Twitterpated

Last Saturday a sobbing, middle aged lady showed up at our door. She was frightened, cold, and painfully hunched over a cane she had used to hobble the three hundred yards to our home. In the four years I’ve lived here we’d never met.

Once we got her warmed up she regained her composure and shared how she had fallen, aggravated a painful back injury, and was lonely and afraid in her home. She couldn’t get ahold of her husband and had nowhere else to turn…no familiar neighbors, no kids, and no friends.

She was bright and held multiple degrees, including a doctorate. She was tough enough to hold the rank of Colonel in the US Army and had traveled the world, risking her life as a security expert. But loneliness was too much and had almost broken her.

Bottles of germ killer are everywhere these days to protect us from H1N1. But loneliness is our unseen epidemic, inflicting far more damage. It erodes our ability to handle stress and in turn maintain important relationships and productive lives.

With 17% of Americans moving each year in today’s global world, we rarely have grandparents and cousins living close by. Add to that the internet and our hundreds of TV channels that have us holed up like refugees and we rarely connect deeply with others around the “town square” as we once did. We walk alone.

This further explains, as I mentioned last week, why adults are now the biggest group of users on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, even though our kids pioneered both. We seem to be longing again for those social connections that provide identity and security.

The church should help people simplify their lives so they can rebuild those connections. What’s working for you?