So many people are lonely! And how deep is the loneliness! It is a loneliness of soul, craving a friend, craving a community to belong to, a safe place to communicate these longings and to take the steps on a journey. Meandering in hopelessness and lack of purpose and direction makes it easier for emotions to get out of control: fear, anger, depression, anxiety. In all this desperation, spiritual needs are rising to the surface.
Often people have no language to express these needs. The traditional terms seem like quicksand pulling people back into nightmares where word symbols like “God,” “Jesus,” and “religion” acquired terrible connotations.
Emerging communities give leaders a priceless opportunity to give voice to the reality of a wise, strong, and loving Father, whose spirit dwells within. We go in search of a friend, and we can find one inside of us day and night. If we seek this spirit gift, we can find energy, power, dignity, wisdom, insight, peace, creativity, purpose, guidance, love, and friendship.
When the message of the Father is gentle and generous, seekers who think and speak differently can feel at home.
The psychology of loneliness is connected with the sociology of stressed communities. Generations of broken families have led to generations of people who feel, to some extent, like orphans. Even if parents have stayed together in a literal sense, we may have been too busy or too immature to do a reasonable job of rearing our children. The universal family is not a substitute for a human family and other forms of community. But finding our core identity in the universal family may be the secret to healing our communities. And communities whose core values are universal will bless individuals and send forth ripple effects to the rest of the planet.
Photo credit: presto44 http://mrg.bz/SbEZGi
Brother Jeff,
Indeed what you have described is so very true; we wonder what is wrong within and without. It would seem that the vast majority of us in our society should be content since they have for the most part had their material needs met. But there is something inside of us that will not be satisfied with that level of achievement; the paucity of achievements of quality create a commotion deep down within our souls, destroying our sense of temporal tranquility. We search everywhere trying to find the solution.
And these personal disturbances are shared by society at large. Our society and indeed our world is fractured. And though we are reluctantly to recognize the brotherhood of man, we suffer from the effects of not doing so. Social strife, alienation, isolation, loneliness, family dysfunction and breakdown, economic and political exploitation are all signs of the effects of not embracing the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
Everything in this life, including us evolves. It is futile to try to rest upon our present level of satisfaction. That is not the intent of our creation. We continue to evolve, and continue to suffer the devastations of not resolving the inner conflicts as well as the outer conflicts that are the result of that evolution. These conflicts can only be resolved by choosing the higher meanings and values that have caused the conflicts in the first place. These higher values and meanings require that we embrace the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This and only this will bring about the harmony and happiness that we all desire, from the most humble to the greatest among us.
Religion, and symbols of our religious faith have been subjugated and diverted away from their true spiritual purpose and therefore have lost the power to bring comfort and succor to our society. There is only one recourse left, and that is for each of us to seek to know God for ourselves and as ourselves. And having discovered him, to strive to do his will, to become like him, and this is only right since he is our Father and we are his children.
And for those of us who are from the proverbial city of Missouri who need to be shown, if you seek Him, you will find him, and if you fail to seek him, you will find the consequences of not doing so that is now reflected in our disharmonious lives and society.
Lets all of us give God a sincere chance to show us the way to life, happiness, and satisfaction before we throw the baby out with the bathwater. God remains real despite the unworthy things that are done and said in his name.
Dr. Perry
This is an important message for our times. Sometimes it feels like individualism is reaching a fever pitch, where truth is becoming more subjective and selfishness is corroding families and communities. Augustine described it well, and I thank you for that reading of City of God all those years ago. Any time spent on social media will reveal cultural malaise and anger, and it is so easy to get caught up in that. I see so many people who are angry, sad, and in a great state of desolation, and how easy it is to fall prey to such negativity. I know I sure did, and it was often done under the assumption that I was acting from the standpoint of truth and justice. But when truth and justice corrodes community and promotes joylessness it is, I feel, a symptom that there is something lacking in ones understanding of truth and justice. They have become, in a word, misplaced.
Starting with love seems to me to be immediately inclusive, even if it is just a feeling one has toward others that goes unnoticed. It creates a lightness to one’s heart, and is joyous, and how much more inviting is the one who is joyous.
I am reminded of that wonderful quip by St. Francis: Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. Doesn’t it seem that love is the first and most necessary component in all relationships? That necessity of love can then move out to generosity, the possible. From there it may (hopefully) manifest into what seems impossible.
As always, your insights move me to reflection so I hope you don’t me publicly reflecting here.
I give thanks, beloved Charles, for the opportunity to stay in touch as the years go forward. You are right about the times when standing up, it seems, for truth and justice, seems like an isolating and joyless enterprise. If I use those words to pick out some experiences of my own, I was shocked, at first, to discover that the common and trite accusation applied to me: projecting onto others what one fails to recognize in oneself.
I also give thanks that we can experience the stance of (and receive the divine gift of) love as an overarching attitude. This achieves its complement by becoming real through the process of learning to love others. I have found that socializing and getting to know people are wonderful ways to do this. And my recent favorite technique is the vocational interview. I’ll describe it in a future blog post.
Your quote from St. Francis delights me utterly. I shall copy it, keep it by my computer, and add your name next to it, as the one who gets an assist by revealing it to me. Begin by doing the necessary, then the possible, then the impossible.
I give thanks!