This is For All The Lonely People...
I suppose it would be easy to label the downside of
breaking free of religious dogma, drama, misinformation and imaginary
outcomes as "the Dark Side" of the process, but perhaps it is simply
"The Other Side."
Being out of the group, while liberating, can be one of the
most lonely journeys in life you will ever go on. While there are
great gains to be recognized, there are also many losses. We lose most
of our friends who were friends because of the tie that bound us. To
sing, "Blessed Be the Tie That Binds," in a crowd of thousands where we
were under the illusion we were all bound together in the same one grand
thing, was always emotional for me. To sing, "God be with you til we
meet again," as the last hymn at a festival site before heading back
home to the real way it was would leave me teary yet hopeful.
Just feeling safer knowing so many like minded people all
over the world made living in the world easier somehow. There was
order. Be here, be there, do this, do that set a framework upon which
one could build the illusion of safety and harmony. I can't say I don't
miss it.
I have always found that speaking one's feelings and
sharing the stuff that lies deep within, while sometimes risky, most
often is far from it. All my ministerial career (is that the right
word?) being ahead of my time, saying what my ministers friends often
only thought or sharing thoughts and feelings deeply on a very practical
level, were common observations about my "style." It was not a
style. It was just me.
But what I found over and over again was that I was not
alone in these thoughts, questions, observations or realizations.
Everyone was thinking on these things and just not sayin' nuttin'! Oh
sure, you had the oblivious and the suck ups, but most people simply sat
on their feelings and doubts, or their hopes and dreams. Everyone down
deep feels what we all feel and think we alone have cornered the market
on that feeling, disappointment, loss or recognition. It simply is not
so.
I want to relate to all of us who just under the surface
and for all our bluster, information, realizations and observations are
simply lonely in this life. One does not have to be alone to be
lonely. You truly can be lonely in a crowd. I imagine many COG members
understand this. They stay because there is no emotional place to go
and yet they are lonely to talk or express themselves or even lonely to
disagree for once and not feel threatened by the higher ups that seem
threatened by not all speaking the same one thing. Speaking the same
one thing is not the same as speaking the same right thing.
So let me begin. I consider this a form of personal therapy
and yet know that the vast majority of us all completely understand it
for ourselves. While risky at times, self disclosure and sharing the
stuff of life is still better than keeping it inside where eventually
what eats you...eats you!
I have honestly never been more lonely in my life as I find
myself now. That loneliness has been costly. It ruins relationships
and sometimes makes one look in all the wrong places for a fix, no
matter how temporary. Being lonely is painful. For me it causes both a
conscious and subconscious anxiety. It gives one too much time to
ruminate about bad choices, good choices gone bad and what may or may
not happen in the future. Sometimes you find yourself sitting alone in
the dark with your dog talking to it and saying dumb stuff like, "well,
here we are Chewy. Just you and me. Who would have guessed?"
One of the lessons lonely leaves you with is that if you
depends on others to make you happy or give you meaning, the Karma Fairy
will have to make a visit and straighten you out on that. I have
deeply depended on others to make me feel fulfilled, alive and loved.
The problem is that if we allow others, even jobs and churches to "make
us happy," or to fill that void left by loneliness, they have the power
to take it away overnight, and they do. It's why I study the fine art
of acceptance and forgiveness now. These are two things I never had to
do when everything was just fine.
While I recognize that "If you understand, then things are
as they are. If you don't understand then things are as they are," is
true, it still is a lonely road when what is sucks or appears to at the
moment.
Loneliness shows. It manifests in the inability to get out
and fix it because at times we have to be careful what we wish for.
Loneliness has made me moody and distracted from necessary pursuits. It
has also left me very distrustful and at times with the feeling of just
killing time until it's over. Loneliness gives too much time to the
critical voice in the head that loves to rub it in.
Perhaps Church and group think only mask loneliness? Maybe
one can be alone in a crowd. Yes, of course they can. I was often
lonely as a minister because who do share expanded thinking with in the
COG? That was always a great formula for something bad to happen to
you. I find the same problem here with the school I teach at. They
don't listen and just as I could see with the Church and now again with
this school, if they don't they won't be here in a couple years. Is it
so hard to see you can't disturb, disaffect, disillusion and
dis-everything everyone and expect anything but a negative outcome?
Anyway, back to lonely. One of the reasons I am lonely is
because, try as I might, I still feel anger at a few specific life
situations and people that is taking way too long to dissipate. I
accept responsibility for those I angered and this often leads me to
tell myself that I don't deserve to be angry because I have angered
others. You know, Karma Fairy. But that thinking does not help. In
fact, it leaves me in limbo. In my soul I know that anger serves me in
no positive way. It changes nothing and like loneliness , shows too
often and poisons the punch. Intellectualizing about it doesn't release
it anymore than sitting home alone cures loneliness, or at least takes
the edge off.
Actually, perhaps the whole world is one big lonely
planet. We buy stuff to distract us, eat ourselves into comfort and
play endless video games into the wee hours of the morning to stop
thinking about it. "Gamers" are now an official cause of broken
relationships and blood clots in the legs leading to stroke.
Distraction is not a cure for loneliness. It merely postpones having to
come to terms with what really makes one content. "Happiness" seems
like an illusion to me. It is why, when sitting through the few
services I could stomach in the new WCG, and happy singing and happy
hand waving was introduced, I felt sick to my stomach. It did not make
me "happy." Being "happy" about Jesus was just not going to work with
who I am, what I know and where I want to be. I guess lonely is going
to go with my kind of temprement. Actually I was told as about the only
prophecy ever given me that was 100% true,
"Dennis, you outgrow your boxes quickly. Most people
never look at the box they were born in. You have two choices. You can
get back in the box you came from and make everyone happy. However, you
will be on antidepressants the rest of your life. Or you can leave the
box you are now in, as you actually have. But YOU WILL GO ALONE."
Truer words were never spoken to me. Of all thing
then...I had a feeling to turn around and look behind me in the grocery
store awhile back. You know, that feeling you get when you feel someone
is looking at you. It was my counselor who I had not seen since the
day he told me of my journey. He looked awful. He looked sad and very
very lonely. He perked up when I related how I had told most of the
planet of his observation and that he had done many some good. It was
an odd experience.
Well,
between "shut the hell up," (spoken by lonely pain bodies I know:),
and this having the potential of getting too long, I admit I am very
lonely. While I will never give my brain to group think again, or feel
comfy in a church of uneducated Bible readers who know the answer to
everything, it's still lonely. The holidays don't seem to help and yet I
find it doesn't seem to help many. Everyone is scattered and we all
are caught up in our dramas, hopes, dreams, fears and realities.
Perhaps the way we think or view things is our worst enemy. I have to
admit, I am not much of a one to apply "the Secret," and get the Jaguar
of my dreams. Simple works best for me.
So, this is for all the lonely people, thinking that
time has passed them by. This is for all the people in my past who came
to me and sharing their own loneliness whether in a crowd or at home
alone. I get it now! I do understand.
We used to say, "Experience is the best teacher, but
the tuition is high." Perhaps "Experience is the ONLY teacher.
Everything else is hearsay."
