Alone

Today is "hump day" of a seven day sequester after another radioactive iodine treatment for recurrent thyroid cancer.  In anticipating this round of treatment,  the aloneness of the sequester was the thing I most dreaded and yet something transformative and unexpected is happening.

The timing of this quarantine (Holy Week) has sent my thoughts to Jesus' own experience of aloneness.  It has caused me to imagine how I would have handled those last days before going to the cross.  First I would probably have made a list..."dispose of my earthly possessions," "make sure the will is up-to-date," "tell the family where the important papers are."  Then I would have gotten busy trying to complete all those tasks that I had always meant to get around to but procrastinated doing thinking I had more time.  I would have filled every day with busyness trying to make sure I left behind some kind of legacy ensuring that it mattered that I once lived.  I would have used endless activity to distract from the terror of what was about to happen to me.

Jesus did just the opposite.  He went into the serene Garden of Gethsemane filled with gnarly olive trees.  He set aside any agenda to be busy. He chose to just "be".  And though He invited His friends to participate in the experience with Him, they could not.   He was alone.  He was alone in the dismay over the physical trauma He was facing;  He was alone in the dread of the separation from His Father;  He was alone in the the anticipation of the rejection of His friends and followers;  He was alone in the sadness He would cause His mother;  He was alone in being misunderstood that He seemingly could not substantiate His claims of being God's Son.  Yet despite it all, Jesus did not budge from spending His last hours absorbed in the relationship with His Father.  There was no list, frantic activity, "wrapping up the details."  There was no "setting the record straight," just intimate moments of transparent honesty between Father and Son.

In my lifetime, I have never before had a time when I literally could do nothing and go nowhere.  I am in our bedroom behind a make-shift "screen door" ( to keep the cat and dog out).  Kindly, friends have offered me videos and books and magazines.  I loaded a book on the Kindle and had a list of things I thought would be good to accomplish during this time of involuntary solitude.  But as the days have gone by I have found myself getting quieter and quieter and I am hearing God louder and louder.  I am experiencing sweet togetherness with God in the quiet aloneness of my room.