In the overcrowded conditions of our modern world loneliness has possessed us:

"He’s a real Nowhere Man,

Sitting in his Nowhere Land,

Making all his Nowhere Plans

for nobody."

Such emptiness, such frustration, such loneliness depresses us. What’s to be done about it?

This feeling of hopelessness has been around a long time. The ancient writer of Psalm 22 cried out:

Dear God, right now I feel like a worm, not a person.

I feel so used by other people. And to make it worse,

I feel resented by the very same people who use me!

Sometimes when my back is turned,

I can feel everyone making faces at me, sneering in derision.

O God, stick close to me - I’m up to my neck in problems and all alone.

I feel like the walls are closing in around me.

And in the dark I can see starving lions ready to swallow me up and digest me into oblivion.

My strength drains away like water,

And my bones feel loose and shaken.

My heart feels like a lump of hot sticky wax melting inside my chest.

My mouth is as dry as a broken piece of clay pot,

And my tongue sticks to my jaw.

I feel trampled and beaten.

This Psalm is paraphrased by Kenneth W. Chalker in a little book, Dare to Defy. He goes on to suggest that even though it may have been written by King David, today it could fit a frustrated homemaker, a retired person, an unemployed person, a beleaguered executive, a worried union leader, a minister or a doctor. All of us, at times, feel that the world has left us, and we are left alone to fight it out. Remember, fathers can be lonely; mothers can be lonely; children and youth can be lonely.

Alan Patan, in his autobiography, Towards the Mountain, describes something he saw when he visited Alcatraz:

"Six of these (cells) were shining bronze cages and had no secrets from guard or visitor. But six were sealed behind massive bronze doors, each with its judas hole. I looked through one and could see a man sitting motionless on a bed, beyond all human power to move or touch or make laugh or weep. He was there because he would kill if any chance were given him, because he was possessed, day in and day out, during every hour of working and sleeping too perhaps, by a hatred that consumed him without ceasing ... was his soul unconquerable?" Was it?

Marlene Patterson in "Alive Now" writes:

Today, I have had another lonely day, Lord.

The one phone call I received was a wrong number.

Was there someone that needed a call from me? ...

My neighbors wave as they go about their tasks

But we seldom take time to talk ...

At church we sit in the same pews with people we do not know

Are they lonely too? ...

Our marriage has been good but sometimes I expect my husband to sense my aloneness ...

Am I lonely because I am afraid to risk reaching out to an other?

This old world cries out in mansy languages. Reuel Howe, in his book Creative Years, reveals the inner struggle of a family:

"It’s hard to think straight about our family, we seem so messed up. Wonder if others are like us?

"Julie and I tried to help Bernard and Jane. There’s sure a big gap between wanting to do something and doing it. Something gets into kids in their adolescence that makes them harder to understand and to handle. Bernard was defiant, as if he were trying to prove something. It was as if he had a chip on his shoulder and dared me to knock it off. I couldn’t figure out whether he was making a bid for more discipline or whether I wasn’t giving him enough freedom ... I failed him as a father without knowing why. He had a way of making me awfully mad. It’s funny how the feeling of helplessness makes you angry. Then I’d feel guilty about it all. We lost touch with each other during his teens. Something came between us. I’ve often wished we could get it out in the open and talk about it. Now lately things seem a little better ..."

Love is the absolute essential as we confront the world in its loneliness. Bruce Larson, in There’s a Lot More to Health Than Not Being Sick, draws information from Dr. James Lynch:

Dr. Lynch’s studies show that twice as many white divorced males under age seventy who live alone die from heart disease, lung cancer, and stomach cancer. Three times as many men in this category die of hypertension and seven times as many of cirrhosis of the liver. He also points out that among divorced people, suicide is five times higher and fatal car accidents four times higher."

