I have two IDS lectures coming up this week, and played ultimate frisbee this afternoon at the park. On Friday I went to Chicago on a field trip to the Oriental Institute, and got to swing by Powell's. It sounds boring, but I always love a trip to Chicago and the chance to see things from Egypt, the Assyrians, Hittites, Sumerians, and more.
I'm reading a series by Susan Cooper. She's an incredible writer.
I'm struck by how lonely of a place Lincoln can be. When I was here as a student, it was a constant struggle. Now, as a professor, it seems to be a constant companion as well, but I see other people around me struggling with it too. It's in the air, maybe in the cornfields and soybean fields. I haven't seen it many other places where I've been, but it's all pervasive sometimes.
Loneliness we can learn to live with. It's what we often do to medicate loneliness that can be death. Could there be such a thing as a spirit of loneliness, a force that hovers over certain places, derailing community and peace and feelings of belonging? Regardless, a lot of students have talked about the struggle, and wrestling with suicide, pornography, alcohol and drug abuse, an almost unhealthy fascination with sex and relationships, and it makes me realize it's not just an individual feeling. What is it about this place that breeds loneliness? Is it the size of the town (it IS small)? Is it being away at college? Is it a distraction that takes place on a larger than life, spiritual level? Or is it the sense that here people are supposed to have it all together, there shouldn't be any mistakes or flaws, and so we feel isolated in our brokenness, in our struggles, in our desire to be more than who we are today, or in our apathy and hopelessness that things will ever be other than they are right now.
8 comments:
as a student I would say the reason is a mixture of all three of the things you mentioned. The school does have a weird mix of amazing friendships being formed yet loneliness at the same time doesn`t it?
Robin,
Thanks. Yes, it's a weird mixture. It's the best of times, and the worst of times both. Sometimes it feels like living on the edge of where things matter, and sometimes it feels like the most irrelevant place in the world. It's a strange mixture, a battleground of sorts.
I will say two things about Lincoln-
1st- Abraham Lincoln christened the town with a cup of watermelon juice and stated because the town was named after him it would never amount to anything.
2nd- Anytime God is moving, the enemy will move to offset what it is God is doing.
Lincoln is a very spiritual town and it's ancestry and government are deeply intertwined.
Think about it for a moment, with your spiritual mind. A small town, with a population of about 14,000 with 35+ churches, plus the Christian College citing in the middle of a cornfield surrounded by 5 larger cities all within a 40 minute drive, sitting with empty factories, buildings, a dilapidating downtown, and filled with the most diverse, complex and amazing people you will ever meet.
Several years ago the church I was a part of in lincoln began professing over the city that "This City Shall Live".
The struggle on the outward is a direct reflection of the spiritual struggle taking place.
I have been writing what will be a book about this very thing. When I get closer I will post a few excerpts.
You can be lonely among a ton of friends; in fact I think they are among the loneliest because they need people to remind them that someone may care. You can be lonely in a marriage; my husband and I have discussed this. It's horrible, but I think the sooner we acknowledge this as part of the human condition, the less lonely we will be.
Corn fields and soybean fields make me feel lonely too.
Loneliness happens when we can't be ourselves around others. We feel lonely when we feel the need to pretend to be something we are not. We feel lonely when we feel more of a pull to play the religious game of who's in and who's out instead of approaching, living, and loving people the way Jesus did. I'm afraid Lincoln and LCC has this problem in spades.
As a student I couldn't see it, however after entering post graduate "real life" I know its definitely there. The school, made up of genuine christian men and women, and some who were forced to attend by there parents. Its a unique mix of devoted, not devoted, and those searching. All of this, encased in a perverbial bubble where popularity and acceptance is determined by whether you play an instrument, a sport, if you are good looking or average, outspoken or quiet and "A" student or a "C" student. Almost all of this stuff if not all does not matter, but it seems so important then. It seemingly shuts us off to "what is" real life. For me I was a little more prepared for real life as I moved off campus my last two years. I became part of the town, not the campus bubble.
I think the loneliness comes from misunderstood expectations: seekers attending hoping to find mentors who can chart their lives for them, ministers seeking answers to their ministry issues only to face their own prejudices amplified, introspectives finding even more introspection instead of finding selfless endeavors to devote their energies to.
The college experience is an incubator of whatever gets thrown into the pot. Some get desperate to find that "deep" relationship even tacking on the hope to fulfill the spousal dream in the process. And surely, this should be accomplished on a Christian campus easy enough...right??
I treasure the time I spent on campus--and have my own regrets in stewardship and discipline--but I can definitely attribute many blessings I enjoy in my life now to those formative times at LCCS.
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