LONLINESS

Loneliness is one of the biggest problems in our lives.
If we are able to keep busy going here and there I am not always aware of it.
.but I think that deep within each one of us there is a place of loneliness.

We can be lonely in a family, in a marriage, in a job and in a community,  I think maybe it helps to be open about it and to be willing to make an effort to making your life better and the life around you.   Human nature often brings out the worse in people especially  those who have been abused and broken by life.  We all have our scars. We all  have moments of lonliness.

I love the story of Jesus healing the blind man where I think he uses sign language to touch his eyes and his mouth, then he sighs with compassion knowing the loneliness this man has lived with.

Today we have many especially western intellectuals foretelling the end of religion.  From the past we had Karl Marx and to-day we have Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitckens.  They are every bit as fundamentalist in their tone as the religious right.  I have found healing through my experiences with spirituality and religion.

My church could be defined as "middle of the road" where it is as much about questions as it is about answers.  It is important to be listeners. 
Lonely people often feel that on one cares or listens to them.
Finding some one who does is a real blessing.
Education and politics and even philosophy cannot fill our deepest needs.  Anyway not for me.

I cannot imagine living a full life without the support of a Christian community and my faith.  It is also important to have a faith that is built on reason.

"But regardless of their relative standing, reason like religion, is one of the highest expressions of the human spirit."  The problem in being reasonable is trying to define something that goes beyond the rational.  "Not something that irrational but something that inhabits a larger space than human reason alone."  From "Rediscovering Reverence" by Ralph Heinyzman.

"Religious practice is a human response to the human mysteries that surround and inhabit human life;
life and death, suffering and evil, the meaning of existence." (the reason for loneliness.)

The new library is big and bright and very impressive and although their are places to sit and look out etc. I missed the warmth of our small library.  It would take at least a day to find your way around.

I enjoyed dinner out with Craig and Leah and Sandra; sorry Theresa could not come.  I ordered vegetables thing they were cook like Chinese veggies.  Dumb, dumb and dumber!  Sure hope all these new vitamins help!