Loneliness is a curious emotion. You'd think that with e-mail, cell phones, text messaging, internet chat, and the various other forms of advanced technology we currently enjoy that loneliness would be all but done away with. But more avenues for communication don't mean a thing if a person has nobody to genuinely communicate with.
We all have friends, but we often feel like we have to be "doing" something together like watching a movie, or playing a video game, or watching a football game, or shopping, or a dozen other things. We really don't sit and converse anymore. Coffee shops are certainly helping to bring this lost art back into vogue, but how often do you walk into a coffee shop and see the majority of people sitting alone at a table—nobody wanting to invade each other's space? I suspect that there are just as many lonely people in coffee shops as there are anywhere else.
We've all experienced loneliness. From the vacuum left after the loss of a loved one, to the crumbling of a marriage or potential marriage, to the pain of unwanted singleness status, to self-chosen isolation for fear that nobody will accept us with all of our faults—loneliness is excruciatingly real, but seldom discussed. It's one of the reasons I devoted a chapter to it in my book, Single Servings.
I just started reading a book by Elisabeth Elliot called The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God. She wrote it in 1988, so it's a little dated, but the message transcends time. In the coming days (and maybe weeks) I'll give you a little of her insight, but before that, you need to hear her describe her own loneliness.
In the first chapter, she recalls a plane trip she took after she had been widowed for a little more than a year. Here's a brief excerpt:
"The woman beside me moves, opens her purse, finds something, leans back again. The man stirs. Neither says anything. There is a tiny click, then a clear flame, as the man reaches to light his companion's cigarette [evidence of the dated material] I can see the outline of his hand, the knuckles and fingers, the hairs illuminated for a few seconds. The woman draws, puffs a thin column of smoke. Another click. Darkness.
"Only the most ordinary of gestures, meaning almost nothing, I suppose, to them. But for me, sitting there by the window looking out again at the cold stars, it speaks of a whole world that is lost to me now. A man and a woman. Together. His hand stretched toward her to help."
Even the stars looked cold to her in the midst of her loneliness. And while she was closer to the stars than she would have been on the ground, I'm guessing that they even felt more distant and unattainable than she's ever experienced.
As a single person, this makes me want to be certain to never underestimate the power of a friend who understands me well enough to meet one of my needs or desires without ever saying a word. And it makes me resolved to know people well enough to do likewise.
