This Is For All the Lonely People

 It comes in waves doesn't it? There's a loneliness that's risen to the surface in our lives, exacerbated by a cold, wet blanket of a Pandemic that surges on. The tide has gone out. We have no more breathe. 

Figuratively and literally, sadly.

There's loneliness in Covid. There's loneliness in our small celebrations of life and holidays. There's loneliness in our friendships, as a lot of them drift apart like continents in a vast oceans. We can only maintain so many. There's loneliness in the guilt and shame that whispers in our ear, "You haven't been a very good friend."

There's loneliness in the hurt. The parenting, the teaching, the relationships and marriages, the sons and daughters, the childless, the houseless, the sick and dying. 

There's loneliness in not knowing how to respond to yet another death. There's loneliness in the grief. 

There's loneliness in the accused and the accuser, the oppressed and the oppressor. 

This thread weaves it's way through human history from the moment Eve and Adam ate the fruit up until this very moment. The breathe of the living God left their spirit and loneliness entered in. The tide went out.

The tide went out for a long, long time. As a dear friend recently pondered, what a lonely world it must've been for Jesus to enter into on that silent night he was born. 

And the tide came back in. Breathe abundant roared into the weary world. In the person and experience of Jesus, a way was made for all the lonely people. I can't help but think of how the band America's song "Lonely People" got written. 

"Lonely People" was written as an optimistic response to the Beatles' song "Eleanor Rigby ". Dan Peek considered "Eleanor Rigby" an "overwhelming" "picture...of the masses of lost humanity, drowning in grey oblivion" and would recall being "lacerated" on first hearing the lyrics of its chorus which run "All the lonely people: where do they all come from...where do they all belong". "Lonely People" was written within a few weeks of Dan Peek's 1973 marriage to Catherine Mayberry: Peek- "I always felt like a melancholy, lonely person. And now [upon getting married] I felt like I’d won." The lyrics of "Lonely People" advise "all the lonely people": "Don't give up until you drink from the silver cup", a metaphor which Dan Peek thus explains: "It's possible to drink from another's well of experience...and be refreshed." (Thank you Wikipedia).

Thank God one doesn't have to be married to be refreshed or have a sense of belonging. As Charlotte Donlon says, "What if loneliness is a necessary part of the human condition? What if it is a current that leads us deeper into belonging--to ourselves, to each other and to God?" 

What if Jesus is the silver cup?

And yet, we know that all is not restored yet. Our loneliness will never be fully satisfied until that Healing Day. But we still can have Jesus in the silent darkness. We can still have Him in the loneliness. There is a mercy in seeing where the loneliness leads. May we have the curiosity to see. 

*Artwork of "The Angels Appearing to the Shepherds" by Thomas Cole.