A Tender and Delicate Sadness

“Man, who is born of woman, is short-lived and full of turmoil.”  Job 14:1  NASB

Man – I still have places to go.

Katmandu, Nepal

Paro Taktsang Monastery, Bhutan

Skógafoss, Iceland

Anse Lazio Beach, Seychelles

Ashikaga Flower Park, Japan

Cao Bang Ban Gioc Waterfall, Vietnam

Caño Cristales, Columbia

Raja Ampat, Indonesia

Dongchuan, China

Marble Caves, Chico, Chile

Silhouette Island, Seychelles

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Spiaggia di Laconella, Elba

Karnak Temple, Luxor, Egypt

The Peruvian Amazon

Ortigia, Syracusa, Italy

Tre Cime di Lavaredo, Italy

Go ahead.  Look them up on the web.  You’ll see why they’re on my list.

But reading this list is an experience of a tender and delicate sadness.  I’m running out of time.  Some of these marvelous, beautiful, awe-inspiring places I will probably never see in person.  Just in dreams.  And even if I actually see God’s handiwork in these exotic places, what will I have to show for it?  Photos.  Memories.  Things that fade away.  All gone in the end, even my experience of them.  Man is short of days and born to trouble.

There are about 60,000 images on my hard drive.  60+ countries of the world.  Plants, animals, landscapes, slot canyons, towering peaks, sunrises and sunsets, a collection of the genius of men in art and architecture.  Not even enough time left to sort them all, adjust them all, add the stories behind them.  Israel to Istanbul, Beijing to Bergamo, Sabi Sands to the South Pacific—I’ve been blessed.  And cursed.  What I’ve seen, what I’ve felt—I can’t leave with you.  You can’t fear the growl of a lion ten feet away in Botswana.  You can’t feel the mist from the cascading torrent pouring over the crack in the earth at Victoria Falls.  You can’t weep with the sunset on the beach in El Salvador or be struck by awe with the green flash over the waters near Tahiti.  I give you images instead of reality.  Words instead of watching.  But most of all, worst of all, all of these are ultimately only mine and when I am gone, all of these real things will go with me and I will leave only images and words that will also, some day, be lost.  Life is an exquisite joyful sadness.

“ . . . the joy of sheer existence, precipitated in him despair and deep depression.  The beauty and splendor on the one hand, and the fate of man, who can enjoy this mysterious magnificence for only a brief, fleeting moment, on the other hand, touched the chords of his sensitive heart, which sensed the entire tragedy concealed with this phenomenon: a great and resplendent world and man ‘few of days, and full of trouble’ (Job 14:1).  The fear of death is transformed here into a quiet anguish, a silent pain, and a tender and delicate sadness . . .”[1]

Time.  Time is the real enemy.  Not death, not dying, but time.  Not enough to even feel what God has done on this blue marble in the cosmos.

Topical Index: sadness, life, time, death, Job 14:1

[1] Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man (JPS, 1983), p. 37.