What religion offers me is not fellowship with God, but fellowship with other human beings…. Loneliness is today's greatest spiritual problem. People who have no intention of shopping go to shopping centers because they need to be where other people are. People come home and turn on the television set, not to watch the program, but to hear another human voice because they're lonely.
Religion should offer us that sense of community, that sense ofHere are people who share something important with you.You don't come to church or temple to find God—you can find God on a mountaintop or in your bedroom. You come to church or temple to find a congregation, to find others who need the same things from life that you need. By coming together, you create the moment where God is present.1
There is a parable about a blacksmith who worked hard in his trade.
The day came for him to die.
An angel was sent to him, and much to the angel's surprise, he refused to go.
He pleaded with the angel to make his case before God, that he was the only blacksmith in the area and the neighbors needed him as they began their planting and sowing.
He didn't want to appear ungrateful but respectfully asked to put the death off.
The angel left….
A year or two later, the angel returned and told the blacksmith it was time to share in the fullness of the kingdom of heaven.
The man argued that a neighbor was seriously ill and the whole town was working to save his crops in order for his family not to become destitute.
The angel left again….
This became a pattern as each time the blacksmith had a compelling reason to remain in service to his neighbors.
Finally, when he was very old, weary and tired, the blacksmith prayed for the angel of death to return.
The angel appeared immediately, as if always there.
The blacksmith said,
I'm ready to live forever in the kingdom of heaven now.
The angel laughed and looked at the blacksmith in delight and surprise and said, Where do you think you’ve been all these years?
2
The blacksmith knew the fullness of life in engaging in meaningful connections. The healing balm of community can carry us through our lives. But what of times when we did not feel so connected? A resident theologian mused recently with me about spiritual homelessness—times when people feel disconnected—times when one feels in the midst of broken strands in the web of life. What do we do then? This is something that we are far equipped at dealing with than we think.
[ adlib Umbilical chord—cut soon after arrival. Broken strands in the web a part of life. Comings and goings, reworking of relationships, etc. The learning comes from how we deal with these broken strands—Massage therapist, traumas lead to new job—finding connections of own ability to heal and give—making connections with others. adlib ]
It is very important to find and feel connections….
A recent study by sociologists at Duke University and the University of Arizona found that one out of every four Americans have no close confidants at all.
On average, most adults only have two people they can talk to about the most important subjects in their lives.
Lynn Smith-Lovin, co-author of the study, was surprised by the results.
The kinds of connections we studied are the kinds of people you call on for social support,
she said, for real concrete help when you need it.
3
The study revealed that we are getting more isolated. Americans have a third fewer close friends and confidants than just two decades ago, so it is likely they are living lonelier lives.4
One out of four people, think of it, it could be 15 or 20 people in this room right now—if we reflected the national average—one out of four adults in our society do not have anyone they feel they can share intimate information with—25% percent of our nation do not feel they have a trusted friend….
A New York Times article printed last year, entitled All the Lonely People,
lifted up that over the last decade,
the United States has become a less violent country except when it comes to fatal violence on themselves.
Since the year 2000, the suicide rate has particularly sharply among the middle-aged.
The suicide rate for Americans 35 to 54 increased nearly 30 percent between 1999 and 2010;
for men in their 50s, it rose nearly 50 percent.
More Americans now die of suicide than in car accidents, and gun suicides are almost twice as common as gun homicides.5
We have work to do. We have work to do as a community. We have work to do as a people. We have work to do within ourselves. The interdependent web does function in ways that we do not control nor often notice. Our breath is in relationship to trees, ecosystems intricately respond to the energies and functions of its parts and the Cosmos has a logic beyond our full knowing. But there are strands in the interdependent web that we steward: the strands of relationship to other beings, the strands of intention and awareness, the strands of community. These strands must be strengthened by our care, given resilience by our dependability and flexibility, be ever available by our constancy and willingness to both connect and let go with love. One common reason why people come to faith communities is to find connection—with oneself, with others, with a larger presence of Being that fill out our lives. The desire for community is natural, even though our society, so hooked on independence, would have us judge seeking community as weak. Somehow we've come to the distortion in our collective consciousness that seeking community means we've failed to make it on our own. The seeds of this way of being together sprung from the industrial revolution, which helped foster an illusion of self-reliance and then was furthered by our technological prowess toward cyber worlds.
