An Epidemic of Loneliness (Reprise)

Well, here we are, outside on a spring day, little neighborhood noise going on in the background, but I'm going to do something on this story from the road podcast series that I've never done before, and I'm going to do three podcasts in one week. And there'll be three reprise podcasts that were done before, but are appropriate to this week. This week is what almost 2.5 billion people around the world will celebrate as holy week or passion week. The run up to Easter if I can put it that glibly. If you're Spanish at Semana Santa, if you're French and my French isn't great, Semana Santa, if you're Russian, this could be a trip. It is Strasnaya, Nadella, however you pronounce it, to a huge deal. Change the world forever, literally. So these three podcasts will be today, obviously, Friday, good Friday, and Easter Sunday morning. Today, this is a podcast from seven years ago that spoke into the battle that is raging around the world, not Ukraine, not Gaza, not Iran and the environment there. Those battles are all from the outside in, if I could put it that way. This is a battle from the inside out. This is a battle in the five and a half inches between my ears. Recorded this on March 13, 2019. Here it is. There is a place in my life like Sarah Groves is singing where I can't see very far. I can't have a good view, sometimes it's a terrible view, and that space is called lonely. You know, sometimes on this podcast, we tell stories of particular people and do the microscopic thing. This podcast, we're going to go for the 30,000 foot view, telescoping a large thing into a smaller space for purposes of clarity. So the other day, I got a flu shot, little pain in the shoulder, I'm a guy. But why get the shot, flew to us today, is bothersome last a few days, we feel kind of puny. But that's all that you have, all that you get, if you get it at all. But 101 years ago, this month, the scene was completely different. Come with me to Fort Riley, Kansas, March 4, 1918. Here's the context. World War I had dragged on for three and a half years since 1914. In eight months, an armistice would be signed on November 11, 1918 in the woods near Paris. And that would signal the end of the war. But that war will have taken 10 million soldiers lives and another 10 million civilians. So 20 million people died. What was about to happen in Fort Riley and over the next two years would eclipse those casualties many times. In that week, at Fort Riley, 500 young soldiers got the flu. By all accounts, they survived, went to Europe, but the strain of flu mutated. And within two years, 1918, 1920, in that range, 500 million people got the flu. And up to 25 million people died in the first 25 weeks. The only time that was worse than that was back in the 1300s, over an eight year period, when the bubonic plague, the black death swept Europe, and 75 to 200 million people died or worse. That 1918 strain of flu may have killed 50 to 100 million people, 3 to 5 percent of the world population, one out of 18 people on the whole planet died. You say, are you kidding me? This is a grim way to start a podcast. Well, I'm just setting the context. They called it the Spanish flu or the Spanish lady. It wasn't because it started in Spain. It was that in World War I, Spain was neutral and therefore the media was uncensored and it was their media that told the world about the spread of this disease. So what happened? In any epidemic of this kind, and it could be either extreme heat or extreme cold or some disease outbreak, usually it has a much higher mortality rate among the very young and very old, because they're naturally more vulnerable. But modern analysis has shown that the Spanish flu virus was to be particularly deadly because it triggered what they call a cytokine storm. I think I'm saying that correctly. And cytokines are receptors that connect with our immune system or have impact on it. And 100 years ago, when the Spanish lady showed up, something happened with the cytokines and they ravaged the immune systems not particularly of the very young or the very old, but young adults. If you happen to have been a fan of the series Downton Abbey, one of the newly married daughters of that central aristocratic family in a heartbreaking scene dies of the Spanish flu. What it did was it caught people in the prime of life. Here's my point. I think the Spanish flu is a metaphor for a current epidemic that's all over the news. It's in scores of publications and podcasts like this one, psychological and medical journals. And the word being used across the board is that one, epidemic, definition of epidemic, affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community, or region at the same time. Literally, it's an outbreak of an illness. What's our epidemic, it's the epidemic of loneliness that in our day and age seems to be affecting younger people disproportionately. These are prime of life people, people like you, everything to look forward to people. My life is ahead of me people. Well, let me just ask the question. When in the last month have you had this feeling, wow, I'm lonely, I'm kind of disconnected. I want to reflect on that phenomenon, I don't want to beat it into the ground, but let me just reflect on it. And then I want to share what I think are some antidotes medicine given to counteract a particular