The Dangers of Isolation

I have been thinking a lot about isolation lately. Since my divorce a year ago, my life workflow looks radically different. When you couple that life change with selling our house and moving to an apartment, and at times I struggle to even recognize my "new" normal.

‘Time-alone’ is a sought after treasure.  A time to think, read, and ‘do what I want to do.’  The menu is simpler, conflicts are reduced, and no one is around to question decisions made or decisions postponed.  We all need ‘time-away’.  Time to seek God’s voice, reflect, relax and recover.  We ask ourselves important questions and listen for the Spirit’s voice.  Jesus was reported to regularly retreat and seek out places of solitude and prayer. However, I am coming to understand the dangerous differences between being alone, loneliness and isolation. Social distancing has consequences.

However, the very first warning in the creation story is “It is not good for man to be alone.”  When people are alone, many struggle with burdens, anxiety, addictions and the sorrow of opportunities lost.  Temptation knocks. Loneliness can enhance feelings of depression and can flood your mind with accusations and bitterness.  

But you know what is worse than loneliness? 

Isolation. 

My Favorite, (well okay), My Only Mickey Mantle Story

If you are even a casual observer of this blog, you have probably picked up on some of my gentle hints regarding my loyalty to the Atlanta Braves. As a kid growing up in Chattanooga, TN, our stations broadcast Atlanta baseball on the weekends and covered them in our local news at 6 and 11. But I also grew up in an era where in the month of October, our teachers in our school would roll in a black & white TV on a cart and we would watch the World Series games which were played during the daytime hours. NOTE: Trivia factoid, the first World Series to play a night game was in 1971. (Game 4 between the Pirates and the Orioles) 

During the 60's and 70's, the New York Yankees were frequent participants in the World Series. And even though their greatest player, Mickey Mantle, best years were in the 50's, he had still achieved legendary status by the time I became a baseball fan. My dad would often speak of Mickey's best season that happened in 1954. He won the American League Triple Crown by leading the majors in batting average (.353), home runs (52), and runs batted in (130). Additionally, he topped the league in runs scored (132), slugging percentage (.705), and total bases (376). Mantle also led the AL in walks with 122, which helped his overall offensive production. His stellar performance earned him the AL Most Valuable Player award that year as well. 

Surrenders of the Civil War | From Appomattox to Citronelle

 

The Strange Life of Robert Todd Lincoln

Robert Todd Lincoln (August 1, 1843 – July 26, 1926) was an American lawyer and businessman. The eldest son of President Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, he was the only one of their four children to survive past 18 and also the only one to outlive both his parents.

Most students of history probably recall these basic facts about Abraham Lincoln's oldest son, yet, he is also the equivalent of a real-life Forrest Gump. 

Consider just a few of these historical moments that he either witnessed or was directly part of: 

Sometime in either late 1864 or early 1864, he was saved from possible serious injury or death by Edwin Booth, whose brother, John Wilkes Booth, would go on to assassinate Robert's father. This event took place on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey. 

He served on General Grant's staff for almost five months, during which he witnessed Robert E Lee's surrender at Appotomax. 

On the night his father was assassinated, Robert had turned down an invitation to accompany his parents to Ford's Theatre due to fatigue after spending much of his recent time in a covered wagon at the battlefront. The president was moved to the Petersen House after the shooting, where Robert attended his father's deathbed.

Lincoln was an eyewitness when Charles J. Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield at the Sixth Street Train Station in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1881. Lincoln was Garfield's Secretary of War at the time.

He was also present at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, when President William McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz. Though not an eyewitness, he was just outside the Temple of Music when the shooting occurred.

Lincoln himself recognized these coincidences. He is said to have refused a later presidential invitation with the comment, "No, I'm not going, and they'd better not ask me, because there is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present."