Emily Dickinson and Love

. . . service is the fastest route to joy

This is an old (slightly edited) post from 2019. I hope to return to publishing new weekly content soon. Thank you for reading.

I experience A Course in Miracles as a clear means by which to remember that we do not bring forth love alone but in communion with others. I am reminded daily by the course to cooperate, coordinate and communicate with my brothers and sisters so that we might all be happier together.

Along those lines, I want to share a tiny Emily Dickinson poem:

I could not drink it, Sue,
Till You had tasted first -
Though cooler than the Water - was
The Thoughtfulness of Thirst -

This quatrain first appeared in 1864, in a private letter to Susan Dickinson. Susan was Dickinson's sister-in-law, closest reader over the course of her writing life and arguably her greatest love.

The poem suggests that love calls us to become servants unto one another. To love someone is not to get something from them but to give to them. The benefits are mutual. As A Course in Miracles observes, "all expressions of love . . . bring more love both to the giver and the receiver” (T-1.I.9:2-3).

Thus, Dickinson refuses to sip until the one she loves has sipped first.

But she then goes a step further, observing that finer than water - finer than actually quenching thirst - is the "Thoughtfulness of Thirst."

What does this mean?

Thirst arises naturally in us. We do not choose to be thirsty; we do not create thirst. When conditions specify thirst, we experience thirst. Importantly, if you drink a glass of water, my thirst is not quenched. It seems to be indicative of separation, no?

Dickinson suggests that if we give close attention to this private experience of thirst, we will discover in it an awareness of the other that actually prioritizes the other, and that this awareness transcends our immediate bodily needs. It transcends a personal self in favor of the other's self.

That is, we discover in us a love that is not self-centered but other-centered. Critically, this focus on the other does not deprive us but rather enriches us. We will gain the pleasure of sipping eventually but in the interim, we will experience a selfless love that cannot help but express itself through service, bringing joy to all it encounters.

Love extends outward simply because it cannot be contained. Being limitless it does not stop. It creates forever (T-7.I.3:4-5).

Each moment is full of possibilities for sharing. If we give attention to these possibilities, we will find a lot our own needs and wants - for food and water, for security and shelter. There is nothing wrong with this. It's natural.

But if we go a little deeper, we will find not only our own needs and wants but a realization of the needs and wants of others. And we will discover as well a desire to respond to those needs, as if they are our own. We discover a spirit that directs attention away from us and toward our brothers and sisters and thus to the collective that together we comprise.

Dickinson suggests that our real thirst is for Love itself - for communion and holiness - and that this thirst can only be quenched by loving others.

If you use the body for this and only for this, you cannot use it for attack. In the service of uniting it becomes a beautiful lesson in communion, which has value until communion is. This is God’s way of making unlimited what you have limited (T-8.VII.3:3-5).

On this view, happiness arises as a gift we give continuously to others and thus experience for ourself. Given the other, what else shall we do but serve them? What else but Love could possibly suffice?

~ Sean