"Love or perish," says psychologist Smiley Blanton. And Karl Menninger adds, "Love is the medicine for the sickness of the world." Bruce Larson continues with some statistics from a foundling home in Brazil: "The infants there received excellent care. The conditions were sanitary. There was an adequate staff to provide all physical and dietary needs. But there was not enough staff to provide physical love, to simply hold the babies, touch them, play with them. Most of the babies died before the end of the first year."

My father, a United Methodist minister, said to me, "I cannot bear to face another move alone." Mother had died ten years before. He was moved; he was dead within a year.

An English preacher, writing in The Expository Times, tells of coming out of an eye clinic and seeing "a very modern looking young woman, her eye all shrouded in a bandage. She stopped when she came to a pram where the baby was crying lustily, gave the pram a wee ‘shuggle’ and said softly to the baby: ‘Ssh! Mummy’s coming!’ At once the baby stopped crying and soon the girl passed on. Her little word of comfort - probably the only word the baby knew - ‘Mummy’ - had brought reassurance, so the crying stopped." In a world of lonely people, we often forget to speak that healing word.

We rush on, not daring to disturb the "sounds of silence":

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more.

People talking without speaking,

People hearing without listening,

People writing songs that voices never shared,

No one dared

Disturb the sounds of silence.

- Paul Simon, Sounds of Silence

No wonder we are lonely.

After quoting Paul Simon, Dr. James J. Lynch, in The Broken Heart, goes on to declare, "Quite literally, we must either learn to live together or face the possibility of prematurely dying alone ... Cancer, tuberculosis, suicide, accidents, mental disease - all are significantly influenced by human companionship. Nature uses many weapons to shorten the lives of lonely people. On a statistical basis it simply chooses heart disease most frequently."

Dr. Lynch compares the death rate in Nevada, "number one in the way it shortens white people’s lives in the U.S.," with neighboring Utah, "which has one of the lowest death rates in the country. The two states are much the same in wealth and education and other features. The difference? Utah is extremely religious. Mormons do not drink or smoke. They generally maintain stable lives. Marriages are generally secure, family life strong, and most of the state’s people stay in Utah. Nevada is the opposite. It is one of the divorce capitals of the U.S. More than 20 percent of Nevada’s males age 35-64 are single, widowed, divorced, or not living with spouses. Most Nevadans are born somewhere else - most of those over 20 who live in Utah were born in the State."

Dr. Lynch gloomily declares that Nevada seems to be a prophecy of things to come for the U.S. "Divorce, mobility, living alone, unprotectedness, these have now become acceptable middleclass norms throughout the U.S.," he says.

Dr. Desmond Morris’ book, Intimate Behaviour, gives us a tip on healing intimacies in human relationships. "We laugh at educated adults who pay large sums to go and play childish games of touch and hug in scientific institutes ... How much easier it would be if we could accept the fact that tender loving is not a weakly thing, only for infants and young lovers, if we could release our feelings, and indulge ourselves in an occasional and magical return to intimacy." This had its start a long time ago: "And the Lord said, It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a helpmate for him" (Genesis 2:18).

There is an old Swedish proverb: "Shared joy is a double joy. Shared sorrow is half a sorrow."

The wisdom of Paul Tournier in his book, Reflections, supports this thesis. "Modern man, despite appearances, is less aware of his own nature and motives, and is lonelier as he faces them. We pity the savage amid his mysterious, menacing spirits, but at least he shares his fears with all his tribe, and does not have to bear the awful spiritual solitude which is so striking among civilized people."

And now Touriner points the lonely ones to faith, "Why does the Bible so often speak of the ‘living’ God? Surely it is because the God it reveals to us is not the God of the philosophers, outside time and space ... He is a living person, a person whose voice breaks in upon us, who himself intervenes, who acts, who suffers, who enters history in Jesus Christ, who enters into men by the Holy Spirit." It is only as I have grown older that God has become an intimate Person to me. It makes all the difference.

"People often say to me," continues Tournier, " ‘I don’t seem to he able to say my prayers; what ought I to do?’ I reply: ‘Talk to God as you are talking to me; even more simply, in fact.’ Saint Paul writes that the truest prayer is sometimes a sigh. A sigh can say more than could be contained in many words." With a yearning, a hunger, a cry, the lonely soul reaches out to God and finds comfort.

