Loneliness

Well I have powered up my blogger again and I hope that this semester will be filled with some well thought out blogs. I have some inspiration for this semester at school. I am currently taking CHRTC 292: Spirituality. It has so far been an amazing class. But I have been reading one of the two required readings for this course. Its called "Reaching Out" by Henri Nouwen.


Reaching Out is a book about the three movements of the spiritual life. The first movement [the first 3 chapters] is from loneliness to solitude.


At first it reminds us about how we are in a society that makes us acutely aware of our loneliness. At this he makes a connection I hadn't thought of before; it's the connection to pornography.

"Pornography seems one of the logical results. It is intimacy for sale. In many "porno shops" hundreds of lonely young and old men, full of fear that anyone will recognize them, gaze silently at the pictures of nude girls drawing their minds into intimate close rooms where some stranger will melt away their loneliness." It now makes sense to me how the internet is such an outlet for these people. It is a place where no one can see them, yet through this visually emotional encounter they can numb their loneliness for a short time.


This loneliness not only ruins people via pornography, but it is seen as the "most universal source of human suffering today." It is seen as being the root of an increasing number of suicides, alcoholism, and drug use. It is the result of a competitive individualism.


I know myself I have been in this place of loneliness where even at a party, or at school, church, or even C&C events - at places where many people gather - I can be left feeling even more empty and sad than I was before I came. It seems these community gatherings that are supposed to bring us together can just leave us with a greater awareness of our loneliness.


I think this is all nicely summed up in what he finished this reflective section with:

"The many small rejections of everyday - a sarcastic smile, a flippant remark, a brisk denial or a bitter silence - may all be quite innocent and hardly worth our attention if they did not constantly arouse our basic human fear of being left totally alone with "darkness ... [as our] one companion left" (Psalm 88)"

But our society does not only amplifies our loneliness but our culture has become accustomed to avoiding the pain. We try not to admit that they are real. Its like an anesthetic. Even now I am not wanting to be in silence so I have music in the background. Silence is an eerie feeling. It brings us away from looking to the outside to looking to the inside.


Henri Nouwen also brings up how in our American society we are suspicious of closedness. We don't like when we don't know things. We are told to be totally honest, tell others everything, we - as a society - tend to wear our hearts on our sleeves. He mentions something that is very true: "Just as words loose their power when they are not born out of silence, so openness loses its meaning when there is no ability to be closed". WOW! Isn't so true. Sometimes the closedness of a person is what can draw you towards them, and then there is a constant yearning for knowledge; even in the most intimate of relationships.


The following was quoted as being from a wedding ceremony:

Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone.
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.

Stand together yet not too near together
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
and the oak tree and the cypress
grow not in each other's shadow.

I think that we can miss this. But God obviously didn't. He brought us all into this world with different qualities. We each individually can do different things, but as we come together in harmony and healthy relationship we can make such a wonderful music on the strings of life.


I will leave you all today with one last quote from Henri that sums up where this movement from loneliness to solitude will take us in our spiritual journey:

"When loneliness is haunting me with its possibility of being a threshold instead of a dead end, a new creation instead of a grave, a meeting place instead of an abyss, then time loses its desperate clutch on me. Then I no longer have to live in a frenzy of activity, overwhelmed and afraid from the missed opportunity."