Lent: Lonliness

As I shared lunch with a friend on Sunday, we fell into a conversation about what kinds of suffering bother us most.  For her, it was loneliness, particularly seeing elderly people eating alone.  

I've thought about lonely hearts quite a bit lately.  I read this article recently about drug addiction which pointed out addiction is not so much a crime against society as a symptom of loneliness, and that when you remove the stigma of crime and put addicted people in strong community, the problem is decimated.  It resonated deeply with me.  

I've worried about friends suffering alone, and of Emma's little Gracie, who just lost her mother to cancer, of her impending loneliness.   I've not had to endure loss like that, though I have had seasons of loneliness as a young mother and a new college student.  I think our society calls it depression, but maybe it is just a secret, sad space of disconnection and dissatisfaction.  

I imagine the road to Golgotha was as lonesome a road as any.  Jesus was surrounded his whole life by people who, at best, did not understand him, and at worst, despised him.  He walked his final steps, dragging his own cross, surrounded by people, but utterly alone.

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Isaiah 53:3  

and so, this:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses...  Hebrews 4:15

This is not a Christian platitude for loneliness.  This is a truth to cling to.  And it is a reminder to extend empathy and to let it move you bravely into the circle of someone's loneliness.