Spiritual Loneliness and Life Together (Andrea Butler)
My 20s have been a transient time. I worked for a year after college. Then my husband and I moved to St. Louis for three years of law school (including a summer in Washington, D.C.). When I graduated, we moved to Des Moines, Iowa, knowing we would be there for only a year as I started my law career clerking for a federal judge. Now we are headed back to Washington. Back and forth, here and there, year after year.
It has been difficult for us to cultivate community in the midst of all this moving. In St. Louis, it took my husband and me almost eighteen months to find a church home. And then it was almost time for us to move again. We had learned the importance of sharing our daily lives with fellow believers, and we prioritized finding a new church even though we knew from the outset that our stay in Des Moines was limited. But it takes time to settle into the life of a new church, and for new acquaintances to grow into budding friendships, and for budding friendships to grow into deep bonds.
So much transience over the past several years has led to spiritual loneliness. That feeling of spiritual loneliness is one I imagine many believers are experiencing now in the midst of our national lockdown. As we tune into streamed versions of our services every week—services without sharing of our weekly sorrows and joys, without passing the bread and body, without hearing the voices of others raised in worship—we are lonely. And for those of us in new spaces and cities, it is nearly impossible to join the life of a church in the midst of a pandemic. Online services and Zoom bible studies are more of a holding pattern than a welcoming platform. While I, like many others, continue to make due with phone calls from friends, there is an increasing sense of disconnection.
The church has emphasized, rightly, that the Christian life is one meant to be lived in community. Many churches encourage believers to join community groups and bible studies, to join in meals together regularly, and to share life with other believers. Because I have tasted the goodness of life together, I am tempted to react to spiritual loneliness—whether induced by a pandemic or early-career cross-country moves—by entering a spiritual holding pattern. If I can get back normal, if I can go to church on Sundays, if I can get to know the people at my new church a little better, then I will again mature and grow in faith. And so I wait to pursue a deeper and fuller love of Jesus until the barriers to community are lifted.
Yet as Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us in his book Life Together, the time we spend living and growing in Christian community is a gift from God that is by no means guaranteed. Bonhoeffer writes “between the death of Christ and the Last Day it is only by gracious anticipation of last things that Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other Christians. It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God’s word and sacrament.” Instead of entering a static waiting when we lack community, we must recognize that our salvation and sanctification are ultimately between only two people: ourselves and Jesus. Even in community, as Bonhoeffer points out, “we can meet each other only through the mediation of Christ,” and such communities bear fruit only when we are released back to Christ “in order that Christ may deal with” each of us individually. Our spiritual growth is not a responsibility we can shift to those believers with whom we have the good fortune to spend this life. Spiritual loneliness is hard, but it does not have to mean spiritual dryness.
For now, we must acknowledge that life together is not a necessary condition to be met before we can serve and know God. For now, we must each push forward in this endeavor with the wholly sufficient help of Jesus, embracing our communal solitude even as we mourn our individual isolation. But we can and should look forward to the day in which we once again share weekly services—at home again in a church where we are deeply known and deeply loved, rejoicing in life together.
Andrea Butler is a former Carver Project staff member and a 2019 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.
Further Reading
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (2009)
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