Loneliness

I'm beginning to think that loneliness is our natural condition--even though there's nothing in the world that feels more unnatural. We keep the curtains open, people nearby, and the lights glaring on as often as possible, so that eerie, sinking sensation doesn't settle in.

Distractions seem to help. Especially infatuation. Finding someone magical and feeling that exotic rush in your bones. Until years go by and you're lying next to your soul mate, still feeling lonely.

Having a baby, doing drugs, going shopping, constantly volunteering - there are a million ways to drown the ache of loneliness.

It's a cruel outlook, right? Humanity wanders aimless, pushing, wanting, and striving to believe in its own fulfillment for happiness... wherever it can get it.

And then there's friendship. CS Lewis says that "true friendship is the least jealous of loves." Where lovers are exclusive, friends are inclusive. The more the better. Spending time with friends that you have deep affection for brings you outside of yourself in a manner that seems ordinary, but is so divine. Old couples sitting on a park bench, two friends discussing their passion for poetry, kids riding bikes, families eating together, telling stories, taking walks...

But even these substitutes are temporary because friends betray us and lovers cheat on us. People die. Dreams die. Sometimes you sit on a park bench alone. Hand holding doesn't fix some things.

The ache can be subtle, like a sore or bruise, but sometimes it's excruciating, like needles in your heart and throat. You can't eat. Your dream too much and sleep too little. You're sick even though there's nothing wrong with you. I think this state of heart, soul, and mind is what Ecclesiastes calls "The House of Mourning."

It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
the living should take this to heart.

It's a bizarre statement. Is it really better to attend a funeral than a wedding? Better to cry than to laugh?

For death is the destiny of everyone, the living should take this to heart. Feeling hopeless, unsatisfied dead-ended, and alone does strange things to you. You begin asking harder questions. You take a step back and wonder about the destiny of human life.

You get perspective.

In the house of mourning, we become convinced the strongest hands can't help us and the deepest wells are still too shallow. Our substitutes aren't working.

The house of mourning is the place that you become fully alive because it brings you to a raw place of trust. You don't have to be the circus act coordinator of your own happiness. You find rare jewels like contentment, thankfulness, joy, and peace that can sustain you in the hardest seasons.

Loneliness is an incurable disease on this side of heaven, but it leads us to the house of mourning, where we are reminded that our natural condition is not so much loneliness as it is dependance.

Two Verses

"The hand of the diligent will rule."

"Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes."

Adventures in Befriending Total Strangers

Transportation devices are like these conversation breeding machines where everyone is the other's equal. It does't matter if you're a congressman, an eight year old, a hipster, a carpenter...it's like democracy at it's finest. (Or a tyranny where the bus driver is king).

I might be 1 in 1,000 people who feels this way, but 999 times out of 1,000, if you put it out there, the person responds as if they feel that way too. If you put out the genuine vibe, they come back with it. It's like transferring energy or something.

On buses, plains, trains, boats, I have talked, laughed, wept, prayed and shared music with perfect strangers, and I just needed to verbally process that it's one of the best feelings whenever it happens.

Thoughts on Humor

"Humor is war."

I heard that once. Never really knew what Voltaire meant by it, but now I think I do.

A good friend of mine who grew up in Kenya told me once that, when him and his friends were aching with hunger as kids, sometimes they would all just start laughing about it. "It's the only way you could deal with it!", he said with his large white eyes.

I've never heard that perspective on poverty. Regardless of how bad or light the circumstance, no matter where you are or what time period you were born in, humor has been and continues to be a universal gift to mankind to delight us and de-stress us. I've underestimated just how much laughter does not only to provide relief, but protection as well. It wards off all those diseases of the heart and body that stem from worry.

As I've been getting over a relationship this month, I've noticed how funny people have helped me just as much as serious, reflective people.

Take Fatty, for instance. He's my 50 yr old little friend up in the Kitchen at St. Davids who is charming, always smiling, and always wanting to make me oatmeal. When he first found out I had a boyfriend he was so excited--always asking me when I was moving to Africa (where he lived) and such.

For two months I was smitten and happy and glowing, and now that we broke up my countenance is you know, dismal. But Fatty still asks me. Every. Single. Morning.

"How's your boyfriend?"
"It's over Fatty."
"He'll call you."
"No he won't."

My sad sighs, sad eyes, (and the general fact that I look homeless) don't work on Fatty. He just keeps talking through his boyish grin, saying "He'll come back," even though I know he won't. But for some reason I feel better. Fatty makes big things seem like small things. Even when he gets mad, he's joking. After I told him something today he yelled from the steps, "You go down there and cry, and I'll go up here and cry."

Hahaha...you can't go on being sad when people like Fatty exist: bumbling around, making jokes, cooking soup.

It's the same reason I love Mike. He'll come into my room when I'm sulking, call me a "sad sac," and say, "come on, lets go record. Play cards. Hang out with family--you don't know how much longer we have to do this."

Sometimes it's the very undelicate and unseemly things that make all the difference in a day. I want and I need those people in my life.