Article December 10, 1979 Issue

Silencing the cry of loneliness

JEANNE A. DOLLINS

When a well-known author was asked whether he considered the important issues to be inflation, pollution, crime, he answered: " . . . the real issue is loneliness. The family system has dissolved. People are rucking around like the sands of the desert with television blowing them like the wind. How can politics address that loneliness? If only intellectuals could define loneliness!"^{Theodore H. White, quoted in The Christian Science Monitor, April 26, 1979;}

Loneliness cries out for company—for a particular person, or for many. How does the world address this issue? Much human kindness is being expressed. There are clubs to bring people together. Meals are delivered to shut-ins. Centers for conversation and recreation have sprung up. Television and radio furnish companionship. We cannot be too grateful for the aid that comes from brotherly love, and for the technology that serves good purposes.

A new acquaintance or involvement with a group may afford a sense of relief from isolation. But the basic difficulty has not been uncovered or dealt with until it is addressed from a spiritual standpoint. The fundamental error is the belief that God and man are separated. This belief is founded on, and fostered by, an erroneous view of creation. A false sense of God says to a false sense of man, "It is not good that the man should be alone."^{Gen. 2:18;} Christ Jesus, on the other hand, declared: "I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me" and "He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone."^{John 8:16, 29;}