#Quarantine Go into your cell and your cell will teach you everything,” said St Anthony, the desert monk. I thought of the 16 days I spent fasting in solitary confinement in a jail in CO in 5/78—arrested for blocking railroad tracks into the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.
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My solitary cell was just wide and long enough to lie down on a mat on the floor. No lights, window, or toilet. Outside the bars was a sink I could just reach with a cup. Beyond that a steel door that was periodically closed, sealing me in total darkness and silence.
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What did my cell teach me? Though consigned to “inactivity” I felt very active: raising a warning about the evils of preparation for nuclear war, much more loudly than I could with words on the outside. I felt deeply protected by God—thankfully, no experience of hunger.
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I discovered a strength within that I hadn't known before. At the same time—a sense of deep vulnerability and of my own limits. I could not rely on my own strength. I read the Psalms over and over—words that I had known in prayer now came to life, describing my own reality.
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In solitude I felt deeply connected to people all over the world who were working for peace or just struggling to get by. I never felt alone. Deprived of natural light or color, my mind was filled with thoughts of the earth and the preciousness of all living things.
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One day I received a postcard from DOROTHY DAY: an aerial photo of Cape Card, on which she had written: “I hope this card refreshes you and does not tantalize you.” Considering this card, thinking of her lifetime of mercy, sacrifice, and witness for peace, I was deeply refreshed.
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On the 16th day I was taken out and chained to a line of prisoners being led to court. Weakened, I slipped to the ground. A burly guard shouted, “Ellsberg, you gonna stand or what?!” Another guard helped me up: “You’ve done a good job, Bob. God bless you.”
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In an article I wrote for the CW I concluded: “Then we’re marching silently, down the hall, past the bars, locks, the guns, into the warm clean air, blue sky, the trees, tears and laughter, the spinning seasons, even more precious than we left them.”
I think of all those in prison, in hospitals, in refugee camps, in depression, in quarantine--whether alone or with others, in cells not of our choosing. May our "cells" teach us lessons that will help us endure and return to a world more precious and beautiful than we left it.
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