The Sauntering Pilgrim

Last week, I asked you to reflect deeply about what you’re truly hungry for in life, not your trendy or transient cravings but the deep hunger that binds you to God, the human hunger we all share and that makes us one with the whole human family. What are you really and deeply hungry for in life?

Satisfaction of that deep hunger is what Jesus came to offer: abundant life; rich and satisfying life; life in all its fullness; more and better life than you ever dreamed of (John 10:10). That life is spread before us (Mark 1:14-15; Gosp. Thomas 113). Perfect harmony with God, with others, and with all creation is ours to experience here and now when we embrace it, become fully present to it, and let it shape our way of living – enough to share with everyone (Matt. 14:13-21).

When I imagine the kingdom of God, I imagine what Isaiah imagined, when he heard God promise to gather us from east and west, from north and south, everyone God created (Isa. 43:5-7) into one all-inclusive human community (Ps. 87). It will be a great banquet where everyone is compelled to come in and take a seat (Luke 14:15-24; 2 Cor. 5:19). So why isn’t that our experience?

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in May issued an advisory that a growing “epidemic of loneliness” threatens Americans’ personal health and the health of our democracy. While we proclaim the gospel that the world is being reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:19), the surgeon general’s advisory reminds us that over the past two decades, Americans have spent significantly and increasingly more time alone, engaging less with family, friends, and people outside the home. Five years ago, just 16 percent of Americans said they felt very attached to their local community, and I suspect the numbers have only worsened.

The rate of young adults who report suffering from loneliness grew every year from 1976 to 2019, and from 2003 to 2020, the average time young people spent in person with friends declined nearly 70 percent. When we’re disconnected from friends, family, and communities, our lifetime risk of heart disease, dementia, depression, and stroke skyrockets. Prolonged loneliness is as bad or worse for our health as being obese or smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Loneliness can generate anger, resentment, and paranoia. It diminishes civic engagement and social cohesion, and increases political polarization and animosity. Unless we address this crisis, the surgeon general warned, “we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country.”

In such a time as this, how do we bear witness to the gospel of reconciliation and community in which God gathers us from every place where we are scattered? In his advisory, the surgeon general suggested six responses to the loneliness epidemic, and I believe St. Paul offers a foundation for all of them.

First, strengthen social infrastructure by designing environments that promote connection and investing in programs and institutions that bring people together. As a church, we can take the good news of reconciliation into every public and private encounter we have, and by our attitude, influence, and actions be a witness for unity.

Second, enact pro-connection public policies at every level of government. As a church, we need to stay well informed and actively support policies that create and nurture more connection among communities and families.

Third, mobilize the health sector to make it more accessible to people at risk for loneliness and isolation and the resulting poor health conditions. As a church, we might plan to add to our staff both a parish nurse and, just as important, a parish social worker to serve our members and our neighbors.

Fourth, reform digital environments to assure that social technology does not detract from meaningful, healing connection with others. As a church, we will continue to use technology to enhance our connections while assuring that social media and online meetings remain a supplement to and not a replacement for in-person gatherings.

Fifth, deepen our knowledge about the causes and consequences of social disconnection and about how we can boost social connection in both congregation and community. As a church, we need to review, improve, and expand the use of our building as a place where a wide variety of positive social gatherings can occur.

And sixth, cultivate a culture of connection, promoting informal practices of everyday life that build positive relationships. As a church, we can learn to improve practices that “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3), and we can promote those practices in organizations and institutions that involve us throughout our communities.

Anyone familiar with Holy Trinity knows we’re already doing many of these things through our music ministries; participation in the Burrito Project; our annual golf outing; our after-service fellowship times; our partnership with Community of Good Neighbors; the new HT Walks Together ministry; our support of the Caribbean Children’s Foundation; the Sunday Roundtable; our support of Public School 17; the weekly watercolor class; Women at the Well; and many others.

All these efforts, I believe, are grounded in St. Paul’s assertion that “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13). Or better said, perhaps, everyone who hungers for God and for the abundant life God alone provides to all people – everyone who will embrace it, become fully present to it, and let it shape their way of living – will begin to experience that life here and now. If we listen carefully to one another’s hunger and give our full attention to responding to it, our national epidemic of loneliness, I believe, can be reduced, we will know the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and together we will taste the great banquet to which God invites us. ▪