The Tribune

By Rev. Canon S. Sebastian Campbell

WALKING through a graveyard in Texas someone came across a grave where he was struck sharply. It had no dates of birth, or death, just the name of a woman and her two husbands. The epitaph on the grave read simply:


“Sleeps but rests not.
Loved but was loved not.
Tried to please, but pleased not.
Died as she lived - alone.”


What a testimony, to have loved and died alone. We might think that life in the “olden days” might have been lonelier than our lives. No telephones or dependable mail system. But the truth is just the opposite. Loneliness has reached epidemic proportions in our modern world and it is so evident in the Bahamas. Although we have many different ways to communicate with the outside world, people today are lonelier than they have ever been in history.

It is commonplace to hear young women refer to their biological clocks ticking as though they are about to be shared out of a man. This is a growing constituency for grave concern in the Bahamas. Loneliness has become their giant for whom they have no will power to stand up to and fight. Singleness can be used ever so creatively as a gift from God. Many children roam aimlessly and unloved on our streets. They are in need of a surrogate mother and father. Positive gangs are severely threatened and being replaced by the destructive gangs born out of a desire for love and fellowship. These positive gangs of boy Scouts, Boys’ and Girls’ Brigades, Brownies, Cubs and the like are crying out for a revival. Many lonely persons can give focus to our youth in so great an opportunity and thereby defeat loneliness in themselves and countless others to whom they minister.

Loneliness has caused many to form strange relationships. Many just want to get married and it doesn’t matter to whom. Some lonely, lovesick women are known to plan a wedding without knowing with any certainty their bridegroom. It appears as though they would settle for anyone on the way to the ceremony.
At a recent party a woman was overheard saying, “I’m going to get a man this year even if I have to break up a marriage.” And some have done just that. Our youth are in hot pursuit of relationships without scrutiny or standard. This is a breeding ground for violence that results in murder. It is a fact that many of our young men cannot handle being “dumped”. You hear young men speaking of: “My woman… I’ll kill for my gal”…why so possessive… Is there such a vacuum in our lives that we go crazy when losing the one and only thing?

It pays to be swamped with many options for activity and involvement. We must be more creative as a church, civic organisation, government agencies etc. and cause more to be available for constructive involvement and thus fill the national void. Because loneliness creates a feeling of void on the inside, people try to compensate for that feeling by filling themselves with food, drugs, alcohol, material things, sex, work, or other people’s business.

Loneliness is not removed by substitutes for true relationships in life - the most foundational being our relationship with God. The substitutes hunted after bring emptiness and spiral us back into the land of loneliness where we feel unfulfilled and often times betrayed. Marriage is not the answer, because experience shows that some of the most lonely people are found within married life. This leads some into sweet hearting where loneliness again attacks with its unfulfilled dreams and the “gold-digger” clearing you out of your worldly possessions. Some might respond by making friends with alcohol whose friendship lasts until the hangover comes with its sickening and weakening blows. Drugs beckon others into its embrace, but proves to be a poor lover who strips us off our youthfulness and clothes us in sackcloth and ashes making us into zombies. What downward spiral of hopelessness when we fail to stand up against this giant.

Everyone experiences loneliness at different times in life, and it is not always a bad or dangerous experience. There is something to be said for learning to be alone with ourselves and God. But loneliness over the long term can have negative effects physically as well as spiritually.

Living in loneliness is a choice. You may not have become lonely by choice, but remaining lonely is something you don’t have to do. The church exists to encourage and strengthen Christians; but if we refuse to get involved, it is difficult for that to happen. Each person must assume the responsibility for his own emotional and spiritual health, including not lingering in loneliness. In the church there are many doors through which one can enter into relationships of service in ministries and friendship. But you must walk through the door. There are many opportunities for persons to be creative and suggest ministries that can respond to the demands of those in community. A single ministry beckons us along with adult ministries to boys and girls. The church beckons us to creatively use and convert our lonely hours.

When we have Jesus Christ living in us, though the world may crumble around us, he is the light from on high that thrills and encourages our hearts. Look beyond your circumstances into the face of the one who loves you: Jesus Christ. Enhance your relationship with Him through prayer and worship, and hear Him say, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all things shall be added unto you.”