Repent of Aloneness

The world means nothing without people.

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun. Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.

---

There is a sense in which we may say that the world is that which is human, or perhaps that which is between man and God.

This world was made for us. We were to be godlets over it. Tolkien’s expression of us as sub-creators was not mere wordsmithy, nor was it mere encouragement for us to be artistic somehow. We were created to create, by a sovereign who would have us reign. We were spoken to speak, by the Word himself, and that Word became flesh. Having risen from the dead, he is still a Man, ever divine and ever human, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. From there he rules as man ought, and we must imitate our elder brother. Were we to be godlets over the earth, to fill it and establish a good dominion over it? The game’s back on. He is risen! A man, the Son of Man, sits on the throne, and all is right with the world, and is being made right. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

The world was made for us, spoken. It was not good that man should be alone, so God conferred within his Godhead, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion…

Brothers and sisters, God used to walk in the Garden in the cool of the day.

The world was made in communion. Man was made in communion.

None of this cosmic arrangement means anything without beholding, without gaze, without approach, without touch, without speech, without conversation. But it’s not only your gaze that makes it real. None of this means anything if you are alone with your genius, whispering back and forth to each other cogito ergo sum until you realize you’re the same person. That was the promise of modernity and postmodernity, and you are more prey to it than you realize. People are troublesome. You want to be alone. You ought to be alone, you say to your little genius. We are strong and independent and don’t need anyone, it hisses back at you.

Friend, to reject company and conversation is inhuman. To deprive people of your company is to tell them they have no worth, that they are not worth the while you would spend on yourself, the Last Man. It is to say that when you die, the universe will die with you.

But no. The world will go on, arranged and spoken, beheld and understood, utterly by God and but in part by man. The world will go on meaning something, for the world is a conversation. Right now, it may be a conversation being had behind your back, but the fault is yours. The words are in the light, thrown back and forth like a game of catch, and you’re skulking in the corners of the world.

If anything means anything, then the world is human; I am afraid that you, standing alone by yourself, are no longer human.

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

and

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us.

Your aloneness is a sin. You are denying the image of God in others, and your own imago Dei is cracking under the pressure. You rake with your claws at the very face of God. Repent now, and see that the world is charged with grandeur.

No matter how wearisome the generations’ endless tread becomes, there lives the dearest freshness deep down things. No matter how dull or meaningless your own life, the world continues to spin significantly. The deep down things continue to bubble up, but you’re not noticing because you, like all of us, need the eyes of others to see it.

You need communion and the Holy Spirit, and you will only find that in fellowship with the saints.

You need gratitude.

Do you not yet believe that the world is that which is human? That the world is human beings? That the world is that which is between God and man?

Then imagine a great food. A caviar. Foie gras. Flank steak with chimichurri. Pickled plums with sticky rice. A mac and cheese made with four perfectly balanced cheeses with European names, finished under a broiler so that the bread crumbs on top brown perfectly. It is a mac and cheese far superior to your mother’s. It is the perfect mac and cheese. It is a mac and cheese to love.

Now order it through an app and eat it alone. But do it right; do it justice. Put some pants on and open a bottle of wine.

You’re just making it worse, aren’t you?

You need someone with you to give it meaning.

Meaning starts with gratitude, with God himself. Without gratitude, the mac and cheese means nothing but energy for your meat machine, a machine which will itself be one day turned into energy by that which will eat you. Or, should I say, that which will eat your body?

What are you, friend? Flesh to be eaten or spirit to be breathed? Perhaps both. And both may be shared.

Meaning starts with God, and grows with man. We do not grant more meaning to that which is without us. Rather, we see more, eat more, digest more, and grow to see yet more, endlessly. Now we see through a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Consider that mac and cheese. What if, instead of striving to savor it, to understand it, to parse and critique it, to get the most out of it, you simply enjoyed it in gratitude to the Creator God? Now the mac and cheese means more. It has indeed grown.

Now imagine a spouse, your beloved, seated with you, both of you grateful. Now the mac and cheese means yet more.

Now imagine your seventeen children. Yes, it must be seventeen. Your imagination, crucial to your sense of gratitude, needs to be shocked awake. Your seventeen children. There they are, not at the rickety card table you first imagined, because they do not fit and it cannot hold all the food. The mac and cheese, likely without four exotic cheeses, because who can afford that, now means yet more.

The meaning has grown. Because they all see it too, because they all taste it too, it is more charged with the grandeur of God than you knew possible. As it comes out of the oven (it’s no longer something ordered on an app), light shines out from the shook foil and you all smell how golden it is and see how much it means.

Final stage: take the spouse and seventeen kids scene, but now imagine your friends have come over, and they’ve brought their families.

Now we see through a mirror dimly, but then we shall see face to face.

It is worth quoting Scripture at length here:

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The world is people. People seem unknowable to you, but that is only because you do not understand knowledge. You will never know everything God thinks; you will never even know everything your spouse thinks. But even now, you may truly know God, you may truly know your spouse. Truth is not all the information; get comfortable with paradox and ignorance. The living know that they shall die. You are not God, and the universe does not die when you die.

One day, if you repent of your aloneness, you will know, even as you have been known. Will you know everything? Stop being an Enlightenment fool and put away childish things. No. You will know truly, perhaps even fully, and you will be a perfect man.

If you want to taste food that doesn’t taste like ashes, you must have God’s company. If you are in God’s company, you will inevitably seek the company of his people. With them you will eat and drink all the days of your life, until that company of angels is coming after you and the sweet chariot swings lower than is comfortable.

You must have companionship, friend. That is to say, you must have withbreadship. A companion is someone who enjoys his bread with you. Com, Old latin “with”. Panis, Latin “bread”. Without company, life is meaningless.

Which is to say, go to church. Go as soon as you can. While you’re there, eat some bread, and drink a little wine for your health.