Loneliness

Hi Everyone,

I fully expect that I will lose half my audience of readers by just using the word Loneliness! Okay, maybe that is a slight exaggeration but, I believe the topic of loneliness is not a popular one. Why would that be? After all, isn’t it one of the panoply of experiences that is felt by every single person on the planet? I relate to Jesus when he asked his friends to stay awake with him while he was praying and struggling with his dark night of the soul in the Garden of Gethsamane. 

All he was asking for was companionship and comfort as he dealt with some agonizing emotions and upcoming pain and suffering. Isn’t that what we all want?  How poignant this passage is. How sad to think that the people closest to Jesus failed him and that those closest to us have too. We truly have a Savior that has suffered as we have. We are not alone.

This blog post began to formulate in my mind over the past several weeks inspired by events and people that I know such as Zane.* Zane is my personal fitness trainer from New York. Even though I have recently moved away from Westchester County, New York, I am glad that I can still continue my workouts with him via Zoom. 

Zane took a plane from New York on Christmas Eve to visit his mother in Florida for the holidays. Despite being “fully vaccinated”, and testing Covid negative before he left, he quickly fell ill upon arrival in Florida. Zane is a Christian. He always operates his business and his personal life in a godly way as far as I have seen. 

Even when he arrived at Jacksonville airport in Florida, he chose to remain masked and sit in the back seat of his mother’s car as a precaution in case he might have picked up a virus during airplane travel. It turns out he was right. He got sick, suspected Omicron and quickly got tested. His test was positive and so he quarantined in a bedroom at his mother’s new apartment.

Zane’s mother had just moved from a large home in North Florida to a smaller two bedroom apartment this past fall. This meant that Zane was housed in a small guest room where he stayed to protect his mother from getting sick. When he cancelled my workout due to feeling ill, I began to wonder if he experienced loneliness isolated as he was in a small bedroom amid the fun of Christmas festivities. He came to spend time with his mother and yet that intimacy was certainly blocked. 

Then, I multiplied the feelings that Zane must be experiencing by a large number in order to contemplate the huge cost of quarantine on the world’s population. There are the elderly people who died alone locked in hospitals and nursing homes.  The pregnant women who missed out on having family and friends present as they prepared and then gave birth to their children. 

Anya* is my friend in Russia. Just as she prepared to celebrate New Year’s and the Christmas holiday she reached out to me with a poignant message of loneliness. Anya is beautiful, smart, artistic and 21 yrs old in the midst of a festive interlude, yet feeling alone. 

Both Zane and Anya helped get me thinking about the meaning of loneliness from a Christian point of view. Christianity encourages us to visit the sick and lonely. Even during these times of contagion, we are to minister to people and take care of them. Throughout history Christian’s have been in the forefront of such care even at great personal risk to themselves. So, don’t let anyone tell you that it is natural to watch your dad die over FaceTime. We should all be holding our loved ones hands, hugging them, praying and talking about Jesus. 

Our faith also encourages us to join together with other believers to form a community, yet the deep meaning of what Christ tried to teach us is often elusive. Again, we can go back to the example of Jesus’ own disciples failing to be able to stay awake and pray with him as he faced the most difficult challenge of his earthly life, going to the cross. 

It only goes to show you how weak we really are and how selfish we can be when someone that we love is going through spiritual turmoil, in physical pain or even facing death. Many people regret their actions later and wish they could have been more supportive. But often we are ignorant about how much some one really needs us or how drastic the situation actually is until later.

I have felt as if I have let people down over the years. It would have devastated me if not for the fact that I know that Jesus forgives me and has covered my shortcoming with his mercy. How precious is that. When that forgiveness comes in, I feel as if I can ask the Lord to help me be stronger and more sensitive the next time so, that I can be more of a help. I have learned how important it is for us to connect and address the issue of loneliness in our life and in the lives of those around us. 

The surprising thing about loneliness is that it effects everyone. Handsome, ugly, very young or very old, black, white, Asian, or Latino we all have to cope with feelings of loneliness sometimes. The Bible continually points us all in the direction of connection with God and one another. Seeking solutions for loneliness has to be a priority in our lives in order for us to improve the situation for ourselves and others. We can not be too busy for this. We can not make excuses for ourselves such as, between my job and kids I just don’t have the time or energy. My answer is you must arrange to visit your parents or grandparents. The Bible does not pull punches when it declares that those who do not take care of the needs of their family are heathen. That ought to shock us into prioritizing, shouldn’t it?

Biblically speaking, we should make sure that if we are missing someone that should be in our life that we work anew to remedy any estrangement that exists. New Year’s is a great time to do that. If your relationship with a spouse or co-worker is less than it can be, this can make us feel lonely and the other person too. What about a stupid disagreement with your parents? How long can we let that go on before we can technically be classed as not honoring our parents as God has directed? A break-up between a parent and child is so unnatural. We may think our lives are full when we are living in estrangement but often we are only in denial of how this has really effected us. 

You can be lonely in a marriage, in a room full of people, at work or in a classroom if there is no intimacy. Intimacy can not happen if we have not apologized for being unkind and have not attempted to make it right with our spouse. If competition is so intense at work or in school that we are always in an adversarial mode we can feel alone in that setting.Team work anyone? Don’t be part of a clique that excludes others. 

