Loneliness is an aching
void in the center of our beings,
a deep longing to love and be loved,
to be fully known and accepted by at
least one other person.
It is a hollow, haunting sound sweeping
thru our depths,
chilling our bones and causing us to
shiver.
Is there a person,
anywhere,
who has never felt the stab of loneliness,
who has never experienced the eerie distance
of isolation and separation,
who has never suffered the pain of rejection
or the loss of love?
The final rupture or
breakdown of a valued loving relationship,
the sudden death of someone who was close
and special,
an unavoidable separation from a loved
one
—these things strike loneliness into
our hearts,
the intense experience of the absence
of that specific person.
But sometimes loneliness
has no name attached.
This is the general feeling of being
alone, isolated, separated from others.
And there is a third
kind of loneliness—existential loneliness—
which is even deeper and more pervasive
than either of the first two.
It often disguises itself as longing
for a specific person
or pretends to be yearning for contact
with anyone,
but this deeper lack or emptiness-of-being
is not really a kind of loneliness at
all.
Being together with other people, even
people we intensely love,
does not overcome this deep incompleteness
of being.
This inner default of selfhood has never
been solved by love,
no matter how good and close and warm
that love might be.
OUTLINE:
I. Five Differences between
Interpersonal Loneliness and Existential Loneliness
II. How Does it Feel to be Existentially Lonely?
III. Beyond Existential Loneliness
AUTHOR:
James Park is an existential
philosopher.
Much more about him will be found on
his home page:
An
Existential Philosopher's Museum
.
This proposed cyber-sermon
is based on the first chapter of his longest book:
Our
Existential Predicament: Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, & Death,
Chapter 1 "Existential
Loneliness"
.
A shorter version of
this chapter is available free of charge here:
"Interpersonal
Loneliness & Spiritual Loneliness"
,
which is the first chapter of
Opening to Grace: Transcending Our
Spiritual Malaise.
An even shorter version
(just three pages) will be found here:
"Loneliness
of Spirit: Deeper than the Reach of Love"
In fact, clicking the line above will
allow you to read
the whole cyber-sermon
as it might be released by the First
UU Church of the Internet.
Return to the list of proposed cyber-sermons for the WWCC.
Return to the beginning of the home page of the
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Community
.
Return to the beginning of this home page:
An Existential Philosopher's
Museum.