{"id":800499,"date":"2019-10-18T13:30:43","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T19:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=373185"},"modified":"2019-10-18T13:30:43","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T19:30:43","slug":"walking-our-faith-the-antidote-to-loneliness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/walking-our-faith-the-antidote-to-loneliness\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking our Faith: The antidote to loneliness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson<\/strong>
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

On Tuesday mornings, I get up a little earlier so I can go to 8 a.m.
\nMass at St. Mary\u2019s.   I\u2019ve found that starting my day with Mass is
\nlike starting with breakfast.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s another reason I enjoy going to Mass on Tuesday
\nmornings, and that is because at the end of Mass, before I hurry across the
\nstreet to work, I have a few minutes to visit with friends. It might be just a
\ngreeting and a smile, a hug and a how are you, but seeing them week after week reinforces
\nthat I am part of a spiritual community.<\/p>\n

On Mondays, I join a group of women called the Slow Pokes to
\nhike in summer and autumn and snowshoe the rest of the year. As the name
\nsuggests, we don\u2019t go very far or very fast. When I\u2019m tempted to make an excuse
\nnot to go because I am inherently lazy, I remind myself that in addition to the
\nbenefits of exercise, I enjoy these women. We talk. We walk in silence. We
\nenjoy an easy companionship, which grows as we enter our second year.<\/p>\n

My heightened awareness of the people in my life is because
\nthere are times when loneliness is a very real battle for me. It\u2019s very easy
\nfor loneliness to grab a foothold in our lives whether we live alone or even
\nwhen we share our homes with others. It\u2019s very easy for loneliness to become
\nisolation and then depression.<\/p>\n

The antidote to loneliness, I\u2019m finding, is community. At 5 a.m.,
\nI wake, and rather than scroll through social media, as is my want, I pick up
\nmy Kindle reader and begin Diane Butler Bass\u2019 book \u201cGratitude.\u201d In the first chapter, I underline two quotes that explain
\nto me the unspoken quality that makes community so essential to our lives: the
\nbonds we form with others, the necessity to give of ourselves as well as
\nreceive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn
\nnormal life one is not at all aware that we always receive infinitely more than
\nwe give, and that gratitude is what enriches life. One easily overestimates the
\nimportance of one\u2019s own acts and deeds, compared with what we become only
\nthrough other people.\u201d \u2014 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, \u201cLetters and Papers from Prison\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m beginning my fifth year in Breckenridge, but I doubt I would
\nhave made it past my first year if it weren\u2019t for the knitting group that meets
\nat Next Page Books & Nosh at 1 p.m. on Wednesdays. Ostensibly, we meet to
\nknit prayer shawls, baby blankets and baby hats, which are distributed through St.
\nJohn\u2019s church and St. Anthony Summit Medical Center. But the unspoken
\nmission of this group is to provide community \u2014 a place for women who are new
\nto Summit County or who have lived here for years, a table to gather \u2019round and
\ntalk and laugh. These women provided a place for me when it was difficult for
\nme to leave the house.<\/p>\n

But the antidote to loneliness is not a one-way street of
\ntaking. I realized I\u2019d become \u201chealthier\u201d when I was able to give back, to
\nwelcome new women to our knitting group just as I was welcomed. The antidote to
\nloneliness is extending companionship we so dearly needed at one time, to
\nanother.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026
\nlife is an abundance of shared gifts. We don\u2019t really achieve. We receive. We
\ngive to each other. We are grateful.\u201d \u2014 Diane Butler Bass, \u201cGratitude\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Gretchen, an old friend from high school, came into town for a
\nquick visit Wednesday. We spoke for seven hours. The next morning, I reflected
\non how essential it is to have deep connections. And yet, they are difficult
\nfor me to develop. They require a willingness to be vulnerable, to bear
\nanother\u2019s mistakes and joys, to put away my need to compare. But the reward is
\nsomething that fills the empty spaces in my heart.<\/p>\n

I have only a few relationships like that in my life, but when I
\nexperience them, I understand that they are my most treasured.<\/p>\n

Jesus said the two most important commandments are that we love
\nGod and love one another. We learn to love one another when we are willing to
\ngive our time to be in communion with friends, that is how we learn to walk the
\npath of love. But it\u2019s not easy. Casual is easy. Intimacy is hard. Yet, our
\nintimate friendships are, I believe, the most essential to a rich life and
\nmental health.<\/p>\n

Where do we start? Churches throughout Summit County offer
\nopportunities to meet throughout the week. Whether religious services, contemplative
\nprayer, book clubs, hiking clubs or ski clubs. There is something for everyone.<\/p>\n

I encourage you to find a church where you feel at home and join a group outside of Sunday church services. Here, you will strengthen and deepen your faith, but as importantly, you will form new friendships. The antidote to loneliness is a steady diet of companionship.<\/p>\n

Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson\u2019s column \u201cWalking our Faith\u201d publishes Saturdays in the Summit Daily News. Anderson is the author of 10 novels and nonfiction books on faith. She has lived in Breckenridge since 2016. Contact her at suzanne@suzanneelizabeths.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson On Tuesday mornings, I get up a little earlier so I can go to 8 a.m. Mass at St. Mary\u2019s.   I\u2019ve found that starting my day with Mass is like starting with breakfast. But there\u2019s another reason I enjoy going to Mass on Tuesday mornings, and that is because at the end […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-800499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 06:43:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}