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I am taking this a thread jack from Rob4Hope’s tender message about heart ache. He has a very personal conversation there and I don’t want to distract from it. However his point on loneliness deserves some general discussion. As I look around the general American life landscape loneliness is becoming a huge reality. It isn’t religious only, though religion contributes to it. Nor is it technology, though technology has a claim to it.
My question is what causes loneliness and what can we here at StayLDS do about it?
Let’s chat…
I think these forums are created for that purpose…as people want to reach out to connect with others out of loneliness. Society has changed.
The by product of some advances like the use of the internet or transportation ease or other technologies, and perhaps the luxury of basic human needs being mostly met by many of us in developed countries…that it removes some problems only to introduce others.
I have felt a strong desire to connect with others by home teaching, visiting homes with missionaries to teach lessons, to find out what others need and give them a hand of friendship to say they are cared about and not alone. I don’t go home teach to commit families to do more and sacrifice more, but to ask how we can help.
Ward families can reach out to the lonely members in the congregation, and offer hope and service.
StayLDS can try to do that through posting comforting thoughts…but there is no substitute for face to face service and a hug.
Great thought, Mom3, to move this to more general discussion. I’ve decided to put my recent post on Rob’s thread here instead, because it is more general. In a recent post on another thread, Ray wrote:
Old-Timer wrote:I think modern technology, increased focus on unique self-actualization, and expectations of being able to do more combine to increase our connected loneliness.
Communication like we have here is wonderful – truly wonderful, but if it becomes a substitute for traditional, interpersonal relationships it can be a negative.
While I can nitpick about and even disagree with some of the things Church leaders say about modern technology, they are correct about its negative potential to disconnect people from each other through a false sense of connectedness.
I think there is a corollary with the Church. One of the issues I often experience in our Church is that information is often substituted for faith. We get a heavy dose of announcements and sustainings in SM. Most SM talks are much less inspirational than informational (here is the definition of [name the topic]. Here is what someone has said about it. Here are three scriptures that mention it.)In that same way, I think social media substitutes information for friendship.
One quick story. A while back I had a close friend who had a missionary out. I hadn’t seen her for awhile, since we live in different cities now. When I saw her at a gathering, I asked her about her missionary… where he was now, what he was doing, if he was enjoying it. Her response was that she’d make sure I was on the distro list for his emails. We could have had a great conversation about a topic that I know was near and dear to her heart. I would have loved to hear all kinds of details and the thing is, I know she would have loved to talk about him. But in her mind, I guess, it was simply more efficient for me to read through his emails than to talk about it face to face. It was astounding. We’re still good friends, but next time I saw her, I didn’t ask about her missionary son. I simply said with a smile, “I hear Elder X is doing well!”
One thing we do in our family that has always been positive is to have the missionaries join us for dinner often. For one, it’s stretching our own social behavior to include others, who we don’t already know, and we’ve made friends with a number of really great people of the years. For another, missionary work can be lonely in a way similar to how we can be lonely after a faith crisis. Missionaries talk to as many people as they can… but they can be lonely because they get far more cold responses than warm welcomes. I remember one son talking about how as a missionary, no matter where they went, people were staring at them the entire time. I think this can create a sort of human disconnect, like an animal that isn’t quite welcome in the heard. I think it creates a sense of loneliness by feeling that they can’t really connect with people on issues that they feel are so important. And that’s where the like-ness comes in with FC. For a long time before I found this site, there was no one else to talk to; no one who could understand me. Interaction here at StayLDS has helped me to be able to express myself and realilze that I’m not alone and that I’m OK the way I am. So, we have the missionaries to our house, and have great conversations. I always thank them for the hard work that they are doing and acknowledge that few people know just how hard they do work.
Great examples, OON. While things change…there can still be a focus on the important stuff. Even the missionary Facebook letters to update people can be bad to remove the opportunity to talk, but a good thing to get past the repetitive discussion but allow you to talk about more important things than all the details…you can pick out the interesting details and still talk.
I guess it just takes effort to keep connected. But it can be done.
I have experienced some loneliness in the past, and I have a good friend (nonmember) who recently confided in me how lonely she is. (No worries, she’s much older than me, I never physically see her, and I have no interest in her – she’s a former boss.) Like I did with Rob here, I really felt what she was saying – it’s a real issue for her. I like what has been said, I think they’re good suggestions. As to cause, thinking back it probably had much to do with the culture of the church. It was pre-FC for me, but as Hawkgrrrl pointed out in another thread the church is very much focused on married couples and families. Almost all activities focus on them. I understand how that has evolved but it doesn’t help the single or gay person who is still lonely and not really feeling a part of activities. Perhaps making an effort to particularly invite singles and gays to be part of our own family activities, invite them to sit with you at the RS dinner (or go sit beside them), or just inviting them go out to dinner once in awhile would be beneficial for everyone. Pres. Monson often talks about little things that show love for our neighbors – and this would be one little thing.
Side note: OON we do like to have the missionaries over, and they can be lonely even though they have someone with them 24-7. In our mission at the moment it is almost impossible for us to have them over because of the 5:00 dinner rule. This is another sad side effect of a stupid rule.
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