"Friendship in an Age of Loneliness" (Adam Smiley Poswolsky)

TITLE: Friendship in the Age of Loneliness: An Optimist's Guide to Connection
AUTHOR: Adam Smiley Poswolsky
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Running Press, 2021, (272 pages).

Survey after survey, both research and reports have pointed to a growing problem in our society. People are increasingly lonely. With the pandemic, things are not going to get any better. In fact, loneliness has accelerated because of the many lockdowns implemented by governments around the world. Many researchers have pointed out social media as a negative influence when it comes to addressing loneliness. While it is true that social media could have adverse effects on people, especially those with prolonged usage, leading to addiction, technology can still be useful to help people build friendship networks to connect with people. The key is proper usage instead of total abandonment. Author Adam Poswolsky takes this approach and goes further. He argues that the two keys for a happier life are to make new friends and to deepen existing ones. When our efforts to reach out are reciprocated, the relationship grows. In this book, he gives readers six ways to reclaim friendships in an age of loneliness:

1. Be More Playful
2. Be a Better Friend
3. Invest in Friendship
4. Stay in Touch
5. Embrace Ritual
6. Be a Minister for Loneliness in the community

"Find Your People" (Jennie Allen)

TITLE: Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World
AUTHOR: Jennie Allen
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Waterbrook Multnomah, 2022, (256 pages).

There seems to be an ache for our human bodies. We have heard about backaches, headaches, toothaches, tummy-aches, even something internally like heartaches. What about loneliness-ache? In what is considered a problem that is larger than any kind of ache, loneliness has become a major health matter around the world. As society becomes more individualistic and self-centered, we are losing connections and community living. The downsides of loneliness are all visible out there. Depression rates are rising while mental health deteriorating. We feel secure when in our own rooms and inner sanctuary, yet there is an underlying sense of discontentment exhibited via various stages of sadness. Worse, we are subconsciously accepting our lonely lives as the defacto normal way of life. Unless of course, we learn to fight the lies such as:

• Not needing people
• No need for friends
• No need for community
• No need to rely on others
• No need to connect with others
• That we can survive on our own
• ...

"The Path Out of Loneliness" (Dr. Mark Mayfield)

TITLE: The Path out of Loneliness: Finding and Fostering Connection to God, Ourselves, and One Another
AUTHOR: Dr. Mark Mayfield
PUBLISHER: Colorado, CO: Tyndale House Publishers, 2021, (208 pages).

Many people in the world are concerned about the pandemic. Rightly so. We should all do our part in ensuring that we get through this Covid-19 crisis together safely. Amid all the buzz and drama surrounding the variants and concerns over lockdowns, there is one danger lurking in the dark. Loneliness. The Bible has said right from the onset that it is not good for man to be alone. That can be applied to the entire human race, not just Adam. We are not created to live by ourselves or to be lonely. As social creatures, we need to be in a community of relationships. When we are lonely, we are disconnected from the rest of society. We feel unloved. With technology, things have gotten much worse. Even during opportunities where people can enjoy a sit-down meal at a restaurant have been dumbed down with individuals so absorbed in their own little phone devices that they are totally disengaged from the people near them. As some experts have said, we are indeed living in a loneliest generation. Technology is not the cause. It reveals at best or accelerates at worse the crisis we are all facing. Is this a factor in our society's deteriorating mental health? What about addiction and all the social ills around us?

"The Loneliness Epidemic" (Susan Mettes)

TITLE: The Loneliness Epidemic: Why So Many of Us Feel Alone--and How Leaders Can Respond
AUTHOR: Susan Mettes
PUBLISHER: Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2021, (224 pages).

Is loneliness a problem? Consider the research data. A third of American adults admit they are frequently lonely. Within the past two decades, feelings of loneliness have more than doubled. Nearly half of all practicing Christian Millennials have experienced it too. Moreover, the problem is growing, not just in North America but globally. Come Winter, the problem deepens. Rates of depression and suicide continue to rise. Why is this happening? In short, it is due to a lack of meaningful relationships. In pre-pandemic days, loneliness has been a rising concern. In 2020 when the world goes into lockdown, everyone starts to talk about the challenges of loneliness and mental health. Research from the Barna group offers compelling evidence on the extent of the problem. This leads to several other problems such as the lack of intimacy, fewer trust relationships, isolated lives, and other crises pertaining to human relationships. So widespread is the problem that even churches are full of lonely people. So why are people lonely? How is it that even people of faith who go to Church can be lonely? What can we learn from the statistics gathered? How can we address this problem? Is loneliness a Western phenomenon or is it more global? In Part One, Author and Professor Susan Mettes defines loneliness as "the distress someone feels when their social connections don’t meet their need for emotional intimacy." She distinguishes this from "social isolation" and "solitude." The former is about circumstances often unforeseen. The latter is about being alone. In Part Two, Mettes goes into greater detail about factors influencing loneliness such as:

"100 Poems to Break Your Heart" (Edward Hirsch)

TITLE: 100 Poems to Break Your Heart
AUTHOR: Edward Hirsch
PUBLISHER: Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021, (512 pages).

