Loneliness Ought to Push Us Outward
Considering where we seek relational fulfillment
Stuffed with Content, Starving for Connection
The feeling of loneliness can drive me in two different directions.
(Was that too abrupt of a start? Surely, I’m not the only one dealing with loneliness as it reaches epidemic levels? Well, let’s get through it together, then.)
The feeling of loneliness can drive me in two different directions: to virtual connections, or to organic connections. By virtual, I mean those relationships and stories which would disappear without the internet. By organic, I mean those which would continue in real life, in varying degrees, without the internet: family, neighbors, friends, local church members, Christians who are members of our larger church body (synod), and others we’ve known and loved in real life in different phases.
Over the past few years, I’ve realized that, when I am lonely, I had better choose my first direction of action wisely: each type of connection, whether virtual or organic, is very effective at numbing the desire for the other. And I’m sure you know it’s not entirely neutral.
I can feel full after virtual connection because I just consumed a buffet of story and thought. It’s entirely possible to read and watch stories of birth, miscarriage, marriage, divorce, moving across the country, changing churches, losing weight, cooking dinner, planting seeds, and starting a new job, all in one sitting. I can experience catastrophic weather of multiple seasons from around the world, feel a mother’s devastation from a war across continent and sea, witness a political protest from the front row [lens], and enjoy a stunning variety of compositions of the coffee mug + book photo concept.
After this, I look up from my phone, wearily.
Who feels ready to invest in a real-life person after an hour like that?
When the junk food of online story satisfies my appetite before the feast of authentic relationship even had its turn, I suffer malnutrition.
Or, looking at it a bit differently, why invest in real-life people who hold different philosophies, eat different foods, listen to different podcasts — or who prefer YouTube — when I could have an algorithm-tailored online bubble? I can simply follow, block, like, share, in a self-affirming circle: an echo chamber of my own voice. The internet provides an online, man-modified reality that is completely unlike my local, God-given reality (this is the problem with pornography, by the way — more on this at end of post).
In following both personal and impersonal online stories, I am being tricked by my mental and emotional state to think that I’m actually full, when, in reality, I’m lacking the nourishment of true connection. I’m not the only one who suffers; the people around me need connection, too, but I’m not available. Even when I do look up from the screen, my mind is still fogged by the Cloud. My lack of availability denies others the opportunity to find their own cures to loneliness in me.
Online connection can be quite a comfort and help to the lonely, particularly to women who have lost their ‘village.’
But, shouldn’t loneliness to be a sign to me to initiate relationship locally?
Loneliness is a Sign — Heed It
I started this habit years ago, in one of my life transition phases that left me struggling to build relationships: whenever I felt lonely, I decided to initiate a connection to see how someone else was doing.
I confess that this was so hard at first. It’s embarrassing how hard this was! I struggled to send a text to a new local friend that said, “How is your week going? Want to come over for lunch on Thursday?” when what I really wanted to say was, “I’m having a hard week, could you please pray for me?”
(Occasionally, I do send those texts. But I cannot possibly send them every time I feel like I’m having a hard week.)
After a while, the practice got easier. Now, I can usually do it without internally bemoaning the fact that I didn’t get to talk about my problems. Why? Because I learned to treat my feelings of loneliness as a sign that I needed to stop looking at myself, my emotions, my circumstances, and behold another. I learned that, today, many other people are lonely, too.
Building Local Connections
I’m a year and a half into my most recent relocation, and I’ve been trying to invest in relationships here. Here are some of the ways that loneliness pushes me outward, when I choose to allow it:
I’ll take my children outside and walk across the lot to converse with my retired neighbors. I’ll bring a loaf of bread to thank the husband for snow blowing our sidewalk yesterday while my husband was working. I’ll listen to the health updates, the neighborhood news, and whether any one of the atrophied younger generations will be visiting soon. They tell me they love watching our kids play — and so do the other retirees next door. I smile to hide my embarrassment, positive that they also hear me hollering commands across the field at these dear children.
