Lonely Hearts Can Be Glad

“Seniors,” we’re known as. Unless we’re invited to join a family and occupy a room in their home, as my mother-on-law did, we are often seen as sad lonely hearts. As in the mournful tune, “None but the lonely heart can know my sorrow.” Others busy themselves by doing good, joining clubs, picking projects, writing memoirs. A few, (maybe more than a few,) have found the joy of solitude. We can be as sociable as we desire, but solitude is not a bad word. 

“My sense of nature's rich glooms is, that loneness lacks but one charm to make it half divine - a friend, with whom to whisper, 'Solitude is sweet.'" (Mary Baker Eddy) I confess that I find it pleasant to have my children nearby, if not actually occupying my home as Robin has been doing most of the time since I moved into the Willows Community. I have needed her help and she and I get along very well together. That makes a happy home for us both now. It is even enhanced by the days and nights when she occupies her own home about 10 minutes south of here. That’s where solitude kicks in.

With me solitude reminds me of how independent, or rather dependent I am on God, comes in. Solitude also calls upon me to remember that the words “alone” and “lonely” have the same important core, the word “one.” To me that means we are all one with God and with each other. We belong. We’re included. We cannot be separate from anyone or anything past, present or future. That’s a good thing if we know how to see all in the light of Love. What a difference this thought can make to the words alone and lonely!

When I was in kindergarden the teacher asked one day if anyone could recite something. I had learned this Bible verse in Sunday school: “This is the day the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” I raised my hand, went to the front of the class and recited it. I must have been too young to let bashfulness beat boastfulness. No, I rather think that the knowledge that I knew something helped me overcome the shrinking violet in me and preempt silence. Anyway, my recitation brought me the teacher’s praise and my mother’s pride when she heard of it. The Sunday school teacher who had pinned that verse to my dress no doubt heard of it too. All this made me glad that day and ever since.

That Bible verse reminds me that all days should be glad days. Even bad news can be nullified by the realization that good alone is true. “Call it all good,” a friend of mine used to say. Why? “Because good is all there really is,” he would add. What appears as bad has no power of its own to claim presence or power. It takes our cooperation to make it appear real. It cannot sustain itself because it always needs something good to attempt to negate. 

In our community here at the Willows we are given the opportunity to listen to the weekly Bible Lesson on a speaker in our individual units (called “villas.”) Some prefer to silence them, but that’s OK. The Bible Lesson can be studied in the paper edition or with the e-Bible Lesson on line. To me, the audio version is pleasant because when I listen I am aware that I am not alone. Or rather, I am at one with all the others who are listening at the same time. 

Solitude need not connote sorrow but rather gladness, depending on how we look at it. Prayer for ourselves, the world, our country, our community, our family, and for the knowledge that we don’t need to, (as this week’s Bible lesson says,) eat of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” is a fact that makes us glad. Even the worst of scenarios is a mere lie, not the truth. This Jesus proved on the cross and in the tomb. 

To know that we are not alone in our recognition of the truth that makes us free is a darn good reason to be glad today! The Bible verse didn’t say, “I will be glad...” but "we will be glad." So, here’s a hearty hello to anyone who might read this. Let’s all be glad, even if we’re alone.