Penned on July 30th at the Company's Garden in Cape Town
Today is the first day after the World Race has ended. I find myself completely and utterly alone for the first time in 11 months. Despite the much anticipated alone time and how much I've dreamed about this moment throughout the race, it was anti-climatic to say the least. Being alone wasn't as cool as I thought it would be. I suppose the community life has really done a work in me that what I thought I would revel in – the first few moments of being alone had me shed tears of mourning, mourning the end of one treasured season and the end of living with strangers turned brothers and sisters that became as close as family. Knowing that strong sense of belonging, intimacy, honesty and doing life together in a close community is suddenly taken away from me.
I suppose being alone and feeling lonely are two complete different things yet I feel both a physical solitude and an emotional one, missing my squadmates terribly after saying a rushed goodbye to all 50-some of them as their bus pulled away slowly, knowing that hard fact I may never see some of them again on this side of eternity.
I'm learning that it takes just as much faith to end the race as it did to start it, my best friend Jen G shared this truth with me at final debrief. I'm still thinking about this one.
I am thankful that the Creator is here with me now just as He was with me before I left for the World Race, and I'm praying that He has better things to reveal to me in these newfound moments of solitude, because He loves me that much.
I need to realize and pinpoint the source of my loneliness and direct it to God, as Henri Nouwen wrote best:
Two Kinds of Loneliness
In the spiritual life we have to make a distinction between two kinds of loneliness. In the first loneliness, we are out of touch with God and experience ourselves as anxiously looking for someone or something that can give us a sense of belonging, intimacy, and home. The second loneliness comes from an intimacy with God that is deeper and greater than our feelings and thoughts can capture.
We might think of these two kinds of loneliness as two forms of blindness. The first blindness comes from the absence of light, the second from too much light. The first loneliness we must try to outgrow with faith and hope. The second we must be willing to embrace in love.
