I was a
single seminary student. It was late. I was wondering if the world could feel
any emptier. So I made that hesitant call to a girl in another dorm who had had
my eye for a long time. There had been no progress in our dating. “We’re just
friends. Remember that,” I was told. The phone rang and rang and rang. As I
hung up, I thought of a silly, little rhyme, “I call and I call and I call. I
wonder if anyone will ever answer at all.” Hard stuff for a 25-year-old who had
no interest in leading a bachelor’s life.
There is a
big difference between being alone and being lonely. We need to be alone at
times. Those are the dangerous times in which we may have to confront ourselves
and decide if we like what we find. Those are the times when we can decide if
we are moving in our direction or a direction chosen by someone else.
For some
those times of being alone are the only times God can get through and be heard.
Like the old proverbial saying, we only look to heaven when we are on our back,
God may be able to get our attention only when he shuts out the rest of the
noisy world. At that point he can speak and not be confused with the current
top-rated social philosopher. Elijah is a classic example. (I Kings 19)
Sometimes we
want to be alone. No one ever wants to be lonely. Yet too often we find that
feeling creeping in and filling our souls. Maybe we are alone and the solitary
condition evolves into loneliness. Sometimes we are in the midst of a crowd and
the lack of commonality leaves us wondering if anyone even realizes we exist.
Starbucks is
famous for its philosophy, “We create community.” You may come into one of
their shops and wish to be alone, but they never want you to come in and be
smacked with loneliness. For them a cup of coffee is an open door to relational
connection.
Alone is
measured by numbers. Lonely is measured by love and acceptance. Alone is
geographical. Lonely is relational. Alone is often by desire. Lonely never is.
There is often a human need to be alone. There is a human fear of being lonely
and all that implies.
After
spending two weeks with her mother, my wife is back in our home. I was alone
for those two weeks. I was never really lonely, for knowing there was someone
who loved me even while out of sight created a togetherness that distance could
not affect. The relationship existed. The love was present. The connection was
enhanced by phone, but the connection did not depend upon it.
The same
dynamics can be said of life in the local church. We are proud to say we are
members of a friendly congregation. Then we cannot understand why guests come
once and never return. Perhaps our guests found a seat in our pews but not a
relationship with the person next to them. Our guests were not alone, but we
made them feel lonely. People don’t want a friendly church. They want a friend.
The Old
Testament idea of God’s closeness shines through Psalm 23. In the New Testament
Jesus emphasized his disciples would never need to feel loneliness. In the
conversation he had on his last night before he died, Jesus promised his
followers he would never leave them abandoned, orphaned in the Greek. (John 14:18) In the
last verse of the Gospel of Matthew, he assured his listeners he would be with
them until the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)
We were made
to live in relationship. We may choose to be alone, but we are drawn to
relationships that fill the need to be connected to others on some level. We
may use terms such as family, acquaintance, friend, or lover, but the final
product is a relationship we try to use as an antidote for the destructive
disease we call loneliness.
