We know what it means to feel lonely from our experiences. If I asked you to describe it, you could probably tell me about an experience of it. We all do everything we can to avoid it.
So, if we know that, why as I writing a post on why loneliness is a problem?
Going back to the words I quoted at the beginning of this post: if fear of loneliness is a driving force of our time, then we need to take a look at how we deal with the fear.
The problem is that what we often seek as the solution to loneliness doesn't really satisfy. And then the feelings of loneliness we experience drive us to do whatever we think will mean we're not lonely any more. Except that it doesn't fix it. And we find ourselves caught in this endless loop of frantic activity because we fear being lonely.
I know this well. I've lived in this endless cycle before. In fact, the realization I was living in it and a desire to stop prompted me to take a closer look at this.
I've that, for me, usually the best place to start with a topic is understanding what the key words mean. I started with looking up the definition of the word lonely.
Here's what the Merraim-Webster Dictionary had for a definition of the word lonely:
1.a) being without company: lone
b) cut off from others: solitary
2. not frequented by human beings: desolate
3. sad from being alone: lonesome
4. producing a feeling of bleakness or desolation
Not a very positive definition. And not words we want to hear used to describe us.
The past of that definition that relates to what I'm talking about here is #3: "sad from being alone: lonesome." In my study and in my conversations that seemed to fit most with what was coming up.
And that makes it something we do everything in our power to avoid, because we don't want to feel that sadness. It also made it interesting to have these conversations with people. We don't like to talk about it in general. But, once I asked the question and created space for it, people had more to say on the topic that I expected.
I noticed an interesting and troubling connection in these conversations. Jana Marguerite Bennett explains it well in her book Singleness and the Church:
"Loneliness is also a problem that people might wish to avoid. One scholar suggests: 'the very word 'lonely' carries a negative connotation . . . signalling social weakness, or an inability to stand on one's own.' So, too, singleness becomes a problem, partly because of its associations with loneliness."Since we see loneliness as a problem to avoid, the association of it with singleness means we often begin to see singleness as a problem too. We do one of two things because of our fear of loneliness: (1) we push single Christian adults away, or (2) we present marriage as the answer to their loneliness.
As Bennett writes earlier in the introduction to her book:
"No wonder singleness appears as lonely, because for Christians it often is. In addition to the suspicion cast on single lives, church culture promotes marriage and coupledom even to the point that some singles stop attending church."I talked to many other Christian adult singles who talked about loneliness because they felt forgotten or pushed out by the church; or, when they did say something about their loneliness, they were told to "just get married" as the solution. (Church experiences obviously varied widely on all that I say when I talk about what I've heard - from really good to really bad and everything in between.) This is a huge contributor to the loneliness epidemic in our culture, in our churches, and specifically among single adult Christians in our churches.
The good news is that there is hope for change. As Bennett writes:
"Loneliness need not be a part of the single life."But for it not to be, we have to understand and do things differently. That's ultimately what I want to write about in this series.
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