Loneliness has been an issue all my life. I hate it. I do anything I can to avoid it. As soon as I get home from work and step into my duplex my mind shuts down and does anything it can to distract myself from my loneliness. As I’ve been praying and thinking about my loneliness, God has revealed some major paradigm shifting thoughts and I would like to share them with whoever will listen, because I think that many of us live with squashed down potential because many of us do not know how to “own” our loneliness and in turn our loneliness ends up owning us.

First of all, here is a quote by Henri Nouwen from his book The Wounded Healer (which I highly recommend!):

“We live in a society which loneliness has become one of the most painful human wounds. The growing competition and rivalry which pervade our lives from birth have created in us an acute awareness of our isolation. This awareness has in turn left many with a heightened anxiety and an intense search for the experience of unity and community. It has also led people to ask anew how love, friendship, brotherhood and sisterhood can free them from isolation and offer them a sense of intimacy and belonging. All around us we see the many ways by which the people of the western world are trying to escape this loneliness. Psychotherapy, the many institutes which offer group experiences with verbal and nonverbal communication techniques, summer courses and conferences supported by scholars, trainers and “huggers” where people can share common problems, and the many experiments which seek to create intimate liturgies where peace is not only announced but also felt-these increasingly popular phenomena are all signs of a painful attempt to break through the immobilizing wall of loneliness.

But the more I think about loneliness, the more I think that the wound of loneliness is like the Grand Canyon-a deep incision in the surface of our existence which has become an inexhaustible source of beauty and self-understanding. 

Therefore I would like to voice loudly and clearly what might seem unpopular and maybe even disturbing: The Christian way of life does not take away our loneliness; it protects and cherishes it as a precious gift. Sometimes it seems as if we do everything possible to avoid the painful confrontation with our basic human loneliness, and allow ourselves to be trapped by false gods promising immediate satisfaction and quick relief. But perhaps the painful awareness of our loneliness is an invitation to transcend our limitations and look beyond the boundaries of our existence. The awareness of loneliness might be a gift we must protect and guard, because our loneliness reveals to us an inner emptiness that can be destructive when misunderstood, but filled with promise for him who can tolerate its sweet pain.”

Wow, where to start? I think that somewhere the church as been lied to, and many of us have bought that lie hook, line and sinker. That lie is that community will complete us. Most of us know that none of us are islands, that we need other people. I have believed for several years that if I just could surround myself with consistent continual community that my loneliness and incompleteness would go away. And so I have set out to create a community that drives away loneliness. I tried to create a community that would drive away my loneliness. I’ve ended up frustrated every time. Why? Because I think that God knows me so well that if I never faced loneliness again, I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to seek Him. Think about it, loneliness is the one thing that every human being faces everyday regardless of wealth, social class, gender, race, religion, etc. What if God wants to use loneliness to draw us to Himself? What if loneliness isn’t a disease that we are supposed to do away with? I think this is the case, and it has some pretty important implications.

How many times have I or other people in church used the famous passage from Acts 2 to plead others to live in community more? We look at that passage and we have all these delusions of grandeur about the early church. “Wow, they were almost perfect! If we could do church like them, we would have it made!”. I don’t think its that the early church understood and embraced their need for each other, they understood and embraced their need for God, which in turn led them to spend time with one another. It seems to me that when it comes to community we try and design it so that we won’t be lonely. I think this is an adventure in missing the point. (One that I have been neck deep in) What if instead of trying to do away with loneliness, what if community was a place where we encouraged one another to face the pain of our loneliness and find God in that place? To be honest, most of my desire for community was so that people could fill the void inside of me. I realize now that only God could and should fill that void, and to seek that out in someone or something else is, well its idolatry.

It is because we view loneliness as a disease that must be avoided at all costs that true community is extremely hindered. Loneliness is my body crying out to me that it is not complete, that there is emptiness deep inside of me. When I run away from my loneliness by running away from God I am just increasing its hunger. Our task is not to run away from loneliness but to embrace it and find God in that painful and seemingly dark place. If we don’t do that, if we don’t find our completeness in God in those lonely spaces we will strangle the communities in which we find ourselves in. If I have not “owned” my own loneliness and put myself in the care of God and God alone I will seek to have others meet the needs only God can meet in my life. I ask people how they are doing, secretly hoping they will ask me the same. I care about how people are doing, but I really want to talk about myself. I will subtly and at times not-so-subtly try and have people fill the void in my life. Instead, I need to own my loneliness so that truly I can decrease, and God can increase.  It is in this instance that others are free to be themselves and to come and go as they need/want to because we are no longer asking them to be someone they are not.

So this has become a huge blog and I hope it will begin to open people’s eyes as it has mine. I’ll finish with one last Nouwen quote:

    “A Christian community is therefore a healing community not because wounds are cured and pains are alleviated, but because wounds and pain become openings or occasions for a new vision. Mutual confession then becomes a mutual deepening of hope, and sharing weakness becomes a reminder to one and all of the coming strength.

When loneliness is among the chief wounds of the minister, hospitality* can convert that wound into a source of healing. Concentration* prevents the minister from burdening others with his pain and allows him to accept his wounds as helpful teachers of his own and his neighbor’s condition. Community arises where the sharing of pain takes place, not as a stifling form of self-complaint, but as a recognition of God’s saving promises.”

*Nouwen uses the words “concentration” and “hospitality” to describe how we can use our loneliness wounds to heal others. Hospitality is obviously the opening of our homes to one another. He mentions that we must be home in our own hearts and not constantly running away from our loneliness in order to open our homes to others. Once we have done that we will be able to “concentrate” on others without using them to try and alleviate our own pain. This will allow us to minister to them without seeking to have them first minister to us.