You don’t have to be best friends with everyone in school or at work, but we can be mannerly and include them in a conversation from time to time so that they don’t feel left out. If we are talking about our faith with other Christians include people who might be close by in that discussion. They may decide to walk away but, the Bible tells us to, live in peace as mush as it depends on you. In other words, if you try to treat someone with respect and they do not wish to reciprocate than you know that you have done your godly duty and you have certainly planted a godly seed that day. 

There are now whole countries who are moving to isolate the unvaccinated as if they are modern-day lepers. In Jesus’ earthly ministry he made a point to always include and heal those who were ostracized by society. We can not be part of the branding of the unvaccinated as lepers. It is not what Jesus would do. There are currently taxes and fines that governments are poised to place on people who choose not to get vaccinated. This financial burden is ungodly. It is theft which the Bible tells us that we should not do.

Many unvaccinated people can no longer live a normal life. They can not go to restaurants, concerts or birthday parties. There is a terrible loneliness that is being inflicted upon people who choose not to get vaccinated. What is really behind this? It is not only not scientific but, it sounds like the Nazi-like approach as they marched the Jewish people toward genocide. The Jews were treated like lepers as the process of de-monetization occurred. Tell your legislator that you do not want the unvaccinated to be fined or taxed. Have a vision for where this is all leading.

If we do not know the God who created us and that we have a meaning and purpose, then we are merely existentially adrift in a lonely universe. Not to mention that if you don’t know that you have a caring Savior, who has died on the cross of Calvary to pay the cost of your sins, there is an empty void. Through the Holy Spirit and the intimacy of prayer we can feel that comfort here on earth too. Go for it folks, let’s begin to make this world a less lonely place to be in! 

* the names are changed to protect privacy. FYI: Zane like many people both vaccinated and unvaccinated report that Omnicron is a 24 hour virus. He felt better pretty quickly. Also, Anya, is feeling better and attributes her feelings of loneliness as a part of the natural ebb and flow of the holiday. I agree. 

New Year-Can You Relate?

The concept of a New Year is a somewhat artificial construct. Different places in the world even have different dates for celebrating a new year. It is somewhat artificial in that a culture had to pick what they considered a significant marker and assign it to be the moment when the old year ended and the New Year would begin. The changing of the sun’s position in the sky or the moon’s cycle had deep significance to the running of a society, so often these were the significant events.

Knowing that the harvest was about to happen was massively important too. It was a marker of the end of a growing cycle before a new cycle of planting would have to begin. The spring rebirth or new growing season had similar importance. So, it too was a date to be concerned about. Then, we could go on to examine how cultures exploring the concept of a calendar aligned with more precise astronomical measurements effecting the assigning of what was to be known as the New Year’s celebration.

This would bring us to the question, what does all of that have to do with being a Christian? What significance, if any, does the calendar and its’ events, portend for a believer in Jesus Christ? Do we enjoy the various traditions that mark the New Year’s festivities of our culture or should we eschew them? 

What are some of the ways that cultures celebrate the New Year? Certain foods are eaten. Some of those even are supposed to portent good luck, or marriage possibilities. There are bonfires, fireworks, drinking, political speeches and parades. How did these traditions form, and what significance do they have for us today? Many of them began in false religious beliefs.

Am I just being a kill-joy or are there some things that we might do well to reflect upon? Obviously, I think it is the latter, that we might do well to reflect upon a few of these questions. To begin with, from a Christian point of view, every day of the year is a good day to think about the past and make a decision about the future. Any day is a good day to think about turning over a new leaf by turning your life over to Jesus Christ.

The men and women of old always lived on the verge of a disaster. Should they plant their crops at a wrong time, if disease or drought broke out, they would face hard times ahead. So, when one cycle of life ended there was a genuine moment of fear and possibility all at once. What things might they do to improve themselves or what life might hold for them took on a very serious meaning. Many ancient New Year’s practices contained an element of placating the gods that they worshipped and begging that god or gods to make them prosperous in the upcoming year. Sometimes sacrifices were offered on those bonfires. 

Mankind has always guessed that there was something higher than they were and that they needed to talk to that entity. Until God met man in the desert some several thousand years ago and gave his message called the Bible, we could only dream of who and what this superior being was. Now, we no longer have to wonder. The creator of the universe is God Almighty, not Zeus, or Apsu and Tiamat. It is not the Roman god Janus who they thought was the god of beginnings, (hence the concepts of new beginnings at New Year’s).

There is only one God who created this whole universe and all of us. He is the God of the Bible who made his agreement (or covenant) with man a long time ago and it still stands, come what may. The Bible story contains all the elements of what we consider to be the New Year’s resolution. It describes many circumstances of growth and change, and being more Christ-like as a goal. We are to seek God’s grace and help on the course of our life and follow his holy book in all our ways. We must lean into the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

This time, this very moment as we have ended 2021 and are beginning 2022 is perhaps a time when we can relate to the ancient people’s of this world more than ever. As one cycle ends, we wonder what is ahead. More death and destruction from the many viruses plaguing our planet? More disruption of what used to be our normal way of life? What of the political and lifestyle changes knocking at our collective doors? How will we make a stand if called upon to stand up to government tyranny? Fake chicken or beef for dinner anyone? Inflation, election fraud, and a world divided. No, there is no doubt we can relate to what those first New Year’s celebration were all about. There seems to be a lot more to think about than losing a few pounds or giving up smoking. God bless you all as you contemplate this New Year.