loneliness on Physical Presence

The etymology of certain words can profoundly enrich our understanding and experience of life. Consider the word “consolation.” Its roots lie in the Latin words “con-” meaning “ “to be ” and “solus,...

These days, a common trick people use to remember someone they’ve just met is to save their first name along with the place where they met them—like “Matt PTA,” for example. I recently realized I stil...

If you feel a great loneliness and a deep longing for human contact, you have to be extremely discerning…and ask yourself whether this situation is truly God given. Because where God wants you to be, ...

Our current cultural moment makes rich, life-giving friendships like the one David and Jonathan shared a challenge. We are connected like never before, yet isolated and lonely like never before. MIT p...

In an interview with MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle, Megan Garber asks what makes in-person conversation unique, compared to all the other ways we communicate these days: Conversations, as they tend...

In this excerpt from Jay Y. Kim’s book, Analog Church , the author shares about an experience at a local restaurant after being convicted of his own smartphone use at home, keeping him from being p...

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...

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

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).

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...

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...

God—Father, Son and Spirit; You are a God of compassion and love. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we’ve known Your love, and experienced Your care and provision. Repeatedly You’ve answered our ...

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...

Lonely people tend, rather, to be lonely because they decline to bear the psychic costs of being around other humans. They are allergic to people. People affect them too strongly.

God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Lord of all our yesterdays, todays and tomorrows: thank you that we don’t need to be afraid of what’s coming because you’re already there ahead of us. Nothing takes yo...

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...

Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.

Practically every human being . . . has experienced that strange inner gnawing, that mental hunger, that unsettling unrest that makes us say, ‘I feel lonely.’ Loneliness is one of the most universal e...

Sometimes we become so lonely, we'll do whatever we can to have some social interaction. Vulgar and with a quick wit, Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was a significant short-story writer and social cri...

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 ...

In the intro sequence of the beloved children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood , the first interior shot does not show the host. Instead, in the beat before Fred Rogers appears on the screen si...

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...

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

Loneliness comes over us sometimes as a sudden tide. It is one of the terms of our humanness, and, in a sense, therefore, incurable. Yet I have found peace in my loneliest times not only through accep...

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...

The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his o...

No relationship, however deep and intimate, can ever fully take our loneliness from us.

Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you.

There’s been a lot of talk about friendship because of Facebook and the internet. You can collect friends and “likes” and begin to feel pretty good about yourself, depending on how many you accumulate...