[ adlib Reminded on climate ride—folk walking not aware of us tapped into cellular devices. Remember noticing that a decade ago in airport… folk glued to cell phones. Reality around people getting smaller as cyber world expands—not anti-tech, has helped equalize access to information and so shared power, but don't replace community with it. adlib ]
People often walk into churches having experienced some kind of brokenness or loneliness:
a torn relationship, a betrayal, a death, a spiritual restlessness, a feeling of not enough
or something's missing.
With the societal conditioning that seeking community indicates a kind of failure, people often enter already judging themselves as needy
rather than wise to seek connection.
Admitting vulnerability is brave. Seeking connection is wise. Allowing for the exchange of giving and receiving is life affirming. Trying something new is bold. Yeah, you couldn't 'make it' on your own. Welcome to humanity and to your enlightened impulse to live it fully in shared being.
The interdependent web calls for active participation and intention. It is a vibrant, fluid reality constantly transforming. Strands are breaking and healing, forming and reforming on a regular basis. In order to feel the connection that is ever available we have to engage ourselves in relationship and find the balance of dependence and independence in order to flow in interdependence.
We can be thrown off by messages that invite unhealthy dependency. In fact, much of consumerism depends on that. We are encouraged to come to false images about ourselves in order to keep us dependent on systems that feed off our our energies and resources. We can feel insufficient, lacking, guilty, ashamed, disabled, helpless, not enough. These messages attract predators who delight and feed off of our self-doubt, insecurities, feeling of lack and wanting more.
To shake out of that dependency loop we need to find and feel our inherent dignity, our worthiness, our beauty.
Sometimes people feel spiritually homeless because they feel they cannot fit in.
The false logic is the need to fit in.
We are all unique, none of us fit in,
yet by nature of our birth, all of us belong.
A Sufi parable:
Once as dusk was falling, Rabia, the old mystic was found searching for something on the street.
Though she was of a crazy temperament, the people loved her and so opted to help her.
You seem to have lost something. What are you searching?
Oh I am searching for my lost needle,
said Rabia. The gathered group set off to look for the lost needle immediately. One man asked,
Which is the exact spot where you have lost it? It will be easier to find
Rabia answered, Don't ask me that for I have lost it inside my house and not outside.
The crowd was baffled. What! you have lost it inside your house? Then why are you searching outside you crazy woman?
Rabia said, You see there is only darkness inside the house and I do not have a lamp.
Hence I am looking for it outside as the sun has not set completely!
How can you ever find the needle outside that you have lost inside your house?
You could have borrowed a lamp from one of us.
Rabia was quick, Oh you are all so wise!
Then why are you seeking outside instead of searching within?
I was just trying to follow your ways.
I am aware that there is darkness inside.
If only you can borrow a lamp from me and search within!
6
Much of our loneliness comes from judging ourselves unworthy or unable to connect. The first connection needs to be with one's own sense of worth. We can help one another feel worthy of love. That is an important part of our relating in community. But it will not be understood till there is room within to be loved, room within that knows your worth.
An important step in repairing or rerouting broken strands in the place where we enter the web of life is to cultivate solitude, the ability to be alone and like one's company. Solitude is a fullness of relating to our surrendings—loneliness is an emptiness, a disconnection with self in our surrendings. When we enter that place of being, that comfort with our own company, then we come into community able to be wherever we are on our journey. If we know ourselves as beings who somehow belong in the whole scheme of things, we can then brave the healing we need, or the sharing we give or the discoveries we come upon. Church can bring us back to that deep remembrance of our life's worth and our inherent strength and beauty within it.
Someone this morning needed that hug or hand shake you gave them.
Someone this morning needed to feel their welcome warm another.
Someone this morning noticed the gorgeous color of another’s eyes or the calming sensation of another’s smile.
Someone this morning decided that the enormous effort it took to get here was worth it and that indeed life may be worth living.
Someone this morning realized that they belonged as part of a community.
Someone this morning hopes that the tears just under the surface will be held in care and can flow freely.
Someone this morning hopes that the vulnerable joy of new meaning and a deeper faith will be generously heard and held.
These and many more interchanges are possible because of you.
These and many more interchanges can offer true healing to you.
These and many more interchanges can bring joy to our lives.
Thank you for venturing into this community.
It is, indeed, a repair and restore and revival station for the web of our lives.
So may it be. Amen.
All the Lonely People,New York Times, May 18, 2013.
Copyright © 2014 Lisa Ward. All Rights Reserved.