Why do we insist on doing it by ourselves and stumble inadequately? Things go wrong. We struggle to put things right. We fail again. At last we come back to God and say, "Take over; I can’t manage it on my own." Strangely, life begins to work.

When we are lonely, we might remember what Tournier said in, Escape From Loneliness, "Love always means going to others, not demanding that they come to us." He continues in, The Adventure of Living, "It was for love that God created the world. It was for love that God made man in his own image, thus making him a partner in love, a being to whom he speaks, whom he loves like a son, and who can answer him and love him like a father. It is for love that God respects man’s liberty, thus taking upon himself the formidable risk of man’s mistakes and disobediences, the price of which he himself accepts and pays in the sacrifice of the cross."

In this busy, stressful world we put ourselves in little boxes and close them on all sides. We must remember, if we are to break out of the prisons of our loneliness, that "the highest sign of friendship is that of giving another the privilege of sharing our inner thoughts." This is the healing power of the small sharing group.

Dr. Tournier comforts us with his own confession: "There is in me the doctor who believes passionately in his medicine, and eagerly runs to help his fellowmen; there is in me the egoist and skeptic who would like to run away and hide in a solitary cabin." But, thank God, he didn’t! He goes on to warn us against too much self-analysis: "As you peel an onion, there is always another layer, but you never reach the kernel. So, when you analyze the ego, it disappears completely." Many lonely people have gazed inwardly upon themselves until there is nothing there that is visible - and they are canceled out.

The Transforming Friendship, a small book written by the great London minister, Lesle D. Weatherhead, is a very practical approach to the cure of loneliness. Weatherhead, tells us that Christ operates today not so much from the Sea of Galilee as from the Thames, the Potomac, the Hudson. Christ is where people are, where the need is. Weatherhead speaks of Christ visiting a successful business executive. The businessman wanted to show Christ the church where he worshiped. "No," said Christ, "I want to see the place where you work. What are the conditions there? How do the people who work for you get along?" After the visit of Christ that business became more people-conscious.

Then Weatherhead follows Jesus as he visits a home. He shows a special interest in the children and takes time with them. The mother unburdens her heart to Jesus. He listens, never interrupting. The mother laid her problems before him. It was a long list: the dreary hours of housework, meals, cleaning, social obligations, money problems, what might become of the children, how to find time really to teach them the ways of life.

Jesus asked questions about ideals in the home, what they believed in, what they stood for, what were their ideals for the children? And very quietly he spoke to the mother about an inward peace. Jesus reminded her that her entire family was in God’s hands; in quietness, and through trusting him, God will give the strength she needs. After his visit there was a glow and a warm sense of peace in all the relationships of that family.

Now Weatherhead leads us into the small room of a university student. The young man was seated alone. He seemed to be a fine athlete. The student was lonely and his heart was heavy. His mind was divided, one side at war with the other. Good and Evil were in a constant tug-of-war for the possession of his soul.

Suddenly Jesus was sitting there in the room. Quietly he spoke, saying, "You thought of me, and so I am here." The student could see that Jesus really believed that he had great potential, and that he would back him up. Thinking deeply, the student whispered, "I will begin again; it’s all right now." The next day the vulgar pictures had been taken down from the walls, the fresh air was flowing through the room, and the sunlight had reached the dark corners.

The next picture that Dr. Weatherhead brings into focus is that of "a girl living in a small boardinghouse in the city. It was not a pleasant life ... It was very lonely." The picture reveals the sordid details of her drab life: early in the morning she goes to work in a workroom over a large shop downtown. Every night she is alone. She is getting older and knows very few people. Since there is nothing to do at night, often she will put on her gayest things and go out all alone. She has almost no money, and in her frustration she faces temptation again and again.

