Irony Becomes Her

Diablog, Part I

A dear friend, relative and well-wisher proposed a series of dialogues in which she and I take up topics and bounce thoughts off each other. We don't know exactly how we'll do it, but to me the motivation is welcome through the long drought of creativity I've been in. She was even willing to start it off!

Loneliness

Hannah: The last time I struggled with loneliness, I came across a song lyric, “Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut more deep.” Not being at the rock bottom total pit of despair, I found these words strangely encouraging. Someone had thrown down the gauntlet, it seemed. You're lonely. Learn something from it. Don't run. A couple of weeks ago, I was so depressed that I had to pack my calendar, just to make sure that I would do something (positive) with myself. Now, I am more in the comfortably melancholic, even hopeful state of being. The temptation towards frenetic activity creeps in, but deep still calls to deep. God is still singing his love song over me: "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare."
Isaiah 55:1-2

Lynn: You’re definitely onto something. That wine and milk of comfort and companionship is available by facing into the darkness and plunging deeper into it. We don’t notice that the fruits of our labors aren’t satisfactory unless we’re looking our need square in the face. The reality there isn’t pretty: We don’t just feel inadequate by ourselves – we are. Our need is a black hole which will just swallow up the junk (food, flattery, finance, festivity) we throw into it. But we are invited to “eat what is good,” provided by a source outside ourselves. The connection to that source is perfected when we openly acknowledge the need, as Paul did in II Corinthians 12:9: “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” Paul also wanted to know the “fellowship of sharing in his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10).

Like most things worth doing, that journey of loneliness is long-term, as Paul described a few verses later: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Instant gratification, it turns out, is a lousy prize – it tends to be just as fleeting as it is immediate. Those of us who want the good stuff are OK with the pangs of loneliness that are only drawing us through the darkness and toward the Comforter who administers a peace unlike anything available in the world (John 14:26-27).

posted by Lynn @ 9:02 AM