loneliness on Death

We live in a death-denying world that seems determined to develop technologies that will enable us to get out of life alive. Yet the more we strive to be free of death the more we are shaped by the de...

Thank You, Lord, for the gifts of life, of love and of care that come from You, wrapped in our moms and step-moms, in our grand-moms, great-grandmas, daughters, sisters, and aunts. We’re grateful for...

Reflection The television series Alone follows ten individuals who are left to fend for themselves and by themselves in the wilderness. Now, these aren’t everyday individuals plucked from Main St...

Jesus–our Lord, Savior and Friend: Come into our hearts to save us and to rule. Come into your Church to direct and empower us with Your Gospel and Your Spirit. Come into your World to redeem the Lost...

Lord Jesus—the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, and the author of change, who’s constantly doing “a new thing,” which makes us sit up and take notice. We admit, we’d be more comfortable with a pred...

In his book The DNA of Relationships counselor Gary Smalley argues from countless hours of research and observation alongside the wisdom of the Bible that we are hardwired for relationship. This i...

Context to Chapter 19 If you are following the semi-continuous lectionary you may have read the context for this passage in church last week. However, if you are following one of the more traditional...

Context to Chapter 19 Before this passage in 1 Kings, Elijah has just challenged (and massacred) the prophets of Baal. He has fled into the wilderness to escape the wrath of Queen Jezebel and is now ...

According to a 2018 CIGNA study, loneliness in America has reached “epidemic” levels. After surveying twenty thousand adults, researchers found that 46 percent felt alone either sometimes or always, 4...

Whether young or old, Americans are feeling more isolated. According to a recent study from the Pew Research Center, about half of Americans have weekly interactions with their neighbors, which means ...

Many of us assume that our spiritual heroes do not have to experience the same inner-wrestling that we do. Mother Teresa, beloved across the world is one such figure we might “assume” didn’t have to d...

The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.

The greatest dis-ease facing humanity right now is our profound and painful sense of disconnection.

Was ever grief like mine?

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence. (For Contrast).

In his novel, The Pale King , David Foster Wallace discusses the issue of boredom, or, as he puts it, dullness: . . . Maybe it’s because dullness is intrinsically painful; maybe that’s where ph...

Pain is the most individualizing thing on earth. It is true that it is the great common bond as well, but that realization comes only when it is over. To suffer is to be alone. To watch another suffer...

Should his heart break and the grief pour out, it would flow over the whole earth, it seems, and yet, no one sees it.

No person has ever walked our earth and been free from the pains of loneliness. Rich and poor, wise and ignorant, faith-filled and agnostic, healthy and unhealthy have all alike had to face and strugg...

Deep within there is a glorious and terrible empty space – loneliness. It is out of sight, pushing us to our best and to our worst. Behind every effort to make a friend – Behind ambition – Behind prid...

In this poignant social commentary, the comedian Louis C.K. points out why it is that people are constantly staring at their cell-phones: because they don’t want to acknowledge the loneliness that is ...

“Man has a horror of aloneness, and of all kinds of aloneness, moral aloneness is the most terrible.”

Writer Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938), after years of seeking happiness, articulated his gloomy assessment of life: The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being ...

The soul selects her own society, Then shuts the door; On her divine majority, Obtrude no more.

The lusts of the flesh reveal the loneliness of the soul.

In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable, we learn that ultimately in this world there is no finished symphony.

Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you, As few human or even divine ingredients can. Something missing in my heart tonight Has made my eyes sof...

I was listening to a lecture on friendship to prepare this sermon and the speaker used the movie The Bride of Frankenstein as an illustration. Now, for this to work, you have to put the movie Young...

Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.

God of our life, there are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies grey and threatening; when our lives have no music in...