poison. I want to share some antidotes about that. We shouldn't be surprised that we get lonely. Back in the earliest part of the Torah, God Himself says in Genesis 2.18, it's not good for man or mankind to be alone. What's interesting about loneliness, it's not a virus in the traditional sense, it's not a microbe that's going after you. But in terms of impact on my physical being, it's worse than obesity for our health. This is bad for your health and my health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And you say, what? And nobody says, oh, lonely, that's good. No, no, no, recently I went out and did some man on the street interviews. I just went up to folks and said, I'm going to say a word. And you say the first word that comes to your mind. The word I said to them was lonely. Here are some of their responses, isolated, afraid, broken, scared, sad, distraught, darkness, sadness, prisoners, despair. I was asked to come and teach a high school history class on about World War II and when the teacher asked me to come, I said, well, you know, I'm old, but I didn't serve in World War II. I was born in World War II. Anyway, I was telling them some stories about these young men and women who went to war. And I said, many of them were 18 years old and they were scared and they were lonely. And so I just asked in the class, I said, when I ask you this word or say this word, what are some of the words that come to mind? And here's what they sort of shouted out in class. Pain, sadness, sadness, sadness, empty, empty. Recently asked a couple of professional counselors, what percentage of the people you speak with do you think have challenges or problems that are rooted in loneliness, that have some connection and they both indicated or between the two of them, they indicated somewhere between 35 and 60%. So the question is, what are some antidotes? It's interesting. Women named Tracy Robel, who did a thing called sidewalk talk listening project in San Francisco, starting a few years back. In the fall of 2014, two San Francisco therapists shared a vision to help heal that which divides us through the fine art of skill listening. They gathered 26 of their colleagues, practiced listening skills and came up with a curriculum and a model for listening on the sidewalks of San Francisco together. On May 7, 2015, for two hours and 12 locations throughout San Francisco, listeners set up chairs and signs offering to listen to any passerby who wanted to be seen and heard. The result was amazing. When college students sat down and started to talk, he said, I spent all of my work, all of my work life looking at screens. I don't talk to anyone and he began to cry and he cried for 10 minutes. Then he said, thanks, I feel better, got up and walked away. Now 3,200 people are involved in this in 48 cities around the United States. What is it about this epidemic of loneliness that triggers people to sit down on a sidewalk in a major city, sit down on a chair and talk to a stranger for 10 or 15 minutes? It's interesting, the United Kingdom has just established the office of a minister of loneliness. There's a report of the 66 million people crammed into this island called Great Britain or England, smaller than the state of Michigan. About 9 million people report often or always feeling lonely. One study showed that about 200,000 elderly people in the UK had not had a conversation with a friend or a relative in over a month. The American Psychological Association writes that up to 40% of Americans over the age of 45 suffer from chronic loneliness and they go on to say something we know, being connected to others socially is widely considered a fundamental human need, crucial to both well-being and survival. And I keep hearing that echo from the Torah, it's not good that man should be alone. Julianne Holt Lundstedt, a professor of psychology at Brigham Young University, says this, an increasing portion of the US population now experiences isolation regularly. You say, all right already, I know this point made, I knew that before I started listening to this podcast, all of us pretty much know what lonely feels like. And for every human being, it's sort of a stop now and again, a station stop if you're on a train on this journey called life. We might visit, we just can't afford the price of living there. We all know the moments where we have those station stops. Mine was as a junior in college, as Christmas time. My folks were struggling at their house, so my home was kind of coming unraveled and I didn't want to go home for Christmas, so I stayed on campus and essentially I was there by myself. It was the loneliest time in my life. When I asked those same folks, the ones that I said responded this word lonely, when I asked them what was a lonely time or one of the loneliest times in your life, these are some of their responses. When my dad was diagnosed with stage 4, stomach cancer, feeling lonely because I was 1500 miles away from him. When I transferred to schools and I had no friends at the new school. When my best friend left for the Air Force and realized he was really my only friend. Only issues, drug addiction, when I realized I didn't belong to a group. When I was struggling the most with my insecurities. With my four best friends from high school, all went to four different colleges. I was at a ski resort and way