Immortality.

Individuals. Humanity. Long-life.

What is honor? I don’t think I know. I’m not even sure that the word is in common circulation. The only time I recall hearing the word in the last few months was when I was watching a BBC series on Mansfield Park. However a similar word — honest or honestly — is generously used. “Honest to God, I did!” “Honestly, I didn’t mean it!” Phrases such as these often grace the lips of students who sense they might be in trouble: warranted or not. Swearing that one is honest in these instances often makes me wary to trust the individual. A straight forward yes or no, especially when I have not asked any follow-up questions, builds more confidence in another’s account. Honesty should be a character worn, not an attribute called upon in questionable circumstances. In the Regency Era of Jane Austen’s time, they threw around a similar phrase: “upon my honor!” But there is a difference in the wording. Honor belongs to the individual, presumably a permanent aspect of who the individual is. “Honestly” is used as an adverb to describe this one particular action. The honor is in the phrase, not in the speaker.

So how can a thought be honorable? And can it make the thinker become a honest person?

We meet with another outdated character trait: gentleness. Gentlemen and gentlewomen are rarely discussed. Like chivalry, they are an artifice of the past. A modern person, like myself, cannot even imagine what gentlefolk look like. The modern definition of “gentle” sounds meek, mild, and, frankly, weak. Genteel might be a better word to help us understand who these folks are that Dickinson describes in this stanza. Refined, propitious, kind, mannered — these are the people who take strolls after dinner, arm in arm, talk softly with each other, and give a nod and smile to those they meet.

But these people in the poem meet an honorable thought, not a neighbor.

And here is the thought honorable: we are immortal.

How do we interact with this idea? Do we believe it? Do we know what kind of immortality we possess? Dickinson says that we will outlast the pyramids. The Great Pyramids of Giza were built to last beyond the Egyptian Empire, and I believe we could all agree that they did a capital job. But that “we” would last longer… Humanity as a whole, I could agree to that, but individuals? I look at my individual life and see the ways that I have already been forgotten. My former high school has graduated the last class that was in elementary school when I was there. My alma-mater sends formulaic emails for funding purposes, but many of the individuals that used to be part of my daily life have ceased to communicate with me. The school I worked at last year continues on without me. All of this is as it should be; time moves us all on to our next purpose. But it challenges any sort of idea of immortality in what I have accomplished. I do not believe much of what I have done will survive me.

Egyptian Empire, Han Dynasty, the Harappan Civilization, Greek and Roman Empires, Byzantium, Holy Roman Empire, British Empire… All of these kingdoms had their day, and now are gone. And the modern empires will soon meet their end as well, whether they crash suddenly or slowly decay. What differentiates individual humans from the conglomerate whole that they should last after their achievements and governments wither away?

Recently, I taught a lesson on the rise of the Renaissance. There are two symbols I associate with this time in human history: the question mark and the word “I”. The last symbol signifies the individualism that grew in the Renaissance. Marin Luther used it in his reformation: “Here I stand… I can do no other.” Michelangelo used it when he painted his self portrait into the Vatican-patroned “The Last Judgement.” And Galileo called upon it when he trusted his own observations of the heavens over the papal interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. These men are certainly immortal, and I doubt their contributions will be forgotten. Their belief and trust in their own abilities gave rise to a philosophy of humanism that raised humanity from the dust of the Medieval Age to the glories of the Scientific Revolution and Religious Reformation. No one argues that these men are great. But who am I in the shadow of such grandeur? Surely I will not be immortal.

I received the sweetest email this week from a former student. Usually, when a former student gets in touch it’s because they need a reference for university. This email was different. This student had thought of me and wanted to see how I was doing. I made enough of a positive impact on this young man that he wanted to see how I fared. I was touched. He remembered me. And his first question was if I happened to remember who he was. We both hoped that we were immortalized in each other’s memories as favorite teacher and good student. We all long for that: an old friend, an exceptional teacher, a remarkable student, a parent with failing health — we desire that we live on in the minds of others far beyond the grasp of death. That is an honorable thought that we all could gently nod to!

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