Loneliness

Loneliness is an odd thing. We all recognize it when it happens, and yet it's not that easy to get at what exactly it is, or how to prevent it. A person stuck at home because of illness or disability is likely to be lonely with very little human contact, but so is a mother or father of young children who spends the whole day with under-fives and can't even get enough privacy to go to the toilet alone!

Being Alone?

Clearly loneliness isn't the same thing as solitude. It's possible for some people to spend days or weeks alone (maybe camping in the Sierras?) and not feel lonely for a single moment. I'm one of those people. And yet some of my loneliest times have been in rooms where there are at least a hundred other people within earshot, all milling around and drinking coffee together.

So in loneliness, something else is going on besides lack of human contact—though that happens, too. The Bible tells us that in the beginning, God looked at the first human being He created and decided it wasn't good for that person to be all alone. But before God fixed that situation (by creating another person!) God drove that point home by having the first one look all through the animal creation, getting to know everything, until it was clear there was nothing and no one comparable out there. Poor Adam! No amount of aardvarks or amoebas was going to cut it for him. He must have really appreciated it by the time he met Eve!

I Want Social Input

What did Eve, the second human, bring to the situation? She brought human "input," if I can call it that, into Adam's life. And that's something we all need to avoid loneliness. Have you ever noticed how some people go home to an empty house and immediately turn on the TV, even though they have no intention of watching it, and they're not even in the same room? They want, they need the background noise, the sound of human voices. Others are continually on the Internet, getting their fix of humanity through Twitter or Facebook or texting. Human input seems to be a non-negotiable for pretty much everybody, even if the amount needed varies from person to person.

But Eve brought more than that when she came along. By being there, she insured that there was someone in Adam's life who had some concern for him—who noticed his existence and was interested in it—who was able to provide the "give" as well as the "take" of human interaction. I think this is where the parents of small children get their loneliness from. There's no shortage of human interaction when you've got a baby wailing every time you set him down, and constantly wanting to be fed or changed or soothed or put to sleep. And yet that baby is pretty much all about the "taking," with almost no giving. It's natural at that age. But it contributes to a unique kind of loneliness—the loneliness of the caregiver who nevertheless is not seen as a fellow human being with needs and wants of his or her own. No wonder parents long to spend time with other adults!

I Need Social Output

But other kinds of loneliness might be even more common. Consider the loneliness of a person who is always on the receiving end—whether that's because of sickness or disability or age or simple isolation. A hospital bed can be a very lonely place, in spite of all the professionals (and even visitors!) interested in your welfare. A person who's going through major crisis—whether it's financial or emotional or family or health-related—that person can feel pretty lonely, too, even as everyone else is trying to help. These are situations where human interaction is all "take" and no "give"—like a lake where there's constant inflow, but no outflow. It seems that the imbalance leads to loneliness. And this might be why the old-fashioned advice for lonely people is for them to get involved in some sort of activity or service project—because it will "take you out of yourself." It seems that being completely "in yourself" is a lonely place to be.

Dealing with Loneliness

So what if it's you? How can you cope with loneliness? There's no one-size-fits-all answer, as no doubt you know already. This article isn't going to solve all your problems (though I wish it did!). And much as I'd like to, I can't say something facile like "Go to church and you'll never be lonely again." Because that's baloney. Some of my loneliest times have been in church.

But you might want to consider the whole social inflow/outflow problem as it relates to your own life. Do you have contact with people who care about you and want to know how you are doing? If not, what can you do to get that contact? Taking a class, getting involved in an activity where you meet the same people again and again, even (yes!) going to church can help. Affection and even friendship tend to grow over time between people who see the same folks again and again and again—even when those people are the complete opposite of soulmates.

What about your outflow—are you doing anything to impact other people's lives for good? If not, consider some sort of service activity. (Doing a Men's NetWork GIVES BACK event this year between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day is one way to make this happen. See the article in this issue!) Believe me, people will notice and miss you immediately if you are the one who normally delivers a meal/calls a shut-in/tutors a child and suddenly you're absent one week. But even aside from that, the simple act of being effective in the larger world tends to cut down loneliness. Grandma was right—it "takes you out of yourself."

Certainly this isn't going to prevent any and all lonely feelings from now to forever, not for you and not for me. And if we've got other problems going on, like job or relationship issues, those things are going to just add to the loneliness. But if God is as aware of our lives and as caring as Christianity says He is, we can look to Him for help. Because He knows what it means to be lonely. Jesus experienced it many times. And He wants the best for us.

Written by the THRED team

What do you do to get around being lonely? If you notice or sense someone else is lonely, do you make an effort to give them some companionship? Do you have any examples you can share?

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The Discomfort with Dismantling

A few years ago, my husband and I began exploring the possibility of moving into a new home. Having done a bit of research, we identified neighborhoods and entered our preferences into an online search bar, along with our price limits. We were disappointed by how few homes met our qualifications, but were excited to find a single, promising, slightly suspicious possibility: a spacious home, in a top-notch school district, priced inexplicably lower than comparable properties.

