Soul School comes out each Wednesday (Hump Day – Midweek in the work week).
Today, I am featuring new insights on the topic of loneliness based on a recent article you can read here at Nautilus Magazine.
When we feel alone, we sense that there is something wrong. When we feel lonely we may think there is a problem with us and we might even feel ashamed. Research about who feels lonely, what happens from prolonged loneliness, and the actually FUNCTION of loneliness will probably surprise you.
Evangelical Seminary is proud to host Shane’s talk. Click the image and learn more about a school that teaches and promotesincarnational servant leadership at a core level.
Shane’s Bio:
Shane Claiborne graduated from Eastern University and did graduate work at Princeton Seminary. In 2010, he received an Honorary Doctorate from Eastern. His adventures have taken him from the streets of Calcutta where he worked with Mother Teresa to the wealthy suburbs of Chicago where he served at the influential mega-church Willow Creek. As a peacemaker, his journeys have taken him to some of the most troubled regions of the world – from Rwanda to the West Bank – and he’s been on peace delegations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Shane is a founder and board member of The Simple Way, a faith community in inner city Philadelphia that has helped birth and connect radical faith communities around the world. He is married to Katie Jo, a North Carolina girl who also fell in love with the city (and with Shane). They were wed in St. Edwards church, the formerly abandoned cathedral into which homeless families relocated in 1995, launching the beginning of the Simple Way community and a new phase of faith-based justice making.
His work has appeared in Esquire, SPIN, Christianity Today, and The Wall Street Journal, and he has been on everything from Fox News and Al Jazeera to CNN and NPR. He’s given academic lectures at Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Liberty, Duke, and Notre Dame. Shane speaks regularly at denominational gatherings, festivals, and conferences around the globe. Follow him online at:
Shownotes (with links) from my conversation with Shane Claiborne
MIN 4:00
About 15 years ago Shane Claiborne and a few friends founded The Simple Way in the poorest section of Philadelphia where drug and sex trafficking became the main “industries” when the factories closed. Ever since then, he and his friends have been living in a communally within the neighborhood and serving the residents there in many ways.
I ask Shane, How have they sustained their communal lifestyle for so long?
Shane shares some things that have helped:
1. We are not attached what it should look like in expression or form as much as we have chosen to love each other and Jesus well and allow community to flow out of that.
“If you are in love with your vision for community you will actually destroy it.”
2. Allowing it to change over the years, from a house with 12 people sleeping all over the place in one house with one bathroom to a village of 10 or 20 houses all in the same neighborhood.
3. Helpful wisdom from the outside from others who’ve been doing communal living for a long time (The Benedictine order, for instance: 1,600 years)
6:10
What is “new monasticism” anyway? Shane explains.
6:30
“Folks are really hungry for community.”
7:20
“In Western culture we’ve lost the art of community.”
In other parts of the world this is how people have survived.
7:40
Economically impoverished communities can be community-rich (places) because they need each other.
7:50
“It’s no coincidence that in some of the richest places in the world we have the highest rates of loneliness..and depression, and suicide.”
8:00
“We are made to love and be loved.”
8:20
Even the mega-churches put in a lot of effort into making small groups work well (because that’s how you find community).
8:40
New Monasticism (as lived out in the U.S. or other wealthy Western countries) connects us with an ancient practice that continues on (and is “life as normal”) in many places in the world.
9:20
What communal living in Christian communities looks like in different contexts…
“Sometimes it’s about renouncing materialism and the Kardashians.”
10:00
What happens when people pilgrimage to The Simple Way to learn what it’s about.
Mother Teresa said, “Calcuttas are everywhere if we only have eyes to see. Find your Calcutta.”
11:00
There is a wisdom in learning from other communities. Shane and others set up a network called the community of communities on the web which lists other communities like his. Example: Reba Place Chicago.
This way can get rid of the romanticism and allow people to experience communal living first-hand.
Monthly open houses at A Simple Way are on ramps (to learn about community).
12:20
It’s about not just believing the doctrinal statements but about living differently and finding out what that looks like.
13:15
We are called to not be conformed to this world. God wants us to use our gifts and talents.
“Non conformity doesn’t mean uniformity.”
13;30
On the 2007 fire that destroyed his home and many other homes–leaving about 100 families with nowhere to sleep and live. Shane was left in need within the community he helped.
The very surprising statement the Red Cross relief worker told him.
14:00
There are 700 abandon factories and 20,00 abandon houses nearby.
15:30
Their community has built a park, a greenhouse, green spaces for gardens. See photos at TheSimpleWay.org
16:20
How the neighborhood pulled together after the devastating fire of 2007.
16:40
Shane:
As Jesus said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow. Don’t stock up your treasure that moths… and fires… can burn up and destroy.”
17:10
Ministry is mutual and if we don’t have needs we can’t be blessed. (Lisa)
18:30
One of Shane’s favorite quotes:
“If you’ve just come to help me, you’re wasting your time. But, if you’ve come because your survival and mine are bound up together, then let’s hold hands and we’ll work together.”
18:40
This quote comes in and corrects the posture by which we’ve often come on a mission to help people and thinking with a wrong perspective.
19:20
His friend says, “We are born on third base, but we think we’ve hit a triple.”
21:30
We don’t need has much as we think we do.
21:40
On Shane’s take of the story of “the rich young ruler”:
He wants to inherit the kingdom (entitlement thinking).
“For folks that are independent and self-sustaining it’s hard for us to know that we need God and other people.”
22:30
“Independence is not a gospel value. We need interdependence. It’s good to need other people and to need God.”
23:30
Besides people wondering what happened to his dreadlocks, people ask Shane this question the most.
