FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CARE

It almost goes without saying that there aren’t many good shows on television these days. As Newton Minnow observed fifty years ago, network television was then and is even now more so a “vast wasteland”.  It is even worse especially given the fact that we have over 200 channels to choose from. Back then it was only a half dozen if that. And as much a wasteland as it might have been, there were still great programs every night. Not anymore.

But there are some. One of Arlena’s and my favorites is Elementary. It is the latest version of the Sherlock Holmes series. In this one Sherlock lives in New York City in 2013. Dr. Watson is a woman and so is, as we followers have just learned, Holmes’ arch nemesis Moriarity. It makes for interesting and fun viewing. But in this version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes there is even more to the character than I have seen in other portrayals over the years.

This Holmes is brilliant, as are all of them. He is also a piece of work, as they say, as are all of them. But this Holmes is different. He is fragile. He has been broken because he believed that the one and only love in his life was dead. While he might have been able to rationalize her death, he could not deal with it internally. It ate him up so much so that he became a complete addict and had to be discharged from his duties with Scotland Yard. He moved to America to escape from his past and, thanks to his father, went through rehab and counseling and found a consulting job with the New York City Police.

Even so, this utterly brilliant man remains fragile, broken and has to be handled with care, with kid gloves – and he knows it. Because of his fragility he is wary of getting close to anyone. He feels a sexual connection to Watson but it frightens him because he knows he might lose her just he lost his one love. He does not want that to happen again. He has to be handled with care and he knows he has to handle himself with care.

But don’t we all? We are all fragile creatures, are we not? No matter how brilliant we are, no matter how strong we think we are emotionally, no matter how rich or how powerful or how anything, in the end and throughout it all, we remain fragile human beings. We need to be handled with care – all of us, each and every one of us: there are no exceptions. None.

And isn’t that good news, wonderful news, saving-grace news? That means that it is okay to be afraid. It means that we are allowed and expected to cry when tears should be flowing, tears of joy or tears of sorrow. It means that it is no sign of weakness that others come to hold our hands when those hands need to be held because it is truly a sign of strength that we allow them to do so.

What it means is that we are human and we are just like Jesus. Jesus wept. Jesus feared for his life. Jesus allowed others to minister to him. Jesus was just as fragile as you and I are. He needed to be handled with care just as he handled with care all those fragile people he encountered every day of his life. That’s why we need one another.