Sitting in the waiting area adjacent to the baggage claim carousels and with a view of the escalators descending with arriving passengers, I candidly watched the reunions taking place in front of me. Wives, grandchildren, cousins, and friends were welcomed with warm embraces and faces aglow with the re-connection that was taking place. Few words were initially spoken. It was enough just to know a loved one had returned. Interestingly too, some were somewhat disheveled, some displayed physical limitations, some were very plain in their appearance, some looked a bit eccentric – but none of that mattered. What mattered was that each one had the "somebody" that they needed.

 

Imagine the one who has traveled alone, perhaps tired of the mundaneness left behind, but tired even more of the emptiness. That one brought her emptiness with her, and even within the cramped quarters of an airliner, sandwiched between other passengers for a flight of three to four hours, she was still alone. Loneliness within the crowd seems even crueler than the loneliness that comes from the barrenness of living alone or working alone. The crowd seems to taunt with its harsh reminder that people often surround the lonely person, but she is not included. She stands on the outside, apart and looking in, wondering, feeling very different, void of connection. It’s true that some withdraw because of anger or depression. Others don’t reach their own expectations and are sure they have failed as well in the eyes of others, and it can appear far too difficult to break down the walls they have built with their own thoughts and feelings. Even a well-put-together appearance, a practiced smile, or joking words, can hide the loneliness that lives within.

 

Infants that have been subjected to emotional isolation by the non-presence of a primary caregiver, or by a caregiver who tends only to physical needs and not to the dynamics of nurturing and caring at an emotional level, have been known to develop serious psychological problems, sometimes even leading to death. Prisoners in extended isolation may not fare any better as their lack of social skills and their basic dysfunction in coping with life skills are superceded by desperation or paranoia.

 

Ours is a belief system that upholds the adequacy of God to meet even the deprivation of emotional hunger, but I would be negligent both before God and before others, if I did not acknowledge and respond to the consuming loneliness that even other believers can be estranged by. In their desperation and sense of being very different, they can feel totally inadequate to reach beyond themselves. With a God-given sensitivity, I need to be the one who warmly welcomes and invites that one to forego the outside of the circle and find relationship within it.

 

Ahhh – my own "somebody" has arrived – and actually today, there are four of them. My own spirit is buoyant and the warmth of embrace is eagerly anticipated.