24:20
Sometimes we have to challenge our location. (The places) where we (live) end up or are built around (that which) counters (opposes) gospel values. Like “suburban sprawl” which was created to get away from the urban problems (we should work to fix) and keep us from doing good for others who need it most.
It’s about living a life, not where we do great things, but where we do small things with great love (Mother Teresa). It’s not how much we do, but how much love we put into every act (of serving God).
25:00
We must ask:
What are my skills and passions and how might they connect to this world’s pain and injustice?
Whether it’s being a doctor, lawyer, plumber, or whatever, simply do your part.
26:00
What REALLY happens to the “dreds”.
Thank you, Shane! Blessings to you and your work. May we find our place to do good too.
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QOTD: What is the “Calcutta” near you and what gift might you bring to it ?
Managing a wine tasting room is a great job for a writer because, when it’s not too busy, you can become a kind of social scientist: observing people and trying to see why humans do what we do.
You can even allow your curiosity to navigate some of the deeper questions about the human experience.
One recent observation:
The “poison apple” of the smart phone has changed how we do things alone–eating, drinking, or traveling, in particular.
FACT: People rarely come to taste wine by themselves (at our place).
That may seem obvious. Wine tends to bring people together, right? Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised that people only rarely come alone.
But it IS strange.
Think about it like this:
Shopping for food or clothes alone isn’t considered weird and people tasting wine are really just shopping for wine.
The only difference perhaps are presumptions, previous experiences, or maybe subterranean social exceptions.
• Feeling low…solo
When people visit the tasting room alone, I can usually sense their social discomfort. They might suddenly offer me a reason why they are alone this time or they might neurotically use their phone to look busy or connected.
The alternative, of course, would be to interact with and absorb the environment they are truly in or look for ways to subvert social fear through some modicum of meaningful interaction: friendliness, conversation, inquisitiveness, for starters. So terrifying is the prospect of looking lonely at a winery, that many solo customers barely experience it at all.
• Confronting fear
This observation got me to thinking of ways I try to numb or avoid these fears or points of discomfort in myself and in my life. What am I missing that I shouldn’t be. The default is to use technology to connect, but at what cost?
When I interviewed Rolf Potts, famed travel-writer and best-selling author, he talked about his own wrestling with the seduction of “not being where he was” by engaging with technology. One of the most memorable things he said was this:
“When you travel alone you are forced to confront your own loneliness and boredom, and interact with your surroundings in ways you can’t [when you’re] with a companion.”
We miss our chances for new experiences with the advent of constant so-called “connectedness”, don’t we?
The habit forms quickly. Only thoughtfulness will heal this malady.
(Here’s the video. He covers that bit around min 2:40.)
Do you question how you use technology and confront what it might be stealing from you?
Encountering our loneliness more deeply could create epiphanic moments of self-discovery and new insights into what we fear and what makes us each unique.
Maybe it’s time to do something alone to test your social fears, deepen your healthy sense of self, and develop a new sense of social, and even spiritual, courage and strength.
Maybe leave your phone is the car for the 30 min you shop, eat out, or exercise. Good things could happen.
If you like what you’ve read, consider getting my in-depth but consice weekly correspondence, starting soon. Learn about it here.
Confession:
I can’t read parts of The Little Prince without weeping.
I’m hardly the weeping type, and yet…
the aching truth on vulnerability and intimacy contained in The Little Prince cuts all the way down to my what turns out to be a gooey marshmallow core; it gets in deep.
In reading The Little Prince,
I learn afresh this: Only love can tame you. Everything else that tames is just subjugation.
…it was then that the fox appeared.
“good morning” said the fox.
“good morning”
the little prince responded politely
although when he turned around he saw nothing.
“I am right here” the voice said, “under the apple
tree.”
“Who are you?” asked the little prince, and added, “You are very pretty to look at.”
“I am a fox”, the fox said.
“Come and play with me,”
proposed the little prince, “I am so unhappy.”
“I cannot play with you,” the fox said,
“I am not tamed.”
“AH please excuse me,”said the little prince.
But after some thought, he added:
“What does that mean—‘tame’?”
“You do not live here,” said the fox,
“what is it you are looking for?”
“I am looking for men,” said the little prince.
“What does that mean—tame?”
“Men,”said the fox,
“they have guns, and they hunt.
It is very disturbing.
They also raise chickens.
These are their only interests.
Are you looking for chickens?”
“No,” said the little prince.
“I am looking for friends.
What does that mean—tame?”
“It is an act too often neglected,”
said the fox.
“It means to establish ties.”
“To establish ties?”
“It’s just that,” said the fox. “To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world….”
“Please–tame me!” said the Fox.
“I want to, very much,” the little prince replied. “But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand.”
“One only understands the things that one tames,” said the fox. “Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . .”
“What must I do, to tame you?” asked the little prince.
“You must be very patient,” replied the fox. “First you will sit down at a little distance from me–like that–in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . .”
“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
Have you been tamed?
If you haven’t been, and you want to be, just ask.
This theme was worked into the book I co-wrote with Doug Jackson “Dog in the Gap”…
You may want to read it. It could change everything.
When I first saw this video below, I cried. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4]
It showed me the power of offering connection and love. The largely untapped, healing power of embrace–which connotes acceptance–seems to be too absent today. The distance between us grows, even though technology has supposedly drawn us together.
by Rembrandt
by Charlie Mackesy
by Frank Wesley
Luke 15:20 “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.”
If you would, please response here, and explain your feelings about embrace, or any reactions you had to this post, the video, or the artwork. Thank you.
An idea for plumbing deeper:
Your challenge-
Bring these pictures to mind the next time you pray, and speak about them to God, honestly. If you have fears, joy, sorrow, gratitude, or other feelings, express them, using this theme as a vehicle to interact in your next intimate time with the Lover of your soul.