far away from home and didn't know anybody and I stayed there for quite a while, so that was lonely. When my mom died. When her son first saw us after four years in prison. I had to go through a terrible divorce. So we don't need to describe it anymore, right? What are some antidotes? What are some remedies, vaccines, if you will, to this epidemic called loneliness? Mother Teresa is an iconic figure in world history. Some years ago when I was in Calcutta, now Calcutta, I had a chance to visit with her. And it was a profound moment. Something she said, not at that moment, but at some other time, captures this issue, quote, the most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved. There is a poet, author, and theology professor who lives on Long Island. She has her own podcasts and writings. Her name is Annabel Mosley. And she had several thoughts, nine or ten things that I found really helpful about how do you combat loneliness, how do you get out of the pit as you will. And I just want to read you a few of those. Maybe you recently moved and have had more trouble than expected meeting new people, or perhaps you've noticed you barely know most of your social media, quote, friends, end quote. You may be a new parent and have realized your support group is smaller than you need. You're feeling miserable, lonely, lost. The good news is you have plenty of company. Well, but knowing that isn't much help. What are some practices that chase the loneliness away? So here you go, here are nine or ten things, one, spend less time on social media. Let's start with the most obvious. It's depleting, time-consuming, all too often a substitute for genuine and enriching human contact. Social media certainly has its place for keeping in touch, but studies show that too much use of it can lead to feelings of insecurity, competition, and envy. Most importantly, social media can leave us feel emotionally cheated, despite our dozens or hundreds of, quote, friends, end quote. Virtual hugs and emojis, I like emojis, by the way. Virtual hugs and emojis are just no substitute for the real thing. In this generation, I'm an old dude, but it's true of those of us who are at my age as well. By the illusion, the pretense, the endless self-marketing of selfies and status updates. So spend less time on social media, one antidote. Number two, seek quality over quantity of friends. S.E. Hinton and author said, if you have two friends in your lifetime, you're lucky. If you have one good friend, you're more than lucky. So here's the deal, find and cherish some true confidant. A best friend may be a parent, a sibling, or a spouse, but there's someone else out there who is great, but needs the company of you. This thought about friendship, and you've heard me say this before, I always used to think the friendship. This is both now. This is not Annabel Mosley. I always thought that friendship was sort of a watered-down version of love. But when you read the scriptures and when you read Jesus, he says, no greater love has any one friend of the person that will lay down his life for a friend, doesn't say spouse, doesn't say kids, says for a friend, and we sort of do a deep dive into this in the book that Ruth and I wrote, known, finding deep friendships in a shallow world. If you're not familiar with that, you can go to the website, known, download it, and encourage you to check it out. Number three, in terms of antidotes, is read classic books of quality, read classic books of quality. CS Lewis said, I read to know I am not alone. That is the power of a great book. She goes on to say, it's hard to feel lonely or anything but awesome when you grab a classic like pride and prejudice or the chronicles of Narnia and sit by the fire. Your alone time becomes something to savor. She goes on to say, with each turn of the page, you become as content as a habit in the shire. I love that. I tend to, and again, this is both. I tend to like to watch murder mysteries. I don't know why that is, but maybe it's that there are problems and they get solved. But those kind of shows or reality stuff aren't meant to feed the soul, and it's likely you feel unfulfilled when they're over. She's saying, reruns of feel good shows, little house in the prairie, something silly that makes you belly left. Go there. A few months ago, I was visiting my great niece at a university in the Midwest and had lunch together, and I said, so what do you do for fun? She said, you know, some of my sweet mates, my roommates and I, tend to watch old movies from the 1940s and 50s, where families actually sat around tables and ate together because it, that's sort of a dream now. It doesn't happen so much anywhere. That's number three, read classic books of quality. Number four, cultivate your own interests. And about mostly says, as my grandmother would glibly say, you have to be able to stand your own company. So know what you like, find something you like to do with you. Bonus points if you're able to cultivate a hobby. I might just hitchhike here. On occasion, choose solitude. Let's just use this as sort of a battle. Lonely comes after us, you know, it's our default position. When I was 17 years old at Cal Berkeley, I took one semester of judo and they had this one principle, you're grabbing onto the other guy's ghee, that's a little jacket you wear. And the key is if he pulls