Loneliness and Nature
Do you experience loneliness? Statistics would indicate that periodically you do. Just about everyone does. How do you deal with loneliness? Some choose harmful paths but most people simply seek companionship. But where do we find the companionship we’re looking for? An obvious answer might be in our friends and family. A less obvious answer would be in nature.
A few days ago a good friend sent me a link to an article found in the most recent issue of The Christian Century. In this article the author, Tricia Gates Brown, claims that our problem isn’t just loneliness, it’s “species loneliness.” This phrase she picked up from novelist Richard Powers. Brown writes, “For Powers, species loneliness denotes the ways human beings have cut ourselves off from the nonhuman species inhabiting our world. In our desire for dominance and self-gratification we have put ourselves in solitary confinement, and in the worst cases become the tormenter of all things nonhuman. We have deprived ourselves of love relationships with nonhumans.” Brown goes on to say that species loneliness is making us sick. “We were never meant to operate as an autonomous and independent species. We desperately need the full cooperation of other species to survive, from large mammals that maintain a crucial balance within ecosystems to microbial communities in our own guts. As a result of our non-cooperation, interspecies disconnection is breaking down the systems humans depend on. This disconnection is deeper than the interdependence of biological systems; it is also theological. That’s why, to my ears, the word loneliness gets at the issue with such scalpel-precision. Loneliness has been defined as being ‘destitute of sympathetic companionship.’ It is a sickness of the heart and soul, the parts of ourselves we cannot see yet know to be our very essence.”
I believe that Brown is on to something here. Loneliness is a reality for many of us and the root of that loneliness is not always human. This explains why some people turn to their pets for companionship. It may sound strange to some but there are people I know who find companionship in certain trees or flowers. I’m convinced that this is just how God has made us. In the Creation stories in the Bible animals and plants play a prominent role. We are meant to interact with the rest of Creation and can find an antidote to loneliness there as well as with other humans. This enables us to “widen the family circle of love.” At the end of Brown’s article she says “God as immanent companion encountered in nature—under a stone or in the eyes of a hummingbird or a dog—is wonderfully good news for people sick with loneliness. Love is abundant and waiting for us, right there in nature.” Are you willing to expand the boundaries of your love? If so, you may well find your periods of loneliness lessen to a significant degree.
–Chuck