I’ll let my loneliness remind me to check my calendar and text messages: Do I have anything scheduled with the women from my church? From my new friends here? If not, it’s time for me to initiate and invite someone for a meal or host the next bake night.
I’ll let my loneliness pull us out to the library. While I’m there, I’ll ask the librarian to help me find some stories of local history that I might better understand this place that is now my home — and the home of the friends I’m hoping to make. And when I ask if she grew up here, she will provide the litany of locations of her life, and I will learn how to properly pronounce Sault Ste. Marie, and Ontonagon: things the internet could not have taught me.
While I’m at the library — at 10 AM on a weekday — I might see another mother with a handful of children enter the building as I’m leaving, and I just have to be brave enough to turn the whole family around to introduce myself. Clearly, we’re both homeschool mothers, so an introduction is nearly guaranteed to be welcome. We just might become friends. Or, maybe we’ll just get the chance to bless one another by a single conversation. Exchange numbers because you just never know.
Maybe my loneliness means it’s time to check in on the people to whom I am organically connected, but don’t see regularly. These connections do have to be mediated by technology: I could call my parents, write a short note to send in the mail, or send a quick text to check in on a friend whom I used to visit on the slow days when we lived in the same town.
All of this supposes I’ve already checked in on the first connection available: my husband and children. Perhaps loneliness is my opportunity to better see their need, hear their thoughts, or know their joy. If I’m lonely, maybe they are, too. Why should anyone be lonely alone in his own household, when God has given us each other?
And of course, the most overlooked — but most fundamental — sign loneliness gives is an opportunity to look to Christ. If I am feeling lonely, I need to remember His love for me. For my sake, He came to a world that did not receive Him, was despised and rejected, and finally forsaken on the cross. After His resurrection, as He ascended into heaven and away from the sight of His disciples, He promised that He would be with us always. Jesus Christ, God made man, calls me friend. If I am lonely, I need to hear His voice and remember His friendship, immersing myself in Scripture, psalms, and hymns. And I mean, as immediately as possible: close out the world and open my Bible or a hymnal.
Looking Upon Another
Aside from prayer, very rarely do all the above interactions with others involve cathartically relieving all my cares upon their willing shoulders. And that’s good for me. I’ve learned to come to the interaction believing that it’s better for my loneliness to be cured by looking upon another, than by asking him to look upon me. And when I look upon others, there’s always so much to appreciate, learn, grieve, and enjoy. So much to feel besides lonely.
Part of loneliness includes the perception, accurate or not, that others are having all the fun without you. But when I go out of my filler connections online, I find that many people are having just about the same amount of fun that I am, and often, even less. It seems that many people are either hungry for fulfilling relationship, or malnourished on the empty calories of virtual community or empty niceties.
Most of us are lonely in some way.
Most of us are disconnected in many ways.
Let’s take our loneliness as a sign that it’s time to stop the scroll and reconnect locally: starting with our Savior, within the walls of our own homes, and spreading outward.
Thoughts and Opportunities for Connection and Belonging, Summarized from Above:
In case you, like I, need a little help in this area, here’s a list. I’d love to hear other ideas!
Go to church. Regularly. Of course, I’ll recommend a Confessional Lutheran church. If I wasn’t willing to do so, I wouldn’t be a Lutheran. If you have questions about this, comment, message, or reply to the email.
Meditate upon, sing, and memorize Scripture and hymns to remind you of the love of Christ for you. Here are some suggestions:
Psalms: 16, 23, 34, 103, 121, 131, 139, 145
Isaiah 40; John 3, 10, 17; Ephesians 2; Philippians 2; Hebrews 2, 10
Hymns: I will always recommend a Paul Gerhardt hymn. Here are three Lutheran hymnal options which contain some of his hymns, as well as a wealth of other hymns and prayers!
Hug the people you live with.
Be open to hosting and keep it simple:
Prepare in advance a simple Sunday lunch and invite another family from church to join after worship — or, go buy some deli food and bring it to a park.
Welcome a single working woman to spend her extended lunch break at your home, or to join your family for dinner after work.
