The Grief of Others

I was talking with a good friend over coffee on Saturday morning and we got into a discussion of self. I think it fair to say that we both lack a certain self-esteem, feel like outsiders. I relish actually being an outsider because when  I was an insider I paid the price in my soul.

We tend to equate selfishness with the man or woman or child (m/f)  who thinks he/she is all that. Yet, selfishness can also be someone who thinks he/she is not all that. It is the focus on self that is the issue--whether grandiose or gutter-like.

The happiest times in life is when we lose ourselves. In an activity, conversation, service, etc. We are not thinking about ourselves, good or ill, because we have been captiviated by something greater. Such wonder is a great antidote to loneliness, depression, anxiety, egotism, pride, and self-adulation.

I was reading about the French philsopher Simone Weil who lived and died young. She, as a Jewish woman, came to faith in Christ. Not the cultural Christendom of Western Europe in the terrible times of Word War II. But, faith in the radical Christ who turned the wicked world upside down. He who took the sin of the world and rose again, with scars.

Simone Weil identified with the oppressed willingly. She could have chosen to avoid hearing the cries of those suffering. Instead, she immersed herself in the pain of others, forgetting herself, and being set free. When she died, someone left a note in Italian by her grave. It said, "My solitude held in its grasp the grief of others till my death."

Here on Ash Wednesday, it is spirtual to mourn our sins. Yet, how much more like Jesus to mourn the sin of the world and seek to set others free, no matter the personal cost?