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Saturday, June 30, 2012

Out of the Bowels of Loneliness


Sitting at home or far away,
Distances don’t matter,
For this loneliness to stay.
On terms that scatter,
My thinking’s indifferent—come what may,
Oh, what goes on up there; the chatter!
As I look over my prospects, my life,
Present concerns remind of those gone,
And the truth cuts like a knife.
Déjà vu is reminiscing over a life so long,
Yet now it’s half over and my history’s rife,
And hopes fail for the strength to be strong!
But as I wonder aloud just now,
A space for breath appears,
So I can allow my loneliness to endow.
When I do somehow I can despatch my fears,
With that strength I so wanted, I bow,
It’s for accepting and wiping away the tears!
***
I pine, often, for those loneliest times of my life thus far.
Strange, isn’t it, that we seek after our core sadness as the vitality of connection with the Spirit is sought, having once had it grip our lives like a tarantula? We all (in our feeling spaces) like our sad, sombre music or films. It connects us to the Spirit within calling us to the truth of our lack, and to our irreconcilable darkness, within our psyches in this world.
Yet, back there, it was not at all glamorous! We contemplated many a pitch black achievement. Strange rumblings stirred. It was dangerous territory.
In the bowels of our loneliness we cannot escape. We hate every reminder of that which we don’t have or no longer have. We feel betwixt, betrayed, panicked, numb. Redoubling our anxiety is the fleeting guilt of us feeling sorry for ourselves.
But our feelings of loneliness, of course, are perfectly justified.
God is with us despite the spiritual void we endure. And could God despoil our season of social madness by inflicting upon us any sense of judgmental guilt? No, that’s of human making, not of the divine.
There is a richness in the loneliness that takes us ever close to God.
We don’t see it at the time. But when things get better, we know we’ve lost something. Harrowing depths have gone, yet so too has the intimacy with our self-strength—that which reaches after God.
The bowels of loneliness teach us about ourselves. In such a social dearth we find, ironically, God is ever proximal. And as we recover, our intimacy with God dissipates. God favours the lonely with his merciful Presence.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

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