Many drops of good fellowship

Last night, I finished listening to the audio version of On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books by Karen Swallow Prior. I started re-listening this morning, and I want to go back and underline my print copy.

On Reading Well looks at 12 works of Western literature in light of 12 virtues. But it's much more much more than books as moral fables or the print equivalent of Christian movies that spell out everything you are supposed to believe by the credits. Reading for virtue goes deeper than that. It requires thinking critically and making connections that may not be obvious. It requires soul-searching on the part of the reader, and just as a work of literature develops characters, reading well should develop our character as we read.

This is an excerpt from Tenth of December by George Saunders as an example of the virtue - kindness. This virtue has devolved into mere niceness but it means more. Kindness is "to treat someone like family." (pg. 207)

Did he still want it? Did he still want to live? Yes, yes, oh, God, yes please. Because, O.K., the thing was - he saw it now, was starting to see it - if some guy, at the end, fell apart, and said or did bad things, or had to be helped, helped to quite a considerable extent? So What? What of it?.... He'd been afraid to be lessened by the lifting and bending and feeding and wiping, and was still afraid of that, and yet, at the same time, now say that there could still be many - many drops of goodies, is how it came to him - many drops of happy - of good fellowship - ahead, and those drops of fellowship were not - had never been - his to [withhold]. (pg. 217-218)

The narrator, Don Eber, is a terminally ill man who through providence was prevented from taking his own life, which he thought would spare his family. In the end, he wants to live and realizes that if he was on the giving end, he would do the same for his family as they are doing for him.

I choked up when I read this as I remembered those who cared for my dad at the end of his life and the way they cared for him. They were gentle. They were patient. They were kind because he was treated like family. One aid at the assisted living facility even did a double shift so my sister and brother-in-law could go home for the night. There were bonds formed through care-giving that were precious that could not be formed any other way.* This also hits home because my mom will be in a situation of needing similar care unless Jesus comes back first.

We get this idea that it would be so much better if didn't "burden" people, but is pride at the root? We don't want to face that we need others especially for our most basic needs because it is humbling to not be in control. It goes against the grain to be dependent upon others. But who is really in control of  life? Who is totally independent? No human. There's also a weird gnosticsm that our physical bodies don't matter and the sooner we get rid of them, the better, especially when they begin to break down. But God called his creation - good. We aren't brains-on-a-stick but embodied souls with bodies that matter. And how much more would we all benefit from those many drops of good fellowship as we give and receive?

This is how Karen Swallow Prior ends the chapter:

For those so sick or scared or depressed that they think their loved ones would be better off without them, I so wish for them to know what Don Eber came to know: caring for these bodies we inhabit for a while - whether that care is of our own or someone else's body - isn't a distraction from what life is all about. It is what life is all about.

In lieu of death, be kind to one another. (pg. 219)

On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books, Karen Swallow Prior, Brazos Press, 2018.
* I don't want to overlook the fact that caregivers need care too. No one has the strength to do it all.