaved in a different way. That he could have done something about it? No, something tells me that he was making a profound comment on how people who are “different” are rejected and abused by others. I had a rather lonely childhood. It was easier just to avoid the people who taunted me. As I got older, I learned to appreciate my loneliness. And, perhaps more importantly, I learned to find the people who were either like me or nonjudgmental. At that point, I was away to the races. Happily, I wasn’t too seriously affected by those few lonely years. Many people are, often driven to suicide.

Did human beings, out of the depths of their existential loneliness, invent a God of unconditional Love in order to survive childhood and to help us humans to live adulthood? If we did, how sensible. Especially if it meant having to reject the meanness and nastiness often associated with Deities. Human beings can be so dreadfully mean to each other. It is comforting, no, more - it is essential that we know or believe that each of us is essentially OK in our intrinsic humanity. That despite the mean things said about or done to us by other fearful, insecure people, that we are unconditionally loved by the Creator, or the Life-Force, or the Ground of Being, or whatever sustains Life.

Behind Truman’s word “unnecessarily”, I hear a sad, simple plea for us to treat each other with understanding, respect, compassion, care. That’s all. Basically, that’s all that “true” religion and faith are all about. It does more than anything else to make Life worth living for us all.

Brian+