Yen, you speak of resisting the world’s demand to see things as mere means, a truth I know well from commanding legions where men became tools for war yet remained souls worthy of respect. When my own mind threatened to become an excrescency of the world by grieving over loss or fear, I returned to this duty: “to follow and obey him, who is the reason as it were, and the law of this great city.” Did you ever find that single moment where your heart’s resistance became your own law in the face of such demands?

Christ teaches us to bear one anothers burdens—which says so loudly that we need one another. I help you, you help me; I cry with you, you cry with me; I laugh with you, you life with me. You are right people and things are not to be used to get us to the end—but to come alongside us and encourage us along the journey.