Loneliness as a journey to human wholeness

I took this photo a few years ago and it has, as its title, 'Midnight Wait at the Pizza Pizza'. At the time I was struck by the solitary space the woman was in and I wondered why she was there, all alone, waiting for her pizza at midnight. 

 

Who was she? where had she come from? what was her story? Of course, I still don't know and won't ever. However, I felt that she was in some way symbolic of loneliness in our modern cities. There seem to be a lot of people who, even if they have friends, family, colleagues, feel isolated and alone. Of course, loneliness is part of our human condition even when we are deeply loved and closely held, but in the cities perhaps especially, it can be hard to reach out in our loneliness to seek the love and community we each need. 

I have begun reading Jean Vanier's book 'Becoming Human'* and was startled that he begins his book speaking about this very thing. He speaks about how loneliness can become either an open wound or a journey to wholeness. When Jean speaks about loneliness as a journey to wholeness he says for instance, 'loneliness can become a source of creative energy; the energy that drives us down new paths to create new things or to seek more truth and justice in the world'. When he then goes on to speak of the wounding aspects of loneliness he says, '[Loneliness] can also be a source of apathy and depression, and even of a desire to die. It can push us into escapes and addictions in the need to forget our inner pain and emptiness'. 

In the book Jean will go on to speak of the importance of human relationships which are healing, forgiving, nourishing through community...community which is large or small, but in any case, caring, accepting and loving. I think he wants to say to us that we can seek this out, we can form community with others, we can help one another if we grow to overcome our fears. 

I found two other photos in my collection which speak to me of how these relationships of healing and joy are meant to begin. I am sure each of these older men and each of the children is experiencing the delight of companionship and the joy of being important to another. 

 We surely must not let loneliness be a destructive element in our lives when it can be a source of life - odd though that may seem.

*Jean Vanier: Becoming Human, Paulist Press, New Jersey, 1998