You are no doubt familiar with the news about studies that declare stress is really bad for you, and that it might even lead to premature death. You know, the kinds of studies that remind you that worry and anxiety render a physical toll on your health?
Do you find these helpful?
Most of us can think of times when major shifts have become necessary in our lives because emotional and mental stress has become too much. We can also think of times when well meaning studies or health professionals have told us that we should decrease the amount of stress in our lives, only to have this advice remind us that such a thing is not possible, that whatever is causing the stress is a part of our lives that cannot simply be changed or excised. The advice to limit stress levels can, in this way, wind up adding to our stress levels.
There was an article this past week in the Times of London that indicated something that is worse for our health than drinking or smoking or not exercising. It turns out that worse than all of those things, that which can take years off of our lives is, loneliness.
So - don’t be lonely.
That’s helpful.
There were risk factors that contributed more to an early death than loneliness. These are obesity and high levels of cholesterol. Does that make you feel better? Probably not if you are lonely AND identify with those factors as well.
Loneliness is one of those things that is interesting and sometimes troubling in regard to faith. You may have been part of a religious community in which there was stigma around issues of mental health. In such communities, the anguish of mental health difficulty can be exacerbated by a second assault that comes with the misguided idea that, if only your faith was stronger, you would not feel what you feel. The mental health struggle is terrible enough, the accusation of spiritual failure can be even worse.
Loneliness can bring up similar problems in faith communities. I can recall, as a pastor, many times when people within the church would complain that “there is not enough community in our church.” This assessment can, of course, be true, but there is often more to it than simple declaration. Often, the person making the accusation, in my experience, was grappling with some form of loneliness. They may have had multiple friends and a family, but may still have felt lonely. As can often happen, they could carry a sense that, if the church was effective and truly Christian, then it should would be alleviating such feelings. As it was not, then there must be a problem with the church. As a pastor, this became a delicate context in which to care for the person. I did not want to disregard or blame but I did think that it was perhaps worth considering the nature and causes of the sense of loneliness.
Another pastoral consideration around loneliness arose from some of the people who did meet the more classic criteria of being alone. In any religious community, there are people who are not part of a family or couple living together. They live alone, do not have a partner or spouse, and may deal with loneliness as it is more commonly understood. In my pastoral experience, there was not a direct correlation between living alone and feeling lonely. One difficulty in some religious communities is that marriage and family can become idols and it can be almost assumed that people on their own are a rung or two down the ladder. This is detrimental to life and faith in community. As a pastor, most of the people I worked with who struggled with loneliness actually had quite a few people around them and were part of a larger family in the same house. Many of those who lived on their own did not struggle with loneliness. There was, in some instances, however, the idea that, if a church was really a good church, then no one would feel lonely. I don’t think that this is helpful.
Just as a more mature view of mental health understands that often the role of the church is to be spiritual community for the person who carries mental health struggle, so for those who grapple with loneliness, often the role of the church is to be spiritual community for them in the midst of the struggle, even if it is chronic, particularly then.
A second article that had me thinking about these things this week addresses the concept of the “nones”. These are people, particularly young people, who have had virtually no church experience, no religious affiliation. The article is written by a young person who highlights the idea that, while such people may not be looking at all for what traditional churches seem to offer, there was still at least one thing that church could offer that is longed for even by “nones.” This is community.
Many of us can identify with wanting to be left alone, virtually none of us want to be lonely.
This turns to prayer for me, to the 139th Psalm that many of you know.
A prayer to God;
“Where can I flee from your presence? If I go to the far side of the sea (they thought the earth was flat back then), even if I go to the darkest depths, even there you are with me.”
Is it enough to know that God is with us, that there are no God-forsaken places?
Perhaps, but sometimes we feel lonely and some people struggle with loneliness more than others.
If you have a sense that some people you know may be among them, we know that there are things we can do that might help. Make that phone call. Check in.
With these things, it is true that “We are all in this together.”