Existential
Perspective
“Loneliness
is not the experience of what one lacks, but rather the experience of
what one is. In a culture deeply entrenched in the rhetoric of
autonomy and rights, the song of God's lonely [person] often goes
unvoiced and unheeded. It is ironic how much freedom we expend on
power...all the while concealing from each other our carefully buried
loneliness, which if shared, would deepen our understanding of each
other.”
Michele
Carter (Abiding Loneliness: An Existential Perspective)
Have
you noticed the way people come together in a crisis? There was a
clip on the news last night of one high school football team in
Columbia, South Carolina, helping their arch-rival team clear out
their homes after the flood from Hurricane Joaquin. They despise each
other on the field, but were the first to come to the rescue in times
of trouble. I was touched by that.
We humans need each other. We understand that when the props we depend upon fall down; when a home burns to the ground or goes underwater, when
children are shot dead in their schools, or when an airplane drops
out of the sky. For some period of time, our hearts open wide and we rush to assist, we do
whatever we can to help. And then we return to our solitary lives.
We
live every day with existential aloneness; with the knowledge that we
are one single being with no real answers to the big questions of
life, death and meaning. The best we can do to cope with this reality
is to deeply involve ourselves with that which is alive, and with our
fellow travelers. Not the frenetic activity or excessive consumption
that characterizes most human interaction, but explorations of the
heart with a few intimates—people with whom we are absolutely
authentic.
Sharing what we can of ourselves, including our loneliness
and our joy, our fears and our excitement, helps to alleviate
feelings of isolation. Reaching out a hand, creating something
together, offering a gift or a blessing, sharing a story or an idea or, like that foot ball team, putting our backs into helping—these
are the tools we have to build a life that, while alone, does not
feel lonely.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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