Sharing is Living

Bless Krista Tippet! How would I ever heard about John O’Donohue if not for her Speaking of Faith program?

Ms. Tippett: You know, I think a lot about how in Western culture, and the United States culture, really important words get watered down and almost ruined and yet we still need them, and “love” is one of those words. And “friendship,” I think, may also be a word in which we haven’t — we struggle to — to not let are definition of that become impoverished. And you know just to bring this to a very practical level, some of the things we wring are hands about in our public life, like the disintegration of marriages, you know, the kind of crisis of relationship. And then implications of that, like how do we raise our children to know what commitment is. And I actually think an impoverished sense of love and of friendship complicates that. You know I’m asking you this as a philosopher and I think as a wise person. I mean, are we less capable of love and commitment and relationship in a mature sense, you know, in our time than previous generations were. Or is this just a human dilemma that has different details in our time?

Mr. O’Donohue: I don’t think we’re less capable at all. I think we’re more unpracticed at it and therefore more desperate for it. And I think it’s a matter of attention really, just attention. That if you realize how vital to your whole spirit — and being and character and mind and health — friendship actually is, you will take time for it, you know? And the trouble is though for so many of us is that we have to be in trouble before we remember what’s essential. And sometimes it’s one of the lonelinesses of humans is that you hold on desperately to things that make you miserable and that sometimes you only realize what you have when you’re almost about to loose it.

So, I think that it would be great to step back a little from one’s life, and see around one who are those that hold me dear, that truly see me, and those that I need, and to be able to go to them in a different way. Because the amazing thing about humans is we have immense capacity to reawaken in each other the profound ability to be with each other and to be intimate. That’s one of the things I’ve always thought here is that, you know, there is loneliness here that is covered over by this fake language of intimacy that you meet everywhere.

Right you are Mr. O’Donahue! I think we complicate our own lives, whether knowingly or not. Which is an insane thing to, actually.