She is there in her bare little room. She is leaning over a small table, her face buried in her hands; she is shaking with sobs. Suddenly she looks up, and Jesus is standing there beside her. She is confused, but Jesus puts her at ease by asking, "Would you like to tell me all about it?" She begins to pour out all her troubles, but, looking at Jesus, she senses that he knows about them already. Even though she knows he is aware of her temptations and her selfishness, his presence does not frighten her: hope begins to dawn. She even dares to ask the Master. "What do you see in me?" He answers, "I see the possibilities of beautiful womanhood. I see the potential of a life committed to God." "But don’t you see," she insists, "the ugliness, the greed, and things even worse than that?" Jesus answers, "I see far below the surface a real desire for goodness, and a hatred of all that is ugly in life." But she continues, "I have broken my good resolutions; I have lost my chance; my ideals are gone; my faith is no longer meaningful." Jesus looks at her tenderly and whispers, "The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost."

Suddenly she was young again; springtime had returned to her soul. As the vision faded, she heard him say, "You will never be alone again; every day I am with you."

All of us need the kind of comfort Dr. Weatherhead tells us about; we need to he aware of the reality of the Presence of Christ that he suggests. The aloneness we experience is a conscious and subconscious awareness of a separation from God. We can be alone when we are crowded, alone when we stand next to each other. We can be inwardly marooned. Bishop Hazen Werner tells of a woman who said to him, "I live on an island, my husband lives on an island, and neither of us can swim." Perhaps we live in a maze of "organized loneliness." There are strangers outside and the stranger within.

From the bottomless pit of our aloneness, we cry out to one another, but we cannot get the message through. In all the trauma of Captains and Kings, Taylor Caldwell has one of her characters remark, "His real need, his most terrible need, is for someone to listen to him." Man will not die from lack of vitamins or lack of shelter; it’s loneliness that’s killing us. Deep within all of us there is a message crying out to be spoken. But as Jesus said, "people have no eyes to see, no ears to hear." If we would only listen to each other, much of the world’s violence would disappear in new levels of personal and corporate understanding.

But we separate ourselves; we build a wall around us, as if we really like our cell. Listen to one such pitiful person:

Anybody can make himself lonely

He can allow himself to grow so sensitive that he lives in constant pain;

He can nurse his grudges until they are an intolerable burden;

He can think himself insulted until he is apt to be;

He can believe the world is against him until it is;

He can imagine troubles until they become real;

He can hold so many under suspicion that he trusts no one:

He can question the motives of his friends until he has no friend.

(source unverified)

No one can love a mask. If you can’t see each other, you can’t know each other; if you can’t know each other, you can’t love each other.

Love, by its nature, cannot respond to command. It responds to love. Perhaps this is our breaking point with God and with life. Sin is not just one or two bad things we do or do not do. As Jesus saw it, it is far more than this: Sin is the rejection of God’s Spirit; it is the refusal of love; it is the blocking of joy in human relationships; it is the failing to move toward wholeness of life. Sin is rejecting God’s offer of companionship. This leaves a terrible emptiness.

Isolation can be set up by a conflict of freedoms. There is the question: "What am I doing with my freedom? What is my neighbor doing with his freedom? Is my neighbor’s freedom a threat to my freedom and my freedom a threat to his? Or might it be possible that his freedom is a support to my freedom and my freedom is a support to his freedom? To understand and to be understood is the open door out of isolation."

Some people take a devilish joy in not liking people. In his book, How to Live 365 Days a Year, Dr. John A. Schindler says, "Some people dislike everybody: They dislike practically everyone from the President, whom they have never met, to their next-door neighbor whom they wish they had never met." But can we afford to see everyone as a walking irritant? Can we afford to be so sorry for ourselves that we leave no room for anyone else to be sorry for us?

