seek

Is an empty room a lonely room?

Last year, in quarantine, a floor above where I’m living now, I asked myself this question. I came to find that it was not. I came to find that alone is not unloved, and that out of sight is not out of mind. Especially not to a God that continually sees and holds me. To be in love with someone means that you don’t stop thinking about that person’s name, their face, their habits, their whereabouts. So in this empty room I am the one being thought about. I am seen because I am loved. I am seen even more than I know how to see. Loved more than I know how to love. That’s what I came to find out last year at this time.

Today I feel seen, loved, known. Even though I haven’t been speaking to the Lord as much as I should be. I feel seen and loved and known, not in a cup-overflowing way, but in a rote memorization, this is how you write a cursive “b” kind of way. In a muscle memory way. Of course I am loved. I know. He is forever in love with me, but I fall in and out with my devotion, like a staticky radio station. In March I played a love song for Him, I danced and sang and sat and stretched and bowed. I let my radio play the notes straight from my heart: the lyrics weren’t unnatural or too specific, but just the right amount of unique. Heartfelt, soft, flowing. I sent Him my love and my words and my music. I sent up my kisses to heaven.

Recently, I’ve only sent the prayers of my absent mind up to Him. My station comes in every few days with an old song, the same words, the same chorus. Sometimes it’s a little off key: my harmonies come out a bit bent. But still, His love is there in little pushes and pulls and listens. Waiting. Waiting in my empty room, in my empty apartment, to tell me why I’m not lonely. First, to ask me if I’m lonely.

I began the following series of questions five minutes ago. I was just meandering. I didn’t know it was Him.

is it loneliness to feel creative freedom?

does loneliness feel like losing track of the hours?

is loneliness an empty room?

does loneliness feel like stretching your hands to the carpet while waiting for the popcorn because there is no one to talk to?

does loneliness taste like eating popcorn for dinner because you feel like you should want something else but you don't?

does loneliness sound like singing, speaking to the walls?

does loneliness feel like going to work, doing the work, and coming home?

does loneliness masquerade as our blessings?

does loneliness look like the absence of busy?

It shouldn't.

It shouldn't. Today marks about two weeks since school ended, and only two days since I drove home from Minnesota. Today marks the first summer in three that I am not working two jobs that can give me up to and over sixty hours a week. Today marks the first summer I live by myself, in my empty room. My empty room that isn't lonely, because I’m here and my mind is with me. And my God is before, behind, above, below, around, inside, and any preposition you can think of. Holding my atoms together, too.

Even so, there's the question of loneliness, but the nature of the question is debatable. We can look at it singly through the lens of human nature and psychology. Has loneliness really just become the absence of busyness? Isn’t this considered our rest, our leisure time? I suppose many of us fill it with people, jobs, outings, apps, and projects. Are we doing all of this to distract ourselves from the silence? Silence isn’t inherently lonely, and I think she might be a little annoyed that we keep thinking she is. Silence is patient and quiet. True silence is restorative--think about studying and sleeping. Silence is clarity, but still we are scared of it, because we’ve misinterpreted it. Loneliness and silence are friends, but they are not the same.

I think we can also look at loneliness through a divine lens. Some of us are lonely when we aren’t busy, but some of us are lonely because we’re empty and broken. I've often heard people say that they're lonely even when they're surrounded by other people. They don't think they are seen, heard, loved. And even if there was no God, they would still be at least seen and heard--little children and people that like to watch people are especially good for that.

Even if there was no God, I think that we all underestimate the amount of love that the people around us store in their hearts for us. Family and friends, first. But also teachers, pastors, psychologists, philanthropists, children--those that have taught their hearts to live wide open and those that don’t know how to close them. The evidence of how deep our human hearts really go is everywhere. Turn on the radio and you’ll hear it. But turn the dial to the station you speak to God with and you’ll hear it beyond what you know how to hear. Even if your reception is unstable, He can speak through static. He can speak through texts about summer plans, through questions, poetry, music. Math, probably. He can speak through your own mind questioning if you really are who you are and if you’re feeling what you think you might be feeling. He did for me. Tonight he spoke to me through a text that said "y'all create a summer chat yet?"

I think, in this never ending radio metaphor of mine, there's a reason it's called the "seek" button. In the car, we're really just hopping from station to station. But with our minds, we're seeking. Sometimes we're seeking God earnestly, letting the radio play our own unleashed lyrics, and kneeling at his feet. Other times we just keep pushing buttons and shifting from station to station. Preset 1, doubt. Preset 2, joy. Preset 3, fear. There are a lot of things to hear on our radios. Divine love and divine loneliness. Emptiness and silence. Sometimes it's just a wall of questions followed by brokenness. Other times it’s questions followed by clarity, like today. Is loneliness an empty room? Stretching alone in silence? Talking and laughing to yourself? Working and creating alone? Silence? I don't think so.

Last year I learned that alone is not unloved. Today I learn that being alone is not lonely.