LONELINESS…THE WEEPING PLACE (2)

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There are over 600 stories and commentaries on this blog that began Nov 24, 2009. It is added to daily. *************************************

He had made a wrong call and was apologizing before hanging up. Then he heard a plaintive voice on the other end of the phone say, “I’m 90 years old and all my friends have died and my family is sometimes too busy too call. Please don’t hang up. Just talk to me for sixty seconds.”

There is no end to the causes of loneliness.

No end to the opportunities we have to ease that loneliness for someone by taking a few moments to make a telephone call or drop a note or…

There is the particular kind of loneliness that severe illness can bring. It is a rude shock, this cutting off of health and our place in the stream of things.

Twenty years ago I crashed a hang glider and destroyed my left arm. For many weeks my activities were severely limited.

For four months I would make plans, only to be reminded I could not yet carry them through.

My arm miraculously healed, but my memories of what it was like to be particularly cut off from the patterns of a lifetime will never leave.

Make a pact with God.

It is one solution to loneliness. Some call it conversion. It is, by any name, an acceptance of God’s love and a giving of the same.

Practice just plain common decency, one to the other. It is a vibrant antidote for loneliness.

A complaint I’ve heard in hundreds of counseling sessions is a wife or husband lamenting, “I start to tell my story and am interrupted before I’m even half way through.”

And troubled children voice the same discontent. “I start to tell Mom and Dad about what’s happening at school, and they’ so busy telling me to sit up straight or get my elbows off the table they never hear.”

It’s very lonely to feel that not one single person really cares what has happened to our day.

We all need each other, but we need each other at our best.

We need to be neighbors in truth and brothers and sisters in honesty.

I need to know I have some place in your prayers and that together we pray for God’s ruling hand.

The Sermon on the Mount places great emphasis on our obligations to each other. “Therefore,” it says, “if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift at the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matt. 5:23, 24 RSV).

Every enemy you have, whatever the cause, is a dark stain of loneliness across the fiber of your soul.

There are many attempted solutions for loneliness, but all solutions are not good.

Alcohol is tried by many. It momentarily draws a blurring haze over a burden of the soul, and for that brief time the ragged edges don’t cut so deeply.

And for others gambling is an escape. The intensity of the moment can make forgetting easy, briefly.

Loud parties, fame, riches- these are all dangerous solutions that fill up times so there’s nothing left to think and feel.

But the bottom line comes beating through.

When the drunk is over, the gambling through, the partying ended and we stand alone in the darkness, if there is no satisfaction in what is seen or felt, very deep loneliness settles in.

Sometimes it is not how many friends we have, nor how many names we can drop, nor the length of our Christmas card list, but rather our relationship with the great family of humanity and our relationship with God.

Meaninglessness is a mouthful of a word, but it is much more than this. It is a proper tag for an empty soul.

To the rich man Christ said, “Sell all you have.”

To Nicodemus He said, “Be born again.”

To the disciples He said, “Follow Me.”

To each of these He was offering meaning in life.

As the end neared, Jesus had one worry that strangled His heart; the fear that when He was gone His disciple would be overwhelmed by a terrible loneliness. Therefore, in the Upper Room He said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12, RSV).

How can the wound called loneliness be healed?

Often the answer is so very simple. Ah yes, the opening story of yesterday's blog again.

No more than a little boy walking up to a lonely crotchety old woman and saying, “Can I be your friend?” And from then on she never was the same.

(Psalms 46:1) 1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

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Quote from tomorrow's blog entitled NEVER FORGET They were three figures silhouetted against a sky where clouds increasingly blotted out the light. He had followed the crowd since the Antonia gate and now was trying to decide whether he wanted to continue or go back home. “Is it too heavy for you, King?”

The little boy cringed at the contempt he heard from the angry man in the gathering horde.

Often had he skipped playfully along this Via Dolorosa. It would never be the same for him again.

A Roman soldier beat back the crowd to make way for another soldier with a whip. The one they called Jesus had fallen. The child wanted to help this one with the kindly eyes, but he was afraid. After all he was just a little boy. So...

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