Advent Reflection #3 - Loneliness and Longing

This booklet is pushing all my buttons so far. I guess that's what it's supposed to do!

Rolheiser starts with a quote from Toni Morrison's Beloved:

"There is a loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive, on
its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going
seem to come from a far-off place."

Like much of Morrison's prose it terrifies me a little -- this loneliness sounds wreckless to me -- soul-less and unthinking . And yet, Rolheiser takes advantage of this loneliness:

"What's to be gleaned from our wandering? Has loneliness a design? Is there
a secret to be learned from our longing?



What we learn is that we are more: more than any moment in our lives, more
than any humiliation, more than any achievement, more than the limits of our
bodies, marriages, and jobs. Longing takes us beyond. It teaches us -- better
yet, it lets us touch through desire -- God's deep design for each of us. In the
end, our longings are about consummation, completeness, harmony, and justice. In
our longing, the mystics tell us, we intuit the Kingdom of God."

But are loneliness and longing the same thing? Yes, there is longing in the loneliness, but what about the other way 'round? Is there always loneliness in the longing? Perhaps. I don't know.

For myself, loneliness is feeling alone in an empty house or worrying about living on my own when my loved ones are gone. Longing is a very different feeling -- longing is the desire for intimacy, whether if it is with another person or with God. Granted one can be in a relationship, longing for a deeper connection with the other person and feel loneliness when that intimacy isn't returned; but can't both parties still have a longing for a deeper intimacy with the each other? Can't we long for that with God? For He longs for one with us. Is He lonely then?