Striking a Balance Between Loneliness and Connection

Lately it has become one of those things that we say all the time in recovery - we need community. AND WE DO!! This is true. This is very true. But it is not the only truth.

If the opposite of loneliness is too many relationships, then that is also a concern for long term recovery - especially unhealthy relationships. Too much intense contact with others can lead to serious health problems and - in many species of animals - death. Biologists call this “intraspecific competition”. It happens when the same species becomes so over-populated in a given area that there is a scarcity of resources. This leads to infighting; the weaker of the species loses; the strong prevail.

I’m not suggesting that we need to let the strong eliminate the weak. That would fly in the face of biblical perspective. (“The meek shall inherit the earth.”) But what I am suggesting is that the work of spiritual wisdom and maturity is to behave DIFFERENTLY from the animal kingdom. We are to grow up and help the weak build stronger muscles. We mature and realize that our work includes giving those who are marginalized a hand up, a way out of their vulnerability to predatory attack. This is what differentiates us from wild beasts. In theory.

For humans, our vulnerabilities come when we suffer the negative effects of bad relationships, selfishness and immaturity. Other people - and how we interact with them - cause the strongest negative emotions that we experience. It is the “other” or ourselves who cheat and disappoint. Jean Paul Sartre wrote: “Hell is other people.” A quote I love to hate; but for some people, this is true.

The mom who wants to get her child back from social services is perhaps unaware that this child begged to NOT be returned to the home where she was regularly left alone at night and went days without a meal. Mom believes that her daughter is lonely in foster care and would be better off with her. And she would. If mom was gaining in wisdom and maturity and able to care for her kid. I can count on one hand the number of people who have lamented their loneliness over the years but me and all the people I have ever met combined do not have enough fingers and toes to count the ways we hurt others and others hurt us. Just to be clear - loneliness is not great AND it may not be the central problem we need to address in order to become stronger spiritually.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Matthew 6:6 NIV

The Inevitability of Loneliness

Just to review, I’m (Teresa) exploring this idea that what we have historically thought of as wisdom and maturity and how to acquire it may be...not quite right. I’m suggesting that we rethink what the experience of spiritual growth is versus how we imagined we would feel once we achieve it. As an example, I am picking on loneliness and our notion that it is a bad thing. I’m going so far as to suggest that loneliness may be an inevitable part of growing up. The reason I suggest this is partially because the book of Romans keeps reminding us that our culture gets it wrong and we often go along with its current hypotheses about life without thinking.

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you:

Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Romans 12:1-2 The Message

Loneliness has become a cultural bad boy, like gluten or wearing hose (not leggings). In 2017 Theresa May (British prime minister at the time) appointed a “Minister for Sport, Civil Society and Loneliness. Health experts in Germany declared an “epidemic of loneliness” and called for an appointment of a commissioner for loneliness (to eradicate it, not promote it, I presume). Scientists are even working on an anti-loneliness pill to reduce or even eliminate the feeling of loneliness!

I wonder if we have all gotten just a titch off course.

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

Mark 1:35 NIV