YOUR LONELINESS
What do you do with your loneliness? One of the massive results of the
invasion of privacy so characteristic of our times is the increasing fear of
being alone. Loneliness is of many kinds.
There is the loneliness of a great bitterness when the pain is so great that any
contact with others threatens to open old wounds and to awaken old frenzies.
There is the loneliness of the broken heart and the dead friendship when
what was full of promise and fulfillment lost its way in a fog of
misunderstanding, anxiety, and fear. There is the loneliness of those who
have absorbed so much of violence that ail hurt has died, leaving only the
charred reminder of a lost awareness. There is the loneliness of the shy and
the retiring where timidity stands guard against all encounters and the will to
relate to others is stilled. There is the loneliness of despair , the exhaustion of
the spirit, leaving no strength to try again, the promise of the second wind
can find no backing. There is the loneliness of death when silently a man, a
woman, listens, one by one, to the closing of all doors, and all that remains is
naked life, stripped of everything that shields, protects, and insulates.
But there is loneliness in another key. There is the loneliness of the truth-
seeker whose search swings out beyond all frontiers and all boundaries until
there bursts upon view a fleeting moment of utter awareness and you know
beyond all doubt, all contradictions. There is the loneliness of the moment of
integrity when the declaration of the self is demanded and the commitment
gives no corner to sham, to pretense, or to lying. There is the loneliness in
the moment of creation when the new comes into being, trembles, then
steadies and finds its way. There is the loneliness of those who walk with
Spirit until the path takes them out beyond all creeds and all faiths and they
know the wholeness of communion and the bliss of finally being understood.
Loneliness is of many kinds. What do you do with yours?
--Howard Thurman, The Inward Journey
What do you do with your loneliness? One of the massive results of the
invasion of privacy so characteristic of our times is the increasing fear of
being alone. Loneliness is of many kinds.
There is the loneliness of a great bitterness when the pain is so great that any
contact with others threatens to open old wounds and to awaken old frenzies.
There is the loneliness of the broken heart and the dead friendship when
what was full of promise and fulfillment lost its way in a fog of
misunderstanding, anxiety, and fear. There is the loneliness of those who
have absorbed so much of violence that ail hurt has died, leaving only the
charred reminder of a lost awareness. There is the loneliness of the shy and
the retiring where timidity stands guard against all encounters and the will to
relate to others is stilled. There is the loneliness of despair , the exhaustion of
the spirit, leaving no strength to try again, the promise of the second wind
can find no backing. There is the loneliness of death when silently a man, a
woman, listens, one by one, to the closing of all doors, and all that remains is
naked life, stripped of everything that shields, protects, and insulates.
But there is loneliness in another key. There is the loneliness of the truth-
seeker whose search swings out beyond all frontiers and all boundaries until
there bursts upon view a fleeting moment of utter awareness and you know
beyond all doubt, all contradictions. There is the loneliness of the moment of
integrity when the declaration of the self is demanded and the commitment
gives no corner to sham, to pretense, or to lying. There is the loneliness in
the moment of creation when the new comes into being, trembles, then
steadies and finds its way. There is the loneliness of those who walk with
Spirit until the path takes them out beyond all creeds and all faiths and they
know the wholeness of communion and the bliss of finally being understood.
Loneliness is of many kinds. What do you do with yours?
--Howard Thurman, The Inward Journey
