I am a person prone to loneliness. Not because I am ever alone, but because I have an especially strong desire to live in communion. I've been like this my whole life. We (humans) were designed to live in community... we are motivated by an inherent need for relationship. I live my life constantly interacting with people. I live in an apartment with four other women (plus frequent guests that come and in and out of our "revolving door"). I work at a busy coffeeshop where I interact with over a hundred people in one shift (probably much more). I am the sort of person that walks down the street and greets every person that comes across my path. And yet, the ache of loneliness still finds its way into my heart from time to time. See, it's not enough for me to just be around people, but I need to have relationships with other people... deep, meaningful relationships with love, intimacy, and vulnerability. Ironically, for as much as I need this, allowing myself to be vulnerable to other people is a pretty scary thing for me and something that I have to consciously work on.
We were not just made to live in communion with each other, but above all, to live in communion with God - the creator of the universe... and each of us. I wasn't always aware that I needed this so desperately. There was a time when I would feel that emptiness and assume that it was a void that needed to be filled by another person... and the trouble with that is that it's not always feasible to have a person right there to come through to meet that need. Now, when I feel that emptiness, I know that my first reaction must be to reach out to God. As much as I am sometimes still left wishing that I could curl up like a child in my mother's lap, or sit and talk with my best friend, I know that my relationship with my creator is the most satisfying of all (plus God doesn't mind if I call at 3am).
I think that a lot of us make the mistake of depending on other people to fill a God-shaped void. As I was thinking about this on my walk, I thought of a poem that I wrote many years ago (yes, I'm finally getting around to how chai fits into this). I must have been around 18 years old and in the poem, I compared my boyfriend to a soy chai latte. Actually, the exact quote was "Sometimes I wish you would melt into my soy chai. I'd swallow you down and carry you inside me forever." A bit melodramatic, but I was young and head-over-heels in love with a man I was planning on spending my life with (I had no idea the adventure that God had planned for me instead). I thought that he could fill me up and give me comfort and satisfaction always. Soy chai lattes have always been a comfort thing for me. Something about the warmth, and spice, and smoothness of the soy just fills me up and is what I crave at the end of a crazy day. I feel that warmth and comfort fill me from the inside out. And that, to me is how it feels when I fill up on God... except it's deeper, more satisfying, and lasts longer than any beverage, or man (plus it doesn't come with empty calories or broken hearts).
On Sunday at Bay Church Seth talked about salvation. He talked about why we need it. It's not just some buzz-word or vague concept. It's not some mystical phenomena. The reality is that we are separated from God by sin. Adam and Eve experienced that in a very literal way when they were booted out of the Garden of Eden and no longer had that same intimacy of walking with God in the garden. In my own life, I have felt the distance between me and God grow as I let sin and disobedience creep into my heart and my actions. Salvation isn't just like getting a hall pass from God, it's the very thing that closes the separation between us and our creator. Salvation isn't just given out, but the result of reaching out to God... asking for a real relationship... asking God to fill you up and come into your life and soul in the most intimate way.
Whether a person is Christian or not, the desire for relationship is still there. I look at the world and human history and I see how we are motivated not just by the desire to have relationship with other people, but to also feel intimately connected to the universe. Ultimately, this is why "religion" and "spirituality" exist. We know instinctively that we find meaning and purpose in our lives when we are connected in this way. Whether we strip down the Christian trappings and terminology and refer to a "higher power", "the universe", "mother goddess", or whatever else we want to call it... it's all coming from the same desire put on our hearts by the same one God. At our core, we are all searching for a connection to our creator, the creator of everything. Maslow refers to it as "self-transcendence" in his hierarchy of needs, and I believe that a relationship with God is also at the core of what he calls "self-actualization". Even if we try to deny it or are unaware of it... we need to live in communion with God in order to be fully satisfied. In this relationship we find ourselves... our purpose... as well as comfort. No other person, and certainly no delicious beverage can quell the ache of loneliness. There is a God-sized void that nothing else will fill.
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