Don't Live on the Frayed Fringe
Written by Dr. Jen Clark
April 7, 2011

A lonely old man

We have all heard of sad stories like this one about a lonely old man in Lyons, France.

True Story: “I knew an old man who lived in the same apartment building as me... He had no money and he had no friends and he had no family, and he had no food...Every night he would go down to the rubbish bins and try to find something to eat in our rubbish. Every night, we could hear him ripping open the plastic bags and opening and closing the rubbish bins and talking to himself...he was completely alone in the world. 

“No one tried to knock on his door when he first went missing. No one thought about why he suddenly disappeared and no one thought to question why. No one had seen a removal van or people to help him move...No one. He just died, alone, poor, and hungry, without anyone in the world knowing, in his kitchen, with people above and below and on either side of him.” ¹

A lonely woman in church

How many lonely people are out there living on the frayed fringe of society? And how many lonely people like this drift in and out of church buildings, scarcely even noticed.

True Story: For most of her adult life Priscilla had drifted from church to church longing for something, but never staying long. Most people never even noticed that she was there. She felt deeply wounded by the perceived rejection but she was also very angry at the church in general and bitter at God. After all, didn’t God have some kind of plan for people to actually get some help in His church?

Priscilla started to attend our church, but always arrived late, sat in the back, and hurried out after services. We are aware of this loneliness syndrome and make a special attempt to reach out to those who suffer with it. After several weeks she asked for a few prayer appointments to pray through root issues, but was slow to change her behavior and continued to avoid socializing for months.

Before long a loving family atmosphere and people who refused to reject her, despite the fact that she rejected them, began to make a difference. At first she moved closer to the front of the church and soon allowed herself to be drawn into a few friendships. Gradually the cloud of sadness around her started to lift and she was able to make a commitment to be part of a church family.

A 1990 Gallup poll indicated that 36 percent of the American population suffers from loneliness. That is one out of every three people. Many of these people are Christians who want to belong, but they are trapped behind their own walls of fear and intimidation. If the church doesn’t have the answer where else can they go?

Over the years we have seen rapid transformation in those who begin attending church as they deal with the baggage of the past and as well as making a commitment to be planted in the local congregation. However, there are the people struggling with loneliness who simply require more time to bond. They must be loved even while they reject. Priscilla was one of these harder cases.

Loneliness is spiritual, not an emotion

What exactly is loneliness? Loneliness is a spiritual condition, not an emotion. Loneliness is experienced as a sense of internal emptiness and exterior isolation.

A feeling of sadness may accompany the emptiness, because people were created to be relational, to connect with and enjoy other human beings.

Perceived social isolation

Loneliness may not be as dramatic a problem as self-injury, but it is just as serious. Those who are struggling with loneliness may not actually be alone, but they are very, very alone. Loneliness has been described as perceived social isolation, and it is not correlated with the actual number of people in a person’s life. Lonely people often say they constantly feel as though they “don’t belong” or “don’t fit in” so they move from place to place. Loneliness causes people to isolate themselves from society, and often leads to depression. Many have lost hope. Many are angry at their lot in life underneath the sadness.

The Bible describes the problem and the promise for those who are the lonely “tumbleweed” Christians. Find out where God wants you to be and make a commitment to be planted there!

"Cursed is the ... one who depends on mere humans, who thinks he can make it on muscle alone and sets God aside as dead weight. He's like a tumbleweed on the prairie, out of touch with the good earth. He lives rootless and aimless   in a land where nothing grows.   "But blessed is the man who trusts...God, the woman who sticks with God. They're like trees replanted in Eden, putting down roots near the rivers— Never a worry through the hottest of summers, never dropping a leaf, serene and calm through droughts,   bearing fresh fruit every season.” (Jeremiah 17:5-8 The Message)

Dr. John Cacioppo, social psychologist who has done an extensive study of loneliness says:

“There are three core dimensions to feeling lonely—intimate isolation, which comes from not having anyone in your life you feel affirms who you are; relational isolation, which comes from not having face-to-face contacts that are rewarding; and collective isolation, which comes from not feeling that you’re part of a group or collective beyond individual existence.”²

Cacioppo notes the following characteristics³ of loneliness:

Loneliness is contagious

• Research indicates that loneliness appears to be contagious, like the flu.

• It can spread among groups of people and women are more likely than men to become "infected."

• Lonely people tend to transmit their sad feelings to those around them, which eventually led to them being isolated from society.

Loneliness is bad for physical health

• Loneliness is associated with mental and physical diseases that can shorten life.

• Studies show that loneliness is associated with morning surges in cortisol, the stress hormone, and increased vascular resistance,  which results in higher blood pressure.

• The lonely drink more, exercise less, get divorced more often, and have more family estrangements and run-ins with the neighbors. And they're fatter.

Loneliness alienates people from society

• As people become lonely, they become less trustful of others. This makes it more difficult for them to form friendships.

• Before ultimately losing their friends, lonely people transmit feelings of loneliness to their remaining friends, who also become lonely.

• This "extraordinary pattern of contagion” leads people to be moved to the edge of society when they become lonely. People seem to  instinctively avoid them.

• Society rejects the lonely. There seems to be a natural tendency to shed these lonely people.

Close relationships are a major key to life satisfaction and emotional health

• Cacioppo’s research indicates that friends substitute perfectly well for family of any kind, and that includes having a spouse.

• It's true that marriage is still the best demographic predictor of loneliness, but Cacioppo stresses it's a very loose predictor.

• People can have satisfying connections in other ways than marriage because people in bad marriages might as well be on their own.

• Research shows that those in unhappy marriages are no less lonely than single people, and might even be more so.

The neurophysiology of loneliness

“Loneliness creates a negative feedback loop that reinforces social anxiety, fear and other negative feelings. that reinforces social anxiety, fear and other negative feelings. By learning more about what underlies this experience, then learning to reframe their response, lonely individuals can reverse the feedback loop, overcome fear and find ways to reconnect ⁴. “

Oxytocin, the molecule of relationship

Just as dopamine changes the brain of addicts, another neuromodulator, oxytocin, has implications for the brains of individuals who are lonely. Oxytocin is the molecule of love, and it allows people to form emotional bonds with one another. It is released when two people fall in love, when a mother gives birth to a baby, and provides the physiological capacity to empathize and connect with other human beings.

It has been noted that when children who had inadequate attention in orphanages are adopted into loving families, it may take years for their oxytocin levels to reach a normal level that enables them to reciprocate. Scientists have discovered that this same phenomenon of oxytocin depression occurs in individuals who suffer from loneliness.

God's love is the antidote

Oxytocin is a physical substance, but God's love transforms the natural into supernatural! 

Church congregations should be loving families that adopt the lonely and patiently love them back to life. Psalm 68:6 says, “God sets the solitary in families.”

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¹Fripouille (2009). The Story of the Old and Lonely Man. http://www.nowpublic.com/health/story-old-and-lonely-man

² Nauert, R. (2008). Loneliness Harms Health. http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/09/05/loneliness-harms-health/2882.html

³ Cacioppo, J. (2009). Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection. W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition.

⁴ Cacioppo, J. and Patrick, W. (2008). Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection. W. W. Norton & Company.