My personal understanding of what it may mean to choose life as we are living while embracing our freedom to die revolves around critical and deep engagement with the natural world around us, with other people, and with the divine. I'll bet that shows in my words. I've been quite taken in this past week by the very different thoughts on this subject as expressed by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik. Lonely man is profound. He is original.
Lonely man is free.
How many people do touch holiness most easily by plumbing the depths of our basic isolation from all other things. I will continue a bit with words from Soloveitchik, because he describes so poignantly the choice of life in the face of death, and because many here today are smarting still from the loss of a dear one. He is in a mood to question our entire axiological universe. The house is empty, dreary, every piece of furniture reminds the mourner of the beloved person he has buried. Every corner is full of memories.