With Us

 

One of the most difficult emotional challenges of this life is to experience loneliness.  Loneliness comes in so many forms.  We can be lonely because of physical isolation from others.  We all experienced this to some degree because of COVID.  We can even be with people and still feel lonely.  Often people who live in big cities with populations in the millions can experience loneliness.  Sadly, at other times, people can intentionally be made to feel lonely.  Youth who are bullied or adults who are in toxic relationships can be emotionally placed in isolation.

God has always been aware of the potential for our loneliness and its destructive effects.  In Genesis, we see God creating Eve, a companion for Adam, so he would not be alone.  In Jesus’ sending out the disciples on mission to heal and preach, he doesn’t send them out as Lone Rangers, he sent them out in pairs.  Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Marriage, in part, so the two would be one.

We are made to be in relationship with others.  We are made to love.  When deprived of that opportunity, we feel very much alone.  We need to feel that others are present to us and that we can fulfill our human responsibility to be present to others.  We need people present in our lives.

Often those relationships are not necessarily deep ones, but even those that aren’t deep can be very meaningful.  I recall growing up in Queens and traveling to high school on public transportation.  Each morning as I made a transfer from a bus to a subway, I would stop at a corner newsstand and buy a copy of the Daily News.  Believe it or not, I think the paper cost 35 cents in those days, but that’s another story.  The man selling the newspapers each day was an older man who legally blind.  I never knew his name and he never knew mine, but each day as I stopped to buy my newspaper, I would pause for a few minutes of chatter.  We’d talk about the Met game the night before or the weather.  This small interchange became a pleasant and meaningful part of my day and I hope for his as well.

One day, I came to the newsstand to discover that the gate was down.  The newsstand was shuttered and would never open again.  I am not sure what happened to the man, but I did know I missed our daily pleasantries.  They must have had an impact on me, because I still recall them today, some forty years later.

God did not leave us alone.  In fact, he always wants to be present to us.  In the garden, when Adam disobeyed God, God did not leave him to go it alone.  He sought him out, “Adam, where are you?”

And so he seeks us, not just to keep us company, not just for passing moments, but for a deep relationship, that will do more than fill an emotional need, but that will save us!

In this season, we live out that yearning for him.  We cry, “O come, O come Emmanuel.”  We cry for God to be with us.  We can be joyful, because indeed, he is with us.

- The Servant