*At the Blinds of a Lonely Soul, Dimitrios Zampelis, Flickr
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God has no religion.
*Mahatma Gandhi
Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.
*Thomas Merton
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After worship today, among others of unfamiliar face and place, I reflect, when back in my hotel-for-the-Summer. I reflect, alone, on loneliness. Body of Christ spoken of in the morning Message (whatever that means, it means One - which would on the surface potentially challenge any right to loneliness) worshiping together. Goodbye, alone again, whatever Body of Christ meant or means.
I ruminate on loneliness, and I find it not helpful anymore to part lonely and aloneness. I have read, and used, that distinction, as though the spiritual person grows into aloneness, a state of apartness free of lonely; un-lonely. Likewise, that would mean that loneliness is un-spiritual, and, if I tend toward loneliness, I need to be more spiritual. Now, I cannot share that distinction, which appears more like a spiritualized escape, a too-holy demarcation, a refusal to be honest.
Aloneness, or apartness, may well arise at times as a condition free of the sense of loneliness. Yet, what arises to mind today is the words a new loneliness. A transformed loneliness. Loneliness having been seen as a problem, now seen as a new outlook, a new being-with, a certain orientation both to togetherness and apartness.
To use faith or spirituality to escape loneliness is, to me, likely to increase the fear of loneliness. Rather, spirituality, to me, has become about reconciliation. This reconciliation is a be-friend-ing of my whole being with human experience. And loneliness is integral to being human; our attempted escape, "profane" or "holy," is a refutation of Grace.
I see loneliness as potentially ever-present. This is so whether on the surface or just under the surface of experience. And much of the tyranny of busyness and noise we engage in is an attempted escape from loneliness. We see loneliness as threatening. It does threaten. It threatens inauthenticity, the false-presentation of independence, of my-self-reliance.
Yet, I see that this escape is merely a tyranny dividing us from ourselves and one another. That is, if I use togetherness to escape loneliness, I tend to engage as a divided person, a person not so much seeking to be with others but a persons avoiding being with myself. And, if I do this, how can I be-with others in their loneliness?
Can I reconcile then? Not to some "God" out there, somewhere. But to "God" here and there, everywhere, seeing me through every face seeing me. A "God" permeating my loneliness with Presence, with Grace. Can I be honest that often I am most lonely when with others? Can I admit that often in prayer I am saturated with loneliness - that loneliness becomes my prayer, if I allow such to be? Can I see, too, that often apart from others I am most un-lonely, most sensing connection with others - sometimes with everyone, in some way I cannot know or voice? Possibly - at least, this is the way I see it -, Grace works to transform us to bring our loneliness fully into togetherness and our togetherness fully into our loneliness. That is the wholeness we are called to by Life: not a parting of experience, but an integration, a reconciliation, a harmony of apparent-opposites.
What I am suggesting today is consideration that loneliness and aloneness, while being a false distinction, allows us to consider a reconcilation that transforms loneliness. This loneliness is free of the desperation that seeks escape from loneliness. This loneliness is imbued with a contentment, even a willingness to embrace that experience of pain-of-loneliness that might arise and see that experience as human and holy. This loneliness, finally, resolves the false distinction of "lonely" and "loneliness," in a new synthesis of being-with. And, this loneliness, or aloneness, is not an experience, but a way-of-being that is in relationship to all others and myself.
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*The Abandoned Mill, Janos Csongor Kerekes, Flickr
* * * CLOSING BLESSING * * *
Grace and Peace to All
The Sacred in Me bows to the Sacred in You
*You are welcome to contact Brian at briankwilcox@yahoo.com .
The presentations at this site cover a long time period. Each one represents part of an on-going Pilgrimage, and the writer's ideas, practices, and experience have changed over time. This change is the quality of any living Journey. Please read with this in mind, allowing the inner Teacher to speak to you as you need at this particular time in your own living Journey. Thanks!