Invite a family over for dinner, and when they offer to bring something, give them permission to do so.
Share your skills with others, even if you’ve not perfected them! Learn to bake homemade pizza together.
In fair weather, ask the gardening women if you can bring the older children (or just yourself!) to learn about and help in the garden.
Bringing children requires that we teach them now the difference between flowers and weeds, garden etiquette, and how to follow instructions. I’ve been working my way up to this one.
Recognize you might be meeting someone else’s need for connection by this.
Get to the local library. Introduce yourself to other women while you’re there.
Make it a general, loose goal to build relationship with at least one woman in each of these five stages:
Older than you, and likely in need of help
Further along in life stage/older than you, and likely able to help
Similar to you
Earlier in life stage/younger than you, and likely blessed by your example
Simply different from you
Think back upon your life and those relationships which affected you most positively. Thank God for them, thank the people if possible, and consider what you can apply from those blessings to your current efforts to build relationship.
Pray:
For friendships.
For God to help you appreciate and deepen the relationships He has already given.
For God to make you the type of person who will be a blessing to others.
For God to deepen your understanding of and gratitude for His love for you in Christ, to enable the above.
Remember that the deep, lasting friendship idealized in many stories is a gift from God that takes time, effort, and certain circumstances to grow. Invest in others to that end when possible. Be patient and seek contentment when it seems like it’s not possible.
Related to Loneliness, Friendship, and Being Drawn Out of Ourselves:
“The Hard Work of Combatting Loneliness” by
.“That I Might Be Seen” by John Cuddeback. Thanks,
, for this!Children’s books: Don’t be too grown-up for these books! Nor for reviewing them with great earnestness on your brand-new Goodreads account. Live a little.
Albert by Donna Jo Napoli. Beautifully illustrated by Jim LaMarche. Currently one of my favorite children’s books on this topic.
A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker. Hilariously illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton. My other current favorite children’s book on this topic.
The Children’s Moon by Carmen Agra Deedy. Again, beautifully illustrated by Jim LaMarche. OK my other other current favorite book.
“And, if he felt a little less grand . . . he also felt a little less lonely.”
Related to the Internet’s Illusion of Intimacy:
The internet offers plenty of opportunities for helpful connection, but it can never provide true intimacy. This is true in platonic relationship as well as sexual relationship. Online pornography is the extreme case of the abuse of online connection, and it entraps many among us. However, there are lesser degrees of objectification which take place through online interaction.
I want to share this passage from a book written by a Lutheran pastor in its meditation on the sixth commandment: You shall not commit adultery. I hope it helps us consider how our internet use might shape how we connect with those closest to us, whether participating in virtual adultery, or interacting with others in far more benign ways.
“The people portrayed in porn are objects for one’s own pleasure; they are used, seen in a way completely divorced from relationship, and then are clicked away when one is through with them. … The effect of this is that you become locked up inside yourself. The gift of sexuality, this great gift, was meant to lead you out of yourself to realize that another person stands before you to be loved and celebrated, valued and received as a gift from the hand of the Father. Saying no to online porn is part of saying a firm yes to the real people in our lives and treating them as persons, not as objects for your possession and use. Every last person you encounter meets you as a gift to be received.”
Rev. Will Weedon, Thank, Praise, Serve, and Obey, emphasis mine
If you are interested in resources for understanding, fighting, or helping others fight the destructive force of pornography, see this excellent compilation from
.
Coming up: I’ll be back in two weeks with …uh… the final installment in this apparent series on the internet and motherhood.
God bless you!
So much good advice and wisdom here! As a naturally introspective, analytical person, I’ve had to learn these things the hard way. Life has been so much better when I’ve let loneliness drive me to connect with and care for others instead of retreating further into myself. Self-forgetfulness really is the answer.
I love your habits- the library, the neighbors. I do much the same but hadn’t thought about the reasons why the way you articulate it. Nicely done!
Leah, I loved this so much. Your words are so kind and so true (and convicting!)--now I'm going to sit down and think about who I can reach out to today. Thank you.