"We live in distracting times," writes one of the most popular poets in our modern era. In the midst of widespread superficiality, we need a more down-to-earth reality. Driven by an overwhelming rush for success, we often do not spend time licking our wounds of failure, reflecting on setbacks, or grieving over losses. Busyness could be a convenient coverup for emotional weakness or vulnerability. The difference between prose and poetry is quite well-known. Prose tends to be relatively direct while poetry requires time to digest. It also takes on a more pragmatic mode rather than imaginative; information-driven vs experience-led; utilitarian vs expressiveness; and so on. Poetry on the other hand gives one the freedom to express our feelings that allows us to use a variety of literary art such as art, music, or various methods of illumination. There is more freedom of expression, something that adequately sways with the feelings of the poet. Poet Edward Hirsch gives us a powerful collection of poems from various contributors, both past and present. He writes this book of poems as a way to invite us into a world of how many people have expressed their hurts, pains, and struggles. People from the past such as William Wordsworth who mourns his daughter's death with a poem "Surprised by Joy" or Alfred Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam" that describes his distress over the passing of a dear friend. People in the present such as Mary Oliver who mourns the loss of loons due to lead poisoning in New England where her poem "Lead" laments the failure to protect the environment we live in. Anne Sexton's "Wanting to Die" is a counsel for a friend wanting to commit suicide. Muriel Rukeyser's "Poem" is an anti-war cry. Anya Krogovoy Silver's "Persimmon" is a mindful meandering over fruit in the midst of cancer. Michael Collier's "An Individual History" expresses the struggles and pain of seeing one's grandmother going through a potpourri of medication and drug side-effects. Philip Schultz's "Failure" expresses a humiliating situation where one needs to borrow money from his father's debtor to pay for his father's funeral. 

"Connected" (Erin Davis)

TITLE: Connected
AUTHOR: Erin Davis
PUBLISHER: Nashville, TN: B and H Publishing, 2014, (135 pages).

We can be wonderfully connected but still feel utterly lonely. We can be among people but still feel very much alone. We can have our calendars full of activities but inside our hearts, we feel empty. These paradoxical feelings were deeply felt by author Erin Davis, wife of a full-time Church minister. The truth hit home the moment they shifted from a busy schedule to a new environment where she felt strangely lonely as she moved away from the familiar to the unfamiliar, from the busy to the not-so-busy, and from a false bubble of connectedness to a true revelation of emptiness. For we are "hardwired" for genuine relationships. Davis learns from Google that loneliness is common, transcends social status and geography, and can spread like wildfire. The rise of social media does not mean one will be more linked to everyone else. It may simply be people feeling alone together.

In this book, Davis looks at loneliness from various angles. Medically, she discovers that doctors had largely underestimated the problem of loneliness. Culturally, she laments at how the world promotes individual achievements to the detriment of the true need of the individual to belong to a community. Among Christians, she observes how believers often displayed the "Patmos Syndrome" where one holds high the saints like John to willingly choose isolated individual achievements over community goals and togetherness. Biblically, she looks back at Adam being the loneliest man on earth and sees the loneliness syndrome as something that has continued from the beginning to the present time. Busyness, the presence of material things, or electronic connections will never fill the void within us. The same thing for marriage. One must not marry for the sake of resolving one's loneliness. One can be married but feel utterly lonely. Throughout the book, Davis contrasts the difference between true connections and false connectivity. Using the pop stars as examples, she points out that there is a difference between being known and being loved. She asserts that "being known is far more romantic than being loved." This is quite counter intuitive but shows readers that being known is a precursor to true and loving connections. In order to love, we need to know and be known. Pointing out many scripture references to the importance of knowing, the important thing for anyone feeling lonely is not about seeking more knowledge or more love. It is the simple awareness that one is already loved by God and known of God.

Davis points her guns at technology as a cause of both our loneliness as well as a false cure. As a self-confessed "technology hermit," Davis also notes how both technology addicts as well as those going through technology fasts will end up at the same destination: Loneliness. Having a technological stimulation like email bling or a Facebook prompt will release a neurotransmitter called dopamine in our brain that regulates our emotional responses. The trouble is, when one is hooked on technological stimulation, one settles for small doses of dopamine instead of one big flood that comes from genuine connections. Other causes of loneliness includes the way we isolate ourselves by trying to take charge or stay in control. This happens when we step out of community and try to meet our own needs by ourselves. As a result, we give ourselves a false sense of security and an invitation for sin to continue to deceive us. The TV sitcom, Friends is an example of what is unreal, for connections is not about a one-hour comedy of humour, fun, or wit. True relationships come when one stops hiding from the truth, when one makes peace with messiness, and to learn that commitment, not convenience is the fuel for true friendship.