Sunday Scribblings: Comfort

Back in 2007, I was a somewhat regular contributor to Sunday Scribblings.  I don't remember why I stopped contributing.  But I'd like to resume and make at least semi-regular contributions again.  This week, the topic is comfort.

Twenty years ago I surrendered and gave up work on my dissertation looking at the idea of goodness in Shakespeare.  I'm not sure why I didn't seem cut out for this kind of writing and production, but it doesn't really matter all these years later.

One of the observations I was trying to develop in my thesis had to do with words beginning with "com" and "con".  These prefixes in English derive from the Latin word cum and can either mean "together" or "together with" or the prefix can serve as an intensifier.  For example, the "com" in the word "compassion" means "together" and when combined with "passion", means to suffer together with, the meaning of "compassion" when see etymologically.

The "com" in the word "comfort" is an intensifier and it intensifies "fort", which, when seen etymologically, means "strong" or "to strengthen".  We recognize this in words like "fortify" or "fortress", but we don't normally think of comfort in this way.

But, in fact, we understand the word "comfort" more accurately if we think of it as meaning "to make stronger".  

I'm not sure this is true at the motel chain, Comfort Inn, but it's sure true when we think of the comfort we can offer each other -- not superficial comfort, the kind we speak of when we refer to someone's "comfort zone", but the kind of aid we extend to one another in illness or in times of distress or anxiety or when we strengthen one another with encouragement or a kind word. 

Right now, my sister is extending her visit with our mother because our mother woke up ill this morning.  She not only needs the comfort of pillows fluffed and of the heat turned up a bit and of beef broth and 7Up, but she needs my sister's presence, physical and spiritual, she needs conversation with my sister, my sister's concern, and my sister's compassion.

Our hope is that by staying a little longer with my mother, my sister will bring our mom comfort, help strengthen her, help her be relieved of what's ailing her and help her heal.

 As Advent progressed in the month of December, we often heard the words of Isaiah 40:1 or we heard them sung in Handel's Messiah:  "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," saith God.

Extend strength.  Fortify my people.  Help them endure.   Unless it gives one strength, the words of Isaiah do not refer to the thick folds of a satin quilt or a comforter, but to the ways we can, by our goodness to one another, help strengthen and fortify each other.  It is why we sing "O tidings of comfort and joy" during the Christmas season.  This fortifying of one another brings joy, and the promise of the Christ child is of us being strengthened by what Christ's life and ministry will involve.

In my dissertation, I tried to argue that we see evidence of Shakespeare's understanding of goodness, in part, in those scenes or those moments when characters comfort one another, strengthen one another.  It is the comfort Gloucester and, later, Cordelia extend to King Lear.  It is the comfort Benedick gives to Beatrice in the chapel scene after Hero has been humiliated.  If is the comfort Prospero discovers when abjures his magic and looks to his human strength as his source endurance.

It's a powerful word and, when acted out, a powerful way of bringing strength and hope and love to one another.  It's at the heart of goodness.  Comfort.