St. Patrick Presbyterian Church, Epc

Loneliness is not just an American problem, but also a global issue. Recent studies suggest that 40% of the world’s population feel lonely. The situation in Britain was such that Prime Minister Theresa May in 2018 appointed a Ministry of Loneliness. In our own context in America, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy published an advisory identifying loneliness as a new public health epidemic: “Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation has been an underappreciated public health crisis that has harmed individual and societal health.” Yea, loneliness will kill you. The body does keep score and, because we are made in God’s image, it means that being alone is not the way we are supposed to live. So odious to God is this idea of being alone that even in the perfect world, before sin enters, God utters the first (and I say it reverently) “not good” about his creation—and it is against aloneness. As if to highlight the idea that to be human is to be in relationship with others, where we know and are known. It is a powerful p