“When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?”
Loneliness is a common human experience. Meaning that all of us, whether single or married, whether for a short period of time or for an extended season, deal with loneliness. Why so? Well I believe that loneliness is, at its root, a spiritual issue. But often we define loneliness in physical or emotional terms. We think loneliness can be defined by the absence of people whether physically or emotionally. So we think to ourselves, ‘What we need to do to fix our problem of loneliness is to have more people in our lives.’ And when that doesn’t work we think, ‘Well, we need more considerate people in our lives.’ And so I talked about how we define loneliness as emotional or physical. But that doesn’t complete the picture because loneliness is also the presence of pain. Loneliness is not just the absence of people; it’s the presence of pain, the pain of separation from God and others. It began in the Garden of Eden when Adam decided to choose the pleasures of sin, and in doing so, inherited the pain of loneliness.
People who fear being alone, are people who are afraid to look in the mirror. The monster you see reflecting back at you is your own image. Living in denial causes loneliness. You will have a lot of company in the light of day, but when darkness falls and you have to be with yourself, you will be afraid. Learn how to face the truth. Learn how to accept the consequences of your actions. Making peace within is the only way to set your spirit free.
Right now, there are people all over the world who are just like you. They’re lonely. They’re missing somebody. They’re in love with someone they probably shouldn’t be in love with. They have secrets you wouldn’t believe. They wish, dream, hope and look out the window whenever they’re in the car or on a bus, or a train and they watch the people on the streets and wonder what they’ve been through. They wonder if there are people out there like them. They’re like you and you could tell them everything and they would understand. You’re never alone.
What torments my soul is the loneliness we feel deeply in our daily life. The more it expands among friends and the daily habits or pleasures, the more, it seems to me, it flees me and retires into its fortress. The poet who lives in solitude, but who produces much, is the one who enjoys those treasures we bear in our bosom, but which forsake us when we give ourselves to others. “When one yields oneself completely to one’s soul, it opens itself to one, and then it is that the capricious thing allows one the greatest of good fortunes, that of sympathizing with others, of studying itself, of painting itself constantly in its works.”
This poem is nicely stated, “We have forgotten love, and sat lonely beside each other. We have eaten together, lonely behind our plates, we have hidden behind children, we have slept together in a lonely bed. Now my heart turns toward you, awake at last, penitent, lost in the last loneliness. Speak to me. Talk to me, break the black silence.”
We must begin by admitting that the first place in which to go looking for the world is not outside us but in ourselves. We are the world. In the deepest ground of our being, we remain in metaphysical contact with the whole of that creation in which we are only small parts. Through our senses and our minds, our loves, needs, and desires, we are involved in this world of matter and of men, of things and of persons, which not only affect us and change our lives but are also affected and changed by us. The question, then, is not to speculate about how we are to contact the world but how to validate our relationship, give it a fully honest and human significance, and make it truly productive and worthwhile for our world. Hence, we can evade loneliness through metaphysical contacts namely communing with our Lord in our solitude.
“We have a heart problem. We can invite more people into our lives, and we can invite more quality people into our lives, but the problem is that doesn’t take care of the root pain of separation that’s happening there. We have a spiritual heart problem and we don’t need medication, we need a new heart, and that takes a doctor. And so, we have a strong desire to be in intimate fellowship with God and others, but the problem is that we have, at our root, a sin problem that clouds our hearts.”
If you’re living completely on your own, you have to find understanding somewhere, somehow. No matter how scary it is to learn and use social skills, absolute loneliness is scarier. A good method to break out of solitary confinement is to seek to understand others, and help them understand you. But the best method is to polish our spirit from the rust of sin and start communing with God in our solitude.
Through loneliness I have learned the beauty and necessity of solitude, and I have learned to be able to do many things on my own that many people would love to be able to do. I am not bothered at all by sitting alone at a table in a crowded restaurant, and I am not afraid to leave a negative situation just because I might be alone. I never allowed myself to be dragged into a negative relationship just because I was afraid of being alone. I never dread being alone, and I often look forward to it, for I know just how healing it can be.
“At the root of our fellowship issue is not merely the absence of people in your life, or the absence of God in your life, it is the presence of sin in your hearts that separates you from God and other people. You have a heart problem, and that problem is painful… Because Adam chose the pleasures of sin, humanity has inherited the pain of loneliness and the pain of separation from God and others. At its root, loneliness began in the Garden of Eden, and we are all children of Eden.”
If you observe, you will see that people are becoming more and more distracted, increasingly sophisticated and worldly. The multiplication of pleasures, the innumerable books that are being published and the newspaper pages filled with sporting events, surely, all these indicate that we always want to be amused. Because we are inwardly empty and dull, we use our relationships and our social reforms as a means of escaping from ourselves.
I wonder if you have noticed how lonely most people are. And to escape from loneliness, we run to temples, churches, or mosques, we dress up and attend social functions. We watch television; listen to the radio, read, and so on.
If you inquire a little into boredom, you will find that the cause of it is loneliness. It is in order to escape from loneliness that we want to be together, we want to be entertained, to have distractions of every kind such as gurus, religious ceremonies, prayers, or the latest novel. Being inwardly lonely we become mere spectators in life; and we can be the players only when we understand loneliness and go beyond it.
“It is not physical solitude that actually separates one from other people, not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation. It is not the desert island or the stony wilderness that cuts you from the people you love. It is the wilderness in the mind, the desert wastes in the heart through which one wanders lost and a stranger. When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others, too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.”
If you are depressed and you take medication, and you realize that you have a chemical imbalance, and it’s biological, and it causes you loneliness. I’m not saying that, by mere repentance, that fixes the issue, but I am saying we can’t divorce our physical needs from spiritual realities. Every time we realize we have a fallen body, we must also acknowledge that the reason why we have a fallen body with a chemical imbalance is because we inherited the pain of the fall.
I believe that loneliness, at its root, is a spiritual issue. We don’t need to merely hang out with more friends. We don’t need to merely learn how to speak love languages. We need help. We need a savior. We need an advocate. And our heart cry should not merely be, ‘I do bad things because I’m lonely, so someone come keep me company, make me feel better.’ Our deep heart cry should be, ‘I’m lonely because I’m a sinner in a dark and fallen world. God help me.’
Anne Wilson Schaef asserts, “Loneliness is one of the most feared states in modern life. Perhaps this fear has come about because so many of us have a vague awareness of a surging river of loneliness deep inside. Much of our activity and busyness is designed to keep that river within its banks. Maybe loneliness has received a bad rap in today’s world. Maybe loneliness is one of the ways our inner being communicates with us, letting us know that we need to take the time to get back in touch with ourselves. Could it be that the emptiness we feel in our solar plexus is a friendly reminder that something has gone missing – we ourselves! When we are lonely, it’s usually a signal that we need to spend some time with ourselves. The next time you get this signal, try taking some time alone.”
If you’re lonely, have you ever thought about coming to God and offering it to him as a gift in worship? In saying, ‘I’ve tried everything to fix it, and I can’t. I’ve tried filling it with the world. I’ve tried filling it with people. I’ve tried seeking you. I don’t know what to do with it. So I’m just going to offer it up to you. Can you take this ugly thing and make it something beautiful?’
The secret to overcoming a feeling of loneliness is not going outside to meet people. That will only keep you from being alone. The secret is going inside yourself, to realize your true kinship with God and with all the human beings that he created.
Alvin Toffler says, “Any decent society must generate a feeling of community. Community offsets loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of belonging. Yet today the institutions on which community depends are crumbling in all the techno-societies. The result is a spreading plague of loneliness.”