Dialogue on Loneliness

‘I’m feeling brassed off today. It’s cold and wet and the world looks unpleasant. I’d like to curl up like a bear and hibernate for a month. It’s more than that, though – I guess I’m feeling lonely.’

‘Yes, I’d noticed that. It’s different for us. We angels don’t have that problem. No negative states of feeling. That’s partly because we have no physical bodies; and partly – ’.

‘I know. Partly because you don’t commit sins.’

‘Yes. I didn’t like to say it myself. It’s a delicate matter. Some of us did commit sins of course, the ones who are now fallen. But even when you human beings are doing your very best, there’s always some interior disorder, either from the varying states of your bodies – old people are sometimes more inclined to get depressed than young people on account of this – or else from elements of moral disorder. What you call your loneliness would probably be much less if you hadn’t stayed up till three o’clock at that party last night – ’.

‘Don’t bring that up! I wanted to shift at 12 o’clock. But my wife was enjoying it so much we didn’t get away till three.’

‘This loneliness. I don’t feel it myself, but of course we spirits can always be in contact with any part of the creation at any time at all, just by a simple act of the will and intellect. You’re more affected by physical things – by the weather, for instance. The beauty of bad weather gives me the same intellectual pleasure that good weather would give me. Look at those perfect white flowers on the apple tree out in the garden. The rain on the window makes a pattern that mingles exactly with the pattern of the branches – “inscape”, as Gerard Manley Hopkins called it. Every detail is perfect. Everything God makes is like that – unique of its kind, and perfect in its kind. . . .’

‘I don’t really want a sermon. I’ve got cold feet. Let’s talk about loneliness. If you were a really good guardian angel you’d wave a wand or something, and click! – I wouldn’t feel lonely any more – ’.

‘I’d like to; and I wouldn’t need a wand. But we aren’t allowed to interfere in the conditions of human lives. Well, let’s consider loneliness, then – it’s a state; it’s a massive negative state of feeling; a feeling that the rest of the creation is indifferent or hostile to your self – ’.

‘You bet! I guess that just about sums it up.’

‘It’s not a moral fault. Our Blessed Lord felt it with enormous depth and intensity in the Garden of Gethsemane, when His disciples were sleeping, and He had to go through that vigil on His own. It’s not a fault then, but it does involve the ordinary human passions – fear, love, hope, disappointment. You could perhaps boil it down to a deep feeling that nobody gives a damn whether you live or die, especially those by whom you hope and expect to be loved – ’.

‘Now, now. I didn’t know guardian angels were allowed to swear!’

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‘We have to be on the wave-length of the people we’re looking after. We have to be able to joke, too. Do you know the story about the man and the lion in the desert?’

‘No.’

‘Well, this gentleman was walking in the desert. And he met a lion. And because he was frightened, he knelt down and began to pray. And then, after a while, he peeked through his fingers and saw that the lion was kneeling down and praying, too. “What a marvellous sight!” he said. “I never expected to see a wild beast praying.”

‘“Shut up, you drongo!” growled the lion. “Can’t you see I’m saying grace?”’

‘That’s a good one.’

‘It’s not original. I got it from Edith Sitwell. She was a woman with many friends. And I think she suffered a great deal from loneliness.’

‘There’s too much loneliness in the world.’

‘It comes from the desire to be loved. This desire is never extinguished in the human heart, but also it can never be really satisfied until you are joined to God in Heaven. The only way to cancel it out is by expressing love yourself, towards others – ’.

‘There’s nobody in the house at present for me to express love to – ’.

‘You could pray, though. That’s probably the best way of expressing love.’

‘No, thanks. Not today.’

‘That’s a pity. At any rate – this matter of loneliness – it comes partly from the kind of societies you human beings build. In the villages of Europe or Asia, even in the Maori pas still left in this country, in that kind of community people are generally less lonely because they have strong relationships with a great many other people. But for people like yourself it’s harder – you don’t have many strong relationships outside your own family.’

‘Do you think we should go back and live like aborigines?’

‘You could do worse. But it’s not really in your power to do it, is it? You’ve got to accept most of the aspects of the society you’re born into. What you could do is to spread yourself a bit wider, visit one or two people in hospital, go and read to some old person whose eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be – ’.

‘You’re getting on to the Works of Mercy, aren’t you?’ I know, I know, but the people one tries to help aren’t quite first-degree friends, are they? I mean, a person wants to share their inner self with somebody else? – ’.

‘Why don’t you, then?’

‘You should know! My inner self is by no means a sight that would please everybody.’

‘You seem to be saying that you won’t expose your feelings to other people in case you might be rejected. In that case, your feelings of loneliness might come partly from just not having the boldness to make the move. I’ve seen a lot of good come out of sharing among human beings – even a sense of page 173 despair, when it’s shared, ceases to be despair and becomes a kind of grim joke. Among us angels, too. That was part of the fault of Lucifer – he couldn’t bear to share himself with angels and with men and with God. He wanted to keep himself to himself – ’.

‘What I’ve got to give wouldn’t interest anybody.’

‘Aren’t you prejudging the issue? Give other people a chance. Human beings tend to live each in a kind of solitary cell. And when you go past and knock on the door of the cell, you could say, “How’s your monster today?” because every human being feels that somewhere inside them there’s a monster locked up, something unshaped that they’d be afraid for anyone else to know. It’s one of the effects of Original Sin. But the joke is, each of them has got the same kind of monster. And one might reply, “He’s asleep, thank God!” – and another might say, “Not the best; I’m half-way down his throat!” But this monster is really each one’s unshaped desire to be loved. God wants them each to use the energy of the monster for the purposes of charity – ’.

‘Aren’t you teaching dangerous doctrine?’

‘Not a bit of it. Look at the saints. Some of them were the crudest, most unshaped people you could ever meet. But they’d learnt to use their own God-given personalities. They’d learnt the secret of sanctity – what old Martin Buber, the Jewish saint, was always talking about – to serve God with the strength of the evil impulse. . . .’

‘I could go out and get drunk.’

‘No – that’s not what I mean. That would be to get eaten by the monster. You could ring up that friend of yours, though – the one who was on the booze last night – ask him over to have dinner with you – ’.

‘My wife doesn’t like him.’

‘How do you know? You haven’t asked her.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. You know, I’m not feeling quite as lonely as I did half an hour ago. But I’ve still got cold feet.’

‘You could turn the heater on.’

‘Thanks for the suggestion. You know, for an angel you’re remarkably human – ’.

‘We are ruled over by a Man and a Woman. So it’s not surprising that we know something about the human race. . . .’

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