The Longing for Connection and Closeness

There is a longing for connection and closeness in everyone. This truth can be powerfully known in the needs of an elderly person with advanced dementia, but their need merely speaks of a common need that functional adults can so easily repress.

There is a need in you and me for connection and for closeness.

Such a need is usually met by a marital partner or a best friend or even a work colleague. And even though it is met in some ways by these, many times this need goes unmet; again, using the example of the elderly person with advanced dementia, they are increasingly shut in to themselves. Connection and closeness, however, would draw them out, as it does to us.

In the therapeutic arrangement, where we enter a process of healing, which is simply the process of understanding and acceptance, we have this connection-and-closeness need met.

The more we can truly embrace and accept the need for connection and closeness with our fellow human beings, the more we will truly become the unpretentious and alive people of God. More and more God will fill us with understanding for truth. More and more we will be truly enlightened, but only in correlation with other humanity as we connect and attain and maintain closeness.

God has made us in such ways as to thrive in the company of togetherness, but shrivel in isolation. Isolation doesn’t seem to harm us when we have our faculties, but that is a delusion that we don’t often pick up on. Isolation as a default is bad news.

This may be demonstrated in the fact that, whilst we might need our alone time we may quickly get bored of ourselves and indeed lonely. And if we didn’t get lonely, we might look at some other behavioural or attitudinal lack to demonstrate selfishness, because selfishness is often an indicator of isolation. Selfishness is never good news.

When we see ourselves as more similar to the broader humanity that God created than different, we agree with the truth; we are not as unique as we think we are, especially regarding our very human needs.

When we embrace the need of connection, and we overcome our selfish desire to isolate, we are blessed to live in the company of others; they bless us and we bless them and as we bless them we, ourselves, are blessed.

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Isolation is a great travesty, especially in this day as it happens more and more. Human beings have a need, a longing, for connection and closeness. When we do things to connect and become close with others we are blessed as they are blessed.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.