Innisfree

While walking through Harajuku in Shibuya, I took a selfie of myself in front of a store named Innisfree. I love the poems of W. B. Yeats, the mention of whose name immediately evokes the short piece, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” whose words I know by heart. (As a student in Ireland, I went with a group on a tour around Lough Gill in County Sligo as part of a visit to the poet’s tomb in Drumcliff). Later I learned, to my amusement, that Innisfree is a line of beauty products based in Korea.

In his poem, Yeats yearns for the country life, especially on the tiny island of Innisfree, and there to live close to nature in the manner of Henry David Thoreau. The city has weighed him down and he feels the need to pause, to withdraw, even if only to hear in his soul the echoes of the waves lapping on the shores of Lough Gill —
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

We all need places of retreat, occasions of solitude, to cut ourselves some slack as we pursue our daily lives. Now and then, the wife and I repair to a little house in the country for a change of environment and activity—to read, write, listen to music. After a day or two, when we return, we feel recharged and ready to resume our usual duties.

Jesus himself saw that need in his disciples. He had sent them out in furtherance of God’s kingdom to preach repentance, drive out demons and heal the sick, and when they came back, although elated over what they had done, they clearly could do with some diversion. And so, the Gospel of Mark tells us, Jesus told them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”

Jesus and the disciples went off on a boat but the crowd knew about it and traveled on foot to where they were going and arrived there before them. The sight of them—like sheep without a shepherd—filled Jesus with pity, and so, instead of spending the time with his disciples, Mark writes, “he began to teach them many things.”

Very often the rest that we crave comes at a price, and, unless we are willing to pay that price, the peace that comes to us is brief and shallow. Our son, a doctor, often gets a call from ER while enjoying a day with his family, and must go without delay to attend to the emergency. He could decide to turn off his cellphone and be unreachable and enjoy the beach with his wife and children, but the guilt at having ignored an ailing person’s urgent need for treatment would weigh on his mind.

There are levels of relaxation, The lowest, of body and mind, is meant purely for oneself and lasts only until the next stressful event. The levels of rest correspond to the levels of compassion. The higher the kindness the longer and deeper the comfort, which may not be physical. This is what one means when one says I am tired but happy. That happiness, born of God, is a healing happiness, and equates one’s Innisfree with heaven.