The Lonliness of being Alone

I am an only child. And when people find that out about me, they often ask ‘Were you lonely growing up?’ To which my answer is, ’Not at all!’ And truly, I wasn’t lonely. First and foremost probably because I didn’t know any differently. But I had the company of my imagination which turned dolls, stuffed toys, and even the cat, into playmates who joined enthusiastically into any adventure.

It was only as an adult that that I discovered my loneliness, and at the 50th reunion of my high school graduating class, at that. It had been busy weekend filled with conversations not only about what was happening in our lives right then but also a lot of ‘do you remembers’ being thrown into the conversation. On the Sunday, as we were leaving the church service at which one of our classmates had preached, we gathered at the top of the stairs. That was when someone said to me, “Lynn, I remember your dad. He always was……….. “ And that moment I discovered that I was lonely. I was near tears as I suddenly realized how I missed being able to talk to someone about my parents now that they were no longer in my life. It was in my 60’s when I realized that I was lonely because I was an only child. And that brief exchange remains with me to this day as being one of the highlights of the weekend.

As I look back on this moment, I wonder if this is why we so often hear the church referred to as a community? For years I have thought that the community of the church is the community of God’s people, that it exists as an oasis of people who, as Christians, follow a particular teaching and way pf life.

But maybe this isn’t the real reason the church needs to be a community. As Dr. Seuss said in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, “Maybe, just maybe it’s a little bit more!’ Maybe the reason community is so important in the church is because we all need to take part in conversations about God, abut the source of all being! And where else are those conversations likely to happen for most of us, if they don’t happen in church. After all the people in the church are part of our family. They know the same stories. They are familiar with the same book.

So my question is this: ‘Why do so few church people ever talk about their God to the others in the pews?” If you are one of those who are in the pew on a Sunday morning, think about when the last time was that someone, other than the priest, said anything to you about their experience of God and compare that to the last time you had a scintillating conversation there about the weather or upcoming vacation plans.

Yes, one can be very lonely in the midst of the ‘church’ family.

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