We planned a visit and considered all the possible explanations for this anomaly, but could not have anticipated what we found. The house was lovely: nice curb appeal, modern updates, and convenient amenities. Yet it took only 30 seconds and a walk across the front room for me to see it ... or rather, feel it. The house was crooked.

"The Magical Leaning House," I quickly named it as I began to observe how everything in the house was, not so subtly, pitched to one side. Now, having been familiar with the "settling" that can occur in older homes, it was not the leaning phenomenon that fascinated me most. Rather, I was baffled by how intentionally the previous owner had embraced this characteristic. The window frames were custom-made rhombuses, made to perfectly fit the off-kilter openings. The wood trim and molding was custom cut at precise angles to adjust for the tricky way the corners came together. Everything was modified to embrace the imbalance.

Yet a visit to the lower level revealed evidence of numerous attempts to seal and fill cracks in the basement floor. It was simultaneously impressive and troubling. I could not imagine why someone would go to such great lengths to aesthetically and superficially accommodate what was quite obviously a foundational issue.

Clearly, the owner did not tune in to home improvement reality television. There is something about making old things new and wrong things right that scratches a primal itch for viewers, including me. We can also all agree that there is no worse discovery for a new homeowner than learning there's a problem with the foundation. How badly we want for the renovation budget to be used for a beautiful new front porch, a clawfoot tub, or a custom kitchen island. But no matter the sacrifice, there is never a question—at least for the professionals—about what is actually the priority.

Whether the house needs to be hoisted up, reinforced, or even torn down, foundation work is backbreaking. It's time-consuming and often looks and feel destructive; torn-up landscaping, broken tiles, sledge-hammered concrete. It seems to halt all other progress. It costs.

But what is the alternative to foundation repair? I suppose it's "The Magical Leaning House." How problematic could it be to live in a house that leans? A rolling baseball and an uneven freshly-baked cake seem like small inconveniences in comparison to the colossal cost of breaking up and relaying a new foundation. Not so, say the experts. To the contrary, the longer a homeowner delays fixing the foundation, the more uneven it gets, the more damaged the structure of the house becomes, and the more will be required to repair it.

Many, at least publicly, agree that our United States was built on an uneven foundation. The land and everything on it was created to benefit some inhabitants more than others. Despite this history, and perhaps due to the great sacrifices and perseverance of individuals and groups, many attempts have been made to correct the injustices and assuage the legacy of our broken beginnings. But repairing broken foundations is colossal work, and it's become apparent to some (and remained painfully obvious to others) that the work that's been done is much like that in "The Magical Leaning House"—several crack repairs, but mostly aesthetic and superficial modifications to distract us from a structure that actually continues to be unstable and imbalanced.

For a great many, the unwillingness to deal with the foundational work has been intentional and self-serving. Their lives have been spent ordering custom rhombus windows and cutting precise angles so that all appears tidy and purposeful. It may seem that they benefit from this particular pitch, but they fail to realize that our collective dwelling is still rapidly sinking.

For others, "The Magical Leaning House" has become home. These residents have lived so long on an incline that it now feels mostly comfortable as their bodies and gaits have redistributed and modified to adjust to this constant state. For them, it no longer feels like a lean, but feels normal—even right. Not only would foundation repair be loud and disruptive to their environment, but it would create discomfort for their own physical bodies. So without clear knowledge of impending structural failure, foundation work feels not only unnecessary but detrimental.

Yet there are still others who, through personal investigation or the intervention of a visiting neighbor, have begun see the tilt and identify it as destructive. They lean closer, even as they wince at the reality that it is, indeed, worse than they thought. They seek input, get opinions, ask questions, do research. The closer they look, the more problems they find. The renovation budget seems to climb to insurmountable heights. They are regularly tempted to simply deal with the superficial, order custom windows, and get back to the joy of picking accent colors. But they have seen the truth and cannot unsee it, and the only lasting satisfaction they can now have is in pushing up their sleeves, grabbing a hard hat and a sledgehammer, and asking the foreman how they can help demo.

The institutions of our time are the houses we live in and the structures we build upon. May we not settle for the cheap praise that comes with fresh coats of paint and new wall art, but look closer and dig deeper to identify the brokenness that has kept us perpetually off-kilter. Let us lean into the discomfort of dismantling the systems that compromise our collective ability to flourish. The work will be far from easy, but there is no doubt that it will be worth it. The greatest peace and satisfaction will be most palpably experienced by those who have seen the foundation's crumbling condition, recognized the past and potential harm, but sacrificed control and comfort to ensure lasting security to all who pass through its doors.

Join in. There's enough work for all of us.

Written by Sabrine Rhodes

How is it where you live? What are the things that can be done to uplift and fortify your neighborhood and community? How can we see to it that compromised foundations (both local and national) are addressed rather than ignored and built over?

You can let us know what you think by clicking here and leaving a comment.

You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.