by Anna Mondal
Life is riddled with lonely seasons. Friends get married—you’re still single. Soldiers get deployed. Spouses separate. People disappoint and wound us. We disappoint and wound others. People die. And we are lonely.
Loneliness is like a sudden tide, that, “in the most unpremeditated ways, in the oddest places and for the most absurd reasons” sweeps in and pours over you.[1] It’s the sense of desolation following a rejection, a misunderstanding, or a loss. A new widower, C.S. Lewis wrote: “There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me…I dread the moments when the house is empty.”[2]
Face loneliness, don’t fix it
Loneliness is a form of suffering—and with all suffering comes a temptation toward self-sufficiency. We want to fix our bad feelings. We want controllable outcomes. We might manhandle loneliness by running away from it: rabidly practicing hospitality, plotting coffee meets, self-martyring through serving others. It’s not wrong to host or serve, we were built for relationships, these are good things.[3] But if we pursue them to suppress our sadness, we’re “not seeking community at all, but only distraction which will allow [us] to forget [our] loneliness for a brief time.”[4]
Loneliness is not
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