From 2007 (with updates)
So There I was...
Lying
in my childhood bed, terrified. I awoke with the sense that something
was very, very wrong. The light was wrong. It was way too late in the
morning for me to be in bed on a school day. The normal sounds of our
household were absent. The teakettle had not whistled. That is the sound
that usually ended my dreams. The sound of my parents sitting at the
kitchen table reading the scripture and praying for each of us children
by name had not occurred, that was my normal ten-minute warning for
getting up. I listened carefully; there was not a sound in the house.
Then I listened for the sounds of the city. I was, after all, in
Chicago, there were millions of people out there. Then I realized that
the whole world had gone silent. There were no cars or trucks rumbling
down Harlem Avenue a block away. There were no sounds from the
neighbors. There were no airplanes in the sky. A city of millions was
silent.
I came swiftly to the only solution that a child of
Evangelical dispensationalists (Darbyism) could come to. Jesus had come like a
thief in the night and had taken away every good person from the world
and I was alone in my family, unraptured. I was scared but not really
surprised. I wasn’t all that good of a kid. But then I thought about it
some more and wondered if my little brother might not still be sleeping
in his bed. He was kind of a pain in the neck, he might still be here. I
thought about how a couple of kids might try and survive the
apocalypse. I knew we were in for at least seven years of tribulation. I
wondered if I forged a note would they let me get the folks’ money out
of the bank before it was too late. I wondered if we could get to our
cousins, those people were Elvis worshippers and had just found out how
wrong they were – but it seemed like taking up with heathens might be a
bad idea just at the moment. I eventually decided to go and see if my
brother was present. I left my room and saw the silent empty kitchen.
The clock confirmed that it was past time to leave for school. No doubt
now. I crept into the living room and to my utter shock and amazement,
there sat my dad.
Looking out the window at the two feet of snow that had fallen
unexpectedly in the night. No work, no school today. No trucks, no
airplanes. A city silenced by God, but not robbed by God. I crawled into
my dad’s lap and breathed in the relief of the pardoned sinner. I was
not alone.
The fear of being alone, temporarily or permanently, is
not just an irrational fear of religious children. The fear of being
alone is one of the most pervasive and destructive fears in our world.
It touches almost everyone eventually. It causes suicides. It fuels
addictions. It provokes people into crazy behaviors that increase rather
than decrease their chances of loneliness. And it is a groundless fear.
Because true isolation is a myth, an impossibility.
Every major
religion teaches this. Christendom in its right mind teaches this.
Jesus said “I will never leave you or forsake you, not until the end of
time.” The Apostle told us that we are surrounded by a host of
witnesses cheering us on to finish our footrace. Angels manifest at the
oddest moments speaking the inevitable “fear not.”
Science
teaches this. We are all really connected. The wings of a butterfly can
start a hurricane. There are resonances between particles at a distance. Nothing corner of the material world is or can be isolated from the rest.
The
mistake comes when we use feelings to predict fact. Now I am all for
feelings. Get the full 96-crayon box of them and use them as often as
you can, but as predictors of fact, they are notoriously fallible.
Sometimes we feel lonely. This is the feeling that defines a craving for
more or better relationship. It hurts. It is supposed to. But if we sit
in the lonely feeling and use it to predict an isolated future, and let
that fear escalate, we will do nutty things. We will forsake our
integrity. We will medicate our loneliness. We attempt to latch onto
anything that seems to offer relief.
Loneliness is a feeling
given to us by God to cause us to seek community. You may be unlucky in
love, but community does not rely on luck. It relies on initiative. You
have to get outside of yourself and your feelings and do something to
connect. You have to give, and be vulnerable enough to let others give
to you. It is hard work, but it works every time.
You commune
with the past by living up to the investment that those who have loved
you have made in you, and listening for their cheers from the stands.
You commune with the future by investing in others and by tilling the
soil and planting the seeds that will feed and shade those who will come
after you. You live in anticipation of their gratitude, knowing that
you will take your place in the spiritual mezzanine to watch their
performances. You choose, by will, to live in the truth that you are a
valued piece of a great company of saints. You take responsibility for
your feelings and your life.
The fear mongers of this world and
the spiritual realm would like you to live in the fear of isolation.
They want you to predict, and then live in, the lie that you are likely
to end up alone and scared. This will prevent you from making those
healthy connections with the past present and future that foil the
fear-based plans they have for controlling your present.
Let us reject this lie.
We
are not alone. We were not born alone. We were not alone before we were
born and we will not be alone in our lives or our deaths and we will
not be alone after our deaths. God is as close as your breath. The
saints are as close as the ear of your soul. Community is as close as
your outstretched hand. (or your keyboard)
.
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