Over the past few weeks, in doing some reflection about the power of relationships, I ran into a set of statistics that floored me. Let me share a few.
- The Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago calculates that loneliness raises blood pressure to the point where the risk of heart attack and stroke is doubled.
- Sociologist James House of the University of Michigan declares that emotional isolation is a more dangerous health risk than smoking or high blood pressure.
- Husbands who reported that their wives had difficulty demonstrating affection suffered twice as many cases of angina and high blood pressure as those who didn’t.
- Wives who view their marriages as strained and have regular hostile interactions with their partners are more likely to have higher levels of stress hormones compared to women in happy marriages, and have a 3x higher risk of heart attack.
- Janice Kiecolt-Glaser of Ohio State University found that newlyweds who fought had depressed immune systems for up to twenty-four hours after arguing.
- Marital distress raises the risk of depression tenfold.
What I take this data to demonstrate is that we, as human beings, are created for connection. “It is not good for humans to be alone” is one of the very first things we hear in Scripture (Genesis 2:18).
The problem, for many of us, is twofold. In the first place, for many of us, the relationships that were supposed to teach us how to be in secure relationships with others–with our parents, siblings, or others within our families of origin–were troubled. And these troubles echo through the relationships we have throughout the course of our lives. We have wounds that can only be healed by true connection. And yet, the wounds themselves often stunt the growth of our relationships.
The second problem, as Robert Putnam famously argued in his magnum opus Bowling Alone, is that we are facing a dissolution of associational life. That is to say, most of the spaces in which human beings have traditionally formed communities are dissolving. Because of this, the only relationships in which most people today tend to look for deep intimacy, connection, and belonging are in romantic relationships. And yet, most romantic relationships cannot bear the weight of what whole villages used to provide.
The result? Well, if the statistics are any indication, this lack of intimacy, connection, and belonging is literally killing us.
In light of these things, I want to make a radical suggestion (or two). The first and perhaps more important is that, for those of us who may be struggling with loneliness or social isolation, a relationship with God can fill that void in a way that nothing else can.
Now, even saying that, I recognize that that claim has the potential of sounding so simple and so (overly?) spiritual that it threatens to be sanguine and sentimental. I admit, there were times in my life that I did think claims like that were just sentiment. But having had some times of searing loneliness over the past few years—and I suspect that I am not alone in having experienced the pandemic years as lonely—I can say no more than that I have found that statement–that God can be the source of our deepest connection and belonging–to be profoundly true. In fact, when I have stopped chasing broken forms of intimacy (out of my own deep woundedness), and slowed down enough to be attentive and aware, I have found that the world is crowded with God. I have found that God’s love surrounds and enlivens every blade of grass, every dew dropped leaf, every peel of thunder. And most of all, I have found the God who is nearer to me than my breath to be the safest, most secure form of attachment I could ever dare to imagine.
The second and perhaps more surprising suggestion I want to make is that, if we here at Church of the Incarnation are grounded in that kind of healthy intimacy with God, we can actually, also be that “village” for each other. The difficult reality is that not all of us will find the intimacy we crave in romantic partners. If you’re like me, you also bear some of your deepest wounds from your romantic relationships. But even if that’s your story, the good news of the Christian Gospel is that God has still not left us alone. God has given us each other. God has given us the church. And though, for some of us, church has sometimes felt like a place so buttoned up, so formal, so stuffy, and so polite that we may fear we will not truly find both the depth and safety we need, a people who have come to know true intimacy with Jesus find a miraculous thing to be true–as we fall in love with Jesus, we find others falling with us. Found in Jesus, we can find each other.
And in Jesus, we can be truly safe. And known. And loved.
Nate+