you, you push him or if he pushes you, you pull him, you use the other person's momentum to your advantage. And lonely is chasing you down and you decide to choose it. We call that solitude. I love what Paul Tillich says, the theologian, he articulated the distinction between alone or lonely and solitude. My thoughts were to be clear alone is not the same as solitude. Alone just happens, lonely just happens. Solitude is a choice. This is what he said. Which has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone. One is toxic while the other is life giving. Number five, kindness to strangers. I found this one fascinating, holding doors and saying, please and thank you and have a great day. Reminds you that you're connected to a wider community. Oftentimes I'll hold the door open for somebody and sometimes people will say, well, I can do that. I said, yeah, but my mother would be proud of me if she saw me, if she saw me doing this. Our ancestors, Annabelle says, went to the marketplace and chatted, connecting with their neighbors, they sold and or purchased, wears. It's hard to feel lonely when you've just exchanged positive small talk with folks you might otherwise not have. Six, ask questions and listen more than you talk. This is hard for me because I'm a talker. When you do have lunch with a friend of squeeze in a phone call, listen and ask questions. Don't just spout. This will do two things. It'll take you outside of yourself, a guaranteed loneliness buster and help your friend feel like calling you again. Number eight, give to a charity. Your time, talent or treasure can make all the difference to someone else. It's impossible to feel lonely when you're giving. Number nine, Annabelle is a strong Catholic lady and so churches at the center of her universe and she says, attend church. I would buy that boom, instant company of the best kind. When you get regular in that kind of environment when you regularly connect, the possibilities of not being lonely are better. Yes, you can feel lonely in a crowd like that's the worst, isn't it? Lonely in a crowd. But this increases your chances of not going there. Number 10, practice works of mercy. Note that visit the sick includes elderly folks who might not be ill but too weak to get out much. Other people struggle with loneliness all the time and wonder if they're still relevant, have a valuable place in this world, let them know they do. My mom, when she was in her 90s, she was a consummate pianist and organist. She in her 90s would go to nursing homes into other kinds of facilities and she would play organ or piano recitals. She said she was going to go play, quote, for those old people, end quote. The thing Annabel suggested is ancestry. There's another track to quote the old people piece, end quote. And that is if you're interested in your own ancestry, you know, ancestry.com and 23 and me, these are all platforms by which we research our lineage. But what if you were to go to older members of your family and just ask them to tell you stories of their childhood or they're growing up years or some of the pivotal moments in your life? Not only does that keep you from loneliness, it informs your place in history and solidifies how you see yourself as well as understanding them better. There's another thing that a fellow named Nobel wrote having to do, it was in a Harvard journal and it has to do with writing. It says writing is an antidote to loneliness. When people write about what's in their hearts and minds, they feel better. It isn't just that they're getting their troubles off their chest. It provides a rewarding means of exploring and expressing feelings. It allows you to make sense of the world you're experiencing and have a deeper understanding of how you think and gives you self-knowledge, provides you with a stronger connection to yourself. It's that connection that allows you to move past negative emotions like guilt and shame and instead access positive emotions like optimism or empathy. The last thing Annabelle mostly says is pray. When you feel lonely wherever you are, remember that Christ had all of his friends fall asleep on when he was the most lonely in the Garden of Gethsemane. You say, well, I'm listening to this thing but both I don't believe in God. What if you just tried an experiment? What if you just prayed like this? If you're there, this is Harry, this is Maria and just give it a go and see what happened. Loneliness is a feeling that I think myself into. I think that I'm separated from God so it feels like it. I think I'm separated from my family so it feels like it. When that happens, I automatically start pulling back from those around me. I start believing that I don't have purpose or place. If I don't have that, then I don't have any value and I throw a pity party. Let me be the grandfather for a moment here. I'm a specialist in pity parties. I've had a lot of pity parties over the years. The challenge of throwing myself a pity party is that I'm the only one who comes. What can I start believing that changes my feelings of loneliness, chases the loneliness out the door? There are two or three scriptures, ancient writings that I think speak to this. There's a particular one saying Paul writes to a community in Rome. These are people under persecution. They got all kinds of challenges. This is what he says. If you're a Bible