January 13, 2011 at 8:24 am, by Carl

John Donne


Meditation XVII


Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.


This is where we get the phrase “no man is an island” in which Donne is making the point that we are one large community.  Are you living your life in a way that reflects that you are part of “the continent?”  Don’t let technology separate you in a way from the others.  Look for ways at work, in your neighborhood, in life around you, to engage and stay involved.


If you can, read the entire meditation.  You may note an allusion that Dickens also used in his great Christmas work, A Christmas Carol. As the ghost of Marley confronts Scrooge, he gets angry when his old partner offers praise for his former life, that he was good at business.  Marley screams back that “mankind was my business.”  Donne, writing some 200 years before Dickens, says the same thing.  We are connected, and as such, should be concerned with the life of the other.


Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another’s danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.