We rub shoulders with lonely folk every day. In some we recognize it: in some we would never guess it. I remember one of the most exuberant persons I have ever known. He was on the staff of a well-known prep school where I was teaching and coaching track, I was amazed to discover that his wife had left him, and almost everything in his life was tragic. The list goes on: There are the sick ones, the disabled, those who have lost loved ones, those who have nervous problems, complexes, phobias, those who are out of their environment, who have moved to the city and have not found their place there. They are the ones who have not learned to bridge the gap existing between themselves and other persons. They find themselves alone in a sea of persons.

Any of us can wake up in the dead of night with a sense of separation, uneasiness, detachment. It could be a warning that we are on the wrong track, that we are losing contact with reality, that we have broken with God and with people. It could be the shock that brings us back to a shared life. The walls we have erected between us and God separate us from others; the walls we have erected between us and others separate us from God.

Dwelling constantly upon the loss which is behind us can become a sickness. Turning the light ahead, focusing upon the future, getting back into the stream of life can break the spell of aloneness. Take a hint from the lightning bug:

The Lightning Bug is brilliant,

But he hasn’t any mind;

He flies about the universe

With his headlight on behind.

At this point, Dr. Schindler speaks again: "Lose a friend, seek a new one. Keep cheerful. Don’t gripe except when no one can hear you. Don’t keep talking about how tired you are. If you lack love and affection from others, give more than your share to others. If you lack creative expression, pursue a new interest as though your life depended upon it. If you lack recognition, give recognition to others. Some of it will come back. If you lack experiences, be planning something all the time. (The exhausted housewife meant it when she said, "I’d scream if I didn’t have that trip coming up next month!") Get out into the midst of people and discover that they need you as much as you need them."

The only ones who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. Once I visited an old woman, a practical nurse, in the hospital. Life had been rough on her, and yet she wasn’t about to give up. She told me about the hundreds of babies she had helped to deliver. She said, "I never went into a sick room I didn’t see something I could do." She had joined the human race; she was on the team; she was in a cosmic partnership; she was a part of history: she was involved in her work; God was involved in her work; she had become a part of the healing of the world. Loneliness can be a rejection of life, or it can become the challenge to free others from loneliness. In loneliness some have discovered humanity.

The big banana said

To the little banana,

"Stick to de bunch Bud,

Stick to de bunch,

Or you’re gonna get peeled."

"To know God and men as friends," said Nels Ferre, "is the very aim and nature of right religion." The old sea Captain had the right spirit:

If I ever reach my home again

Where the earth has sky and the sky has rain,

I’ll dig a well for the passers-by,

Where none shall suffer from thirst as I.

(Whittier)

Corrie ten Boom had a right to sulk in aloneness, but she didn’t; she served others wherever she was. She risked her life and found life abundant. Christ said to her and to us, "I stand at your door and knock." "I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you." We are lifted by the loneliness of God.

Once I prayed because I ought to. Then I prayed because I needed to. Now I pray because I want to. "Though the outward man perish, the inward man is renewed, day by day."

Gerhard Terstugeri puts it,

Within, within oh turn

Thy spirit’s eye to learn ...

Thy dearest friend dwells deep within thy soul,

And asks thyself of thee.

That he may give himself to thee!

In the play, Green Pastures, De Lawd said to Gabriel:

"Don’t forget about dat star."

"Yes, Sir, I’ll take care of it."

"And Gabriel, remember bout dat little sparrow with the broken wing."

"Not even a bird falls except your heavenly Father knows about it."

Are you alone? Remember the Bible verses you learned as a child:

"Whither shall I flee from thy presence?

"If I ascend up into Heaven, thou art there;

If I make my bed in Hell, behold thou art there.

"If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy right hand hold me.

"If the darkness covers me, even the night shall he as light about me."

(Psalm 139)

"He that keepeth thee will neither slumber nor sleep ...

"The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil:

He shall preserve thy soul.

"He will preserve thy going out,

And thy coming in, from this time forth, and even forever more."

(Psalm 121)

Christ says, "I am with you always." Yes, I have felt it!

Our Father in Heaven is both personal and near. When we truly experience this (and he wants us to), we will never be alone again.