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| top A journal of commentary, narrative and poetry about navigating through life the flame May 09, 2003
Like a Motherless Child
"Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, sometimes I feel
There are times when everyone feels alone. I have felt this quite keenly at times, over the course of my life. It does not appear to matter how much time is spent with friends and family; it seems that we, none-the-less, sometimes feel like we are making this run through life late in the night, on a lonely back road in unfamiliar country.
Over time I have come to accept this sometimes-feeling of being alone, as normal. And who really knows, maybe it is part of the general human condition, albeit either unspoken or unknown by some. God is the only one who clearly knows our hearts and there is comfort in that. Our friends and family to whom we are closest know us in part, and in part know us only by means of their own reflection and projections, as these appear to fit who they presume we are. And I cannot hold it against them; they are also the recipients of my “unknowing” regarding them.
My experience in this arena is most evident when I slow down my pace and take time to be present in the moment. My tendency is to fill every waking hour with activity. If I am not reading, then I am on my computer researching some topic of interest, or pouring time into my business, or occupied with some project around the house. The question that occurs to me is, why? Is it because busy people do not have time to grapple with the state of being alone? By asking the question I am not intending to imply that I know the answer.
The ache of loneliness has arisen, from time to time, over the course of my life and has come out in several poems that I have written. The “aloneness” that I have expressed in them is, I believe, partly my own experience and partly what I have come to understand about the inner experience of my friends and family in this regard. Over the course of the coming weeks I will share them with you. The first is "Night Train Passing." Shrouded in the night, A distant, solitary train Wails a soulful lament, As it follows a single light Through wind and cold and rain On its rock and steel ascent. Where did this journey begin, How many miles will pass, Where will it finally end? Passing through the night, A distant, solitary train Wails a soulful lament. - Thomas Fideler
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