person or you know the scriptures, you can look this up even if you're not. You can Google it. Romans 8, 31 through 37, listen to how it reads, because he's talking about the stuff that you're going through. He says, what then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? There's more to it, but let me make this suggestion. Why don't you find those verses and where there's a personal pronoun like us? Put your name in there. This is how it would read if I were reading it. What then shall Dick Foth say in response to all these things? If God is for Foth who can be against him, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for Richard Bruce Foth, how will he not also along with him graciously give Dick all things? Who will bring any charge against Dick whom God has chosen? It's God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns, no one? Christ Jesus who died more than that who was raised to life is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for Richard Foth. Who shall separate Dick from the love of Christ, shall trouble or hardship, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or broken family, or getting old, or social media? I just threw that in there because those are the things that make us feel naked a lot of times. It goes on to say no and all these things were more than conquerors through him who loved it. So take that passage, plug in your name where there's a personal pronoun. The other thing is, in eating, we can eat stuff that's bad for us, we can eat those foods that are processed, that any diet you read about says don't eat those things. So here's here's raw vegetables and real good protein and all of that found in Philippians the fourth chapter, eighth verse, finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. This isn't just about positive thoughts. This is intentionally taking charge of one's life to think about things that have value. And finally, some words of Jesus in Matthew 28, 19, where he's saying to his disciples, he's sending them out, he's going to be gone, they're going to change the world. So 2000 years down the pike, here we are talking about it says, look, I am with you always even to the end of the age, the most powerful words or phrase in that sentence are I am. In the Greek, it's the strongest possible form of expression. The Greek, it means it's ego-a-me and it means something that's solid. It's the strongest form to express the name of God, who's the great I am. Look, I am with you always and the construct is really in the original, really reads like this. And look, I, with you, am, I used to read a guy named J. Siddalo Baxter who was a British theologian years ago and I was in college, this is from him. He says it this way, you and I are in between the I and the am. And look, I with you, am, he's not only with us, he's all around us, not only now and then, but always, all the days. One more time to bring us into the here and now. I had a conversation with an older fellow, wonderful man and tossed out my word lonely and he said, when I then said what was one of the loneliest times in your life, instantly he went to when he was young. Then I walked on a deck of a carrier. When was that? 1964. The Durey Vietnone? Yes. So I've never done this on a podcast, but I'm going to close with a prayer. This is my prayer and I encourage you to pray this with me. God, this is both or you can put your name in there. I live in a real world surrounded by a virtual world. Help me not to let the virtual world win. I want to be a real person with a real friend or two and real purpose. Thanks for being with me always. So I'm going to practice chasing loneliness out the door. So just before we wrap this podcast up, I know I've said a lot of stuff today, a lot of points, scripture references, all that kind of stuff, it'll be in the podcast notes. So if you're out jogging, if you're in the gym, if you're driving in your car, don't sweat the small stuff like, how can I remember all that? We'll just put it in the notes. So we kicked off this podcast with a song by my friend Sarah Gross. She kindly allowed us to use this song today and it captures exactly the kind of feeling that we are trying to speak to and have tried to speak to. And I just think she should sing us out. I was about to give up and that's no lie, Cornel and it outside my window through his head. Back sang songs so beautiful, made me cry, took me back to a childhood dream, full of burdened dreams from this one place I can't see very far, and this one moment I'm square in the dark, these are the things I will trust in my heart, you can see something else, something else, I don't know it's making me so afraid, a tiny cloud over my head, I don't know it's making me cry, took me back to a childhood dream, full of burdened dreams from this one place I can't see very far, and this one moment I'm square in the dark, these are the things I will trust in my heart, you can see, you can see something else, something else, from this one place I can't see very far, and this one moment I'm square in the dark, these are the things I will trust in my heart, you can see something else, you can see, you can see something else, something else, something else, you can see something else, you can see something else, you can see something else, you just threw back You say your song It was a beautiful day back