Loneliness seems to creep in on little cat feet, not unlike Sandburg’s fog. Do you know when you’re lonely? I mean really know? Last weekend, while my beloved was away at work, I found myself restless. Unmoored, somehow. Aimless. There is very little more disorienting for high-functioning achievers than restlessness, unmoored-ness, aimlessness. My ego did its ususal machinations for relief-while-in-control: talk with friends or family about other things, read up on Buddhist meditation (without practice, mind you), rotate through my contacts lists to see if one jumped out as someone to contact. That’s the title of the list, right? Time passed and then it was time to be at my evening commitment—a women’s circle. Upon my return, all restlessness, unmoored-ness, aimlessness had completely vanished, receded. It dawned on me belatedly that I had been lonely.
I find this to be a strange state of affairs, for several reasons. It’s most essentially odd because I am blessed with family and friends, colleagues and good work to do. I have spent more time away from home this past summer than I ever have before, and one of the fruits of awareness has been how very rich and interconnected my life of work and practice is right where I live. I thrive at peripheries of communities, which means life comes to me from multiple directions and worldviews, through markedly different people who are willing to share a bit of their time and gifts with me. Some relationships root deeply, having been tempered by conflicts sustained and resolved across difference, betrayal, misunderstanding. Others are as deep-reflective or deep-playful (or not) as we want them to be, dependent upon temperament, inclination, desire. How is it possible to feel loneliness in such a web of care and concern, mutual passion and diverse enjoyment?
I also find this strange because I couldn’t see it, name it, … admit it? There seems to be some shame or guilt or something attached to the phenomenon of loneliness that encourages us to ignore seeing it, realizing it. That’s fascinating, I think. Why does loneliness bring a sense of shame or embarrassment with it? In most of our cases, I would imagine, loneliness does not signal an inability to relate but simply a felt-emptiness of relationship for a time. It’s not like we haven’t learned how to connect or to contribute, but more like we yearn for more connection or contribution at the same time there is an apathy or resistance to it. I didn’t like the aimlessness of it all, but I also didn’t feel like doing anything about it. I yearned but resisted…what? I’m not sure. For whatever reason, I could not articulate that I was lonely. It was too quiet and I felt isolated. Surrounded by people, in one sense, but absent within as well.
Two ‘take-aways’ for me from this experience I hope will continue to teach me. One, I seem to have particular behaviors that signal this restlessness but which rarely feed it with any rest. Persistent e-mail checking. Facebook lurking. Compulsive tidying around the house. If I cannot articulate or sense when I’m feeling this disconnection or loneliness, perhaps I can track its agency in my habitual behaviors or patterns of thought expressed these ways. If I become aware I’m doing one of those things, I hope to listen for whether I’m yearning-resisting something (and yes, I’ve wondered whether it means Someone…) in particular.
Second, I’m beginning to listen for this loneliness and embarrassment about it in the lives of pastoral colleagues. I’ve begun to wonder whether religious leaders are ultimately some of the loneliest among us, seeking solace within theological education because that’s where it seems logical to find such solace—God, church, vocational direction and purpose. Ultimately, meaning, significance. It’s no secret that pastors are some of the most potentially lonely, because their role sets them apart from the community for particular purposes, service. Ordination is about this setting apart. But what if our ‘best and brightest’ in faith community life are being drawn into environments where they seek intimacy and solace in community but find only obligation and duty? Will they recognize their own loneliness, meeting it in healthy ways outside of their work? Or will they substitute the full-bodied, high-Spirited intimacy that can be found within and outside of the institutional church with the slight connections to significance in religious duties? How do we serve out of abundance, not need, if we cannot even recognize when we’re lonely?
Loneliness does seem to have little cat feet after all, signifying a certain fog. Sandburg was right in his imagery, even if he couldn’t have intended this use of it. Little acts of mindfulness may offer a bit of the yellow fog-lighting necessary to make our way in its midst. It seems not to be a shame or an embarrassment, then, as much as an opportunity to experience seeing as surprise, knowing one’s own need(s) and being patient in the discomfort of self-insufficiency. In that, there’s a beauty. Walking in the fog simply requires a willingness to wear the proper attire (finitude, humility) and to welcome the cleansing mists (need, emptiness). Perhaps loneliness comes to those who have been given glimpses of intimacy in order to remind us all how sustaining it is, in presence and in felt-absence...both.
No comments:
Post a Comment