Henri Nouwen struck a chord in me; a dissonant chord; a chord that hits the ear harshly, but with tones that leave brilliant depth, a chord you don’t want to be right, but for some unforeseen reason it is. Nouwen expresses the thought that when you enter a friendship or relationship with human beings, it makes you all the more aware of your own loneliness. It reveals all the needs within yourself, whether realized or unrealized, that you are hopeful that the person across from you can somehow meet, somehow touch, somehow be the end all be all, somehow embody being hope. One glaring need is basic: wanting to be wanted by someone, and for a brief period of time, having that need met, having been chosen as ‘the one’, ‘the best friend’, ‘the boy/girl friend’, the ‘husband/wife’. But what does time do to these titles? How does a society that spins the word ‘commitment’-as if it were foreign-support these ideals? What happens when 4 days, 4 months, 4 years pass, and someone feels as though they are back to the drawing board, in search of that one we believe can make every need go away?
If we look closely we can see how avoiding loneliness manifests itself: many times it involves becoming so heartily encroached in some type of connecting activity to help you feel anything besides the loneliness that doesn’t budge. As humans we need experiences, we need the tangible, we need someone to say that they love us, we need the most current attractive distraction to buy us a little more time from the pieces of us that are undeniably frightening to unite with that lie deep in our hearts.
Facebook- I’ve heard some refer to this social network as a “glass of milk with just a hint of arsenic laced in it.” An online activity so entertaining, a place to reconnect with friends from your past, a click of a button to see what the latest news is of your cyberworld/real world collision of friendships. Yet how much time does it take from us? How often have you found yourself going from page to page desperately wanting a deeper connection with the picture displayed in front of you? How many times has it served as a place of hiding?
I believe we should never view loneliness as a negative attribute. If loneliness could be a part of our healthily lifestyle, then why are we so quick in delaying to really see it, or rather embrace it? Loneliness can help spur on healthiness in relationships with others by letting us understand that every person we come into contact with is exactly like us: human with needs. When we finally discover that another person by no means can save us 100% of the time, we begin to let the one we are relating to off of the hook of our need for a human-savior. We release our demands of underlying requirements that we have placed on the relationship. We simply can just be with no ploys, no manipulation, no striving, and no performance. Then we can see through that relationship that there has to be something bigger and greater outside of ourselves that can fill those deep lonely places--something supernatural. And only when we get filled there can we even begin to fathom pouring it into others.
Lower still with no expectation.
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