NOTICE: We are More Alike than Not

My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be, is what we are.      Thomas Merton  

“Planet earth is blue, and there is nothing I can do.”  David Bowie

A middle aged man with a paunch belly steps up on the stage behind the homemade podium. Hanging on the wall behind him are faded banners with the slogans “First Things First”, “Easy Does It” and “One Day at a Time”.

He looks out over the crowd of about fifty–all sipping hot coffee from styrofoam cups. Some look at him with compassion and encouragement, and others look at him with desperation, dying inside to hear the secret– “Maybe this is the day I hear how I can get it.”

He steps up to the microphone, nervously clears his throat, and begins to speak.

“My name is Joe, and I’m an alcoholic.” The crowd responds with one voice “Hi Joe”.

He continues his story. “I was born alone, and feel I have been alone ever since”.

This is not a unique story. If you could bottle up every recovery story that is being told in almost every city in the world every day, you would hear the same refrain.

“I felt alone, even in my own family.”

”I felt apart from, not a part of.”

“ I couldn’t seem to belong anywhere”.

“I was always outside looking in”.

“All I ever wanted was to feel like I belonged to someone or something”.

As I have discovered in my own path to recovery, it was my inner sense of alienation from everything I knew or saw that was the precursor to my restlessness and anxiety. For a little while, alcohol and drugs remedied it, giving me the illusion that, if only for this moment, I finally belonged, and things made sense.

The journey of recovery was nothing less than a journey out of this existential sense of alienation into a true experience of connection;  connection with God, a connection with all of creation, connection with my fellow travelers, and as a result of all this, a connection to my true self.

“In finding God, they had found themselves” writes Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

One of the age-old theological questions we humans have been asking is about the existence and nature of hell.

I, for one, believe in Hell. I have wallowed in the hell of that sense of alienation and isolation from my family and from God. I know the pain and suffering and grief of being estranged from those you most love. This is nothing less than hell. The great poet John Milton himself claims that the Devils own evil stems from his bitterness at being eternally alienated from God.

Hell is alienation from love. And yes, there is weeping and gnashing of teeth whenever we are disconnected from God, from our fellow human beings, and from ourselves.

The best research confirms that this sense of alienation is not limited to alcoholics or addicts: Americans in general are now suffering from feelings of isolation and alienation. In a recent comprehensive study by scientists at Duke University, researchers have observed a sharp decline in social connectedness over the past 20 years.

This  was never the plan.  We have been from the beginning a communal species.

There is a steep price to our isolation,chosen or not–

Recent statistics on depression and suicide shows social isolation is a huge risk factor for the onset of major depression, which has more than doubled in prevalence over the past decade.  And there’s growing evidence that isolation increases vulnerability to various forms of addiction, as well.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the rate of suicide was the highest it had been in 25 years in 2013, and it continued to rise yearly after that. The annual suicide rate in the U.S. is over 13 deaths per 100,000 population.

It is ironic that during this same time frame, digital social networking participation has skyrocketed– indicating that interpersonal connection in the digital age is an illusion. Contrary to how it may feel in the moment, we are not satisfying our innate need for community through a flickering screen.

In John Donne’s Meditation  XVII, he writes “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. “

We are as connected to each other and to God as one parcel of land is connected to another.

Brene Brown says in her famous TED talk that the thing that keeps us out of connection is the fear that we are not worthy of love or belonging.

I think another source of our disconnection with others is how we learn early to place ourselves and others in some sort of social order-based on our differences. We focus on surface differences rather than  our innate likeness.

On the surface of things, life is wonderously diverse, especially people. Yet, I grew up seeing differences as what separates me from others, rather than seeing differences as the marvelous variation and diversity that brings us joy.

I grew up in a small midwest farming community in the late 50’s-early 60’s. In my town, we were 85 % caucasian, and 15% African-American. In our town there was a “quiet” segregation. Not mandated ,but somehow we lived completely separate lives in a very small town. While I was not raised to be a racist, the very fact that I only occasionally came into contact with African- Americans made those contacts different and with them came a sense of wariness. Without being overtly taught by anyone, I grew wary of those who were not like me. My small town culture taught me via the path of not teaching me that differences were threatening rather than beautiful and to be celebrated.

Yet, in our major world religions, we are taught explicitly that we are one ;

“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise”.  Gal 3:26-29

I now believe that the source of any happiness in our lives is not some pre-determined measure of comfort or self-defined success, but in our level of awareness to our innate connection to God’s love, and as a result of that awareness, our connection to others. I Jn 4:16

This yearning to know others and to be known by them is fundamental to who we are, and without that we live a broken and half-life. The pretense of connection that our modern, isolated lives seems to foist upon us (who is it really behind that Facebook page) is one that renders us alienated and seperate.

The spiritual writer Thomas Merton relates a dramatic epiphany that changed the course of his inner life:

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”     Asian Journal

From that moment until the day of his death, Merton spent his life sharing what he learned  that day– that the anxiety of disconnection is a true mark of spiritual insecurity. Spirituality is nothing more than our innate awareness of and yearning for true connection with the source of our life. All other connections flow out of that awareness.

How do I cultivate this awareness of my connection to my source—to God, and to others?

• Recognize all-the illusory connections in your life  that have replaced connections to flesh and blood, to creation and to God.  Unplug if need be.
• Practice stillness–stillness of both mind and body—use the help of ancient spiritual practices like prayer and meditation—and getting out in nature with no goal in mind.
• Ask for the  faith to know and rely on the love God has always had for you. I Jn 4:16
• Resolve to live each day as if your relationships are your highest priority.  We all say that our loved ones matter to us far more than our work, our status, our things; but it’s important that this sentiment truly be reflected in our allocation of time and energy.

 As for me, I need to keep my eyes and ears open, not to the scraping sounds of divisiveness and alienation, but to the wonder of wholeness and connection available to me in God, in this moment. Life is replete with wonder and surprise, born out of variation;  the wonder of the spectacular Monarch butterfly, the tiny speckled ladybug, the praying Mantis who I swear is praying now for us all– Yes, all of the amazing variety in the millions of species that populate our earth.

I am connected to it all. And I am connected to you. You–no matter your race, no matter your gender, your age,your education level, your social status, your chosen state in life-married, single, partnered.

For at one time or another, I have felt as you do.

Like you, when I stub my toe, I curse.

I too have felt anxiety from an uncertain world.

I have felt your grief at loss we are never prepared for.

I have felt your remorse for mistakes made and wrongs committed.

I have felt your peace when the world is quiet and has let up just a little.

I know your sense of self-satisfaction at a job well done or goal achieved.

We laugh at the same silly things together; the wedding video blooper, cat videos, silly commercials.

I am no longer  David Bowie’s Major Tom. I have not been kicked out of orbit, floating helpless and eternally alone.

Recently I was changing clothes in the dressing room at my gym.  An African American sat next to me on one end of the bench, and a Korean man on the other. We chatted  and we laughed together at some of the things we see going on in the world. We three men, obviously different on the outside, were connected by something much deeper than our race or backgrounds.

We were in agreement. We were connected at least for this moment as we changed into our street clothes and each headed out to our different, but not separate lives.

Human alienation and disconnection is an illusion. It is not the underlying truth. Connection is the deeper reality. We are all more alike than not. This awareness is what brings me out from my sense of alienation and into a place of connection and belonging.

Kind Regards,

Bob