From the movie, "Castaway"I recently watched “Castaway,” with Tom Hanks, a movie released nine years ago. He plays a Fed-Ex systems engineer who abruptly finds himself alone on a small island after a traumatic plane crash.
He adapts and survives for four years, before building a raft, leaving the island, and eventually being rescued at sea.
Soon after landing on the island, he opens some Fed-Ex packages that have washed ashore, including one containing a Wilson volley ball. He paints a face on the ball and names it . . . Wilson.
Wilson is the only company he has for the entire four years, so it isn’t too surprising that he begins talking to the volley ball, converses, even argues with it. Wilson becomes his best, and only, friend. When he leaves the island, he carefully ties the ball to the raft.
After some days when the ball’s tether weakens, and it falls off the raft and drifts away, Hank’s character is in anguish. When he isn’t able to retrieve Wilson, he lets his improvised oars drift away and just gives up.
Here is a metaphor: we all need friends – other people, pets – someone to love and be loved by. The song, “No man is an island,” recognizes that need.
While most of us won’t face isolation on a deserted island, we all have, or may yet, find ourselves feeling bereft, friendless. Can we do better than talking to a volley ball?
Religious author Mary Baker Eddy had been through it all. Trusted friends turned against her, slanderers launched vicious verbal attacks. She could look back on such difficult times and refer to them as hours “of development.” Right where she was tempted to feel totally alone, she found divine Love comforting and guiding her.
Here’s what she wrote next to the marginal heading “Uses of adversity.”
“Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love. When this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures)
That’s a promise worth keeping in mind. We always have a best friend in our creator – who cares about each of His/Her children, and communicates by giving us good ideas.
He adapts and survives for four years, before building a raft, leaving the island, and eventually being rescued at sea.
Soon after landing on the island, he opens some Fed-Ex packages that have washed ashore, including one containing a Wilson volley ball. He paints a face on the ball and names it . . . Wilson.
Wilson is the only company he has for the entire four years, so it isn’t too surprising that he begins talking to the volley ball, converses, even argues with it. Wilson becomes his best, and only, friend. When he leaves the island, he carefully ties the ball to the raft.
After some days when the ball’s tether weakens, and it falls off the raft and drifts away, Hank’s character is in anguish. When he isn’t able to retrieve Wilson, he lets his improvised oars drift away and just gives up.
Here is a metaphor: we all need friends – other people, pets – someone to love and be loved by. The song, “No man is an island,” recognizes that need.
While most of us won’t face isolation on a deserted island, we all have, or may yet, find ourselves feeling bereft, friendless. Can we do better than talking to a volley ball?
Religious author Mary Baker Eddy had been through it all. Trusted friends turned against her, slanderers launched vicious verbal attacks. She could look back on such difficult times and refer to them as hours “of development.” Right where she was tempted to feel totally alone, she found divine Love comforting and guiding her.
Here’s what she wrote next to the marginal heading “Uses of adversity.”
“Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love. When this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures)
That’s a promise worth keeping in mind. We always have a best friend in our creator – who cares about each of His/Her children, and communicates by giving us good ideas.
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