Loneliness

Not long ago, someone who knows me well said: “You are greatly loved.” I agreed. I am arguably the most non-lonely man in the world: wonderful spouse and family (both of origin and of marriage), excellent network of friends, challenging and satisfying work, and a rich prayer life. If I am not the most blessed man on the earth, I am solidly in the top .01%. (About 1 in 10,000 are in my league!) Recently, nevertheless, I am aware of a loneliness within, an emptiness, a sense of isolation and sadness, even when I am in the midst of my loving family and community. This may be maturity: I just turned 70 and my mortal destiny looms increasing large and imminent. I identify two sources for this loneliness, like two streams converging to form one river: the psychological and the spiritual. Psychologically, we humans are, from conception on, fragile, vulnerable, fleshly, needy and desperately dependent upon support, nurture, comfort, affirmation and encouragement. It is the nature of things that our desperate needs are unmet at crucial points...by Mom, Dad, family, friends, others...and we become interiourly wounded, traumatized, and sad. Eventually, this inner sadness mixes with our personal history and makeup and takes a variety of shapes: depression, resentment, addiction, romantic and sexual longings, and so forth. I suspect that most of us suffer these compulsions in a cloud of unknowing without clear awareness of the underlying loneliness. This ache of the heart can, in varying degrees, be healed, comforted and transformed but when it is deep it becomes constitutive of the psyche with an irrepressible, unavoidable persistence. Underlying the emotional pain is a deeper spiritual or ontological reality: we are created with an infinite longing, a boundless desire that cannot be satisfied by any finite being or combination of such. We long for the Good, the True and the Beautiful. We are created for loving, eternal communion with God. And so, if my loneliness is in part a remembrance of a painful past; it is also a premonition of a glorious future. My yearning, my quiet loneliness cannot be sated by any combination of friendship, family or spousal/romantic joy! My solitude constitutes my psyche not only as an ache from the past, but as a Hope for a future that infinitely exceeds everything we know in this empirical world. And so I continue to seek healing for this twofold sadness with a dual approach that merges into one path: I deepen my yearning for God, especially in prayer and liturgy, and I strengthen the bonds of love, tenderness and reverence that bind me to family and friends. The two loves interpenetrate, enrich and strengthen each other...so that the solitude is purified into courage, perseverance, peace and Hope.