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Presenter: Dick Stetler – October 21,
2021 Two related emotions that everyone can experience
are loneliness and aloneness.
The first is often born of fear of being left alone and the
second can become a vast treasure once one recognizes its value.
Each of us is the only one who can take
responsibility for our happiness, peace, and comfort. Each of us is the
captain of our ship and no one else can put their hands on the steering
wheel unless we choose others to join us on our quest for making
decisions that serve us. Jesus taught about the dangers of adding others
as consultants.
Consultants can be blind leaders and when the blind lead others who
cannot see clearly, both fall into the ditch.
(Matthew 15:13) We need to choose carefully the people we include
in our inner circle of guides. We may dread the experience of being alone. This
can happen when we realize that the time has come to leave our high
school and college friends behind, when both our parents transition from
this life, or when a marriage ends either by divorce or death.
We agonize until we teach ourselves to treasure the control that
we now have over what to do with ourselves, where to live, and how to
conduct our affairs. We may approach such changes with apprehension and
feelings of inadequacy.
Yet, such moments are presenting us with an opportunity to shed our
safety nets. We eventually begin to cherish our freedom when we resist
the allure of the government, religion, sorority, or fraternity that may
invite us to be dependent on them for our comfort, creativity, and how
we intend to contribute to the world. These are the moments when we can
sprout our wings, by initially failing but getting up each
time with the words, “I got this.” A single mom had twin-teenage daughters and a son.
She gave her children a pamphlet which discussed the symptoms of
addiction. All three of them read it and they had a family discussion
about drugs and alcohol that might be readily available during some of
their social gatherings. Her
children indicated that they did not want their neediness to entice them
to be dependent on anything in order to feel complete as
individuals. Months later, she wondered if the three of them
might enjoy joining her in having a Fall adventure in the wilderness,
rent a cabin, and take some day-hikes and enjoy the beauty of changing
leaves. They were excited and
readily accepted her offer.
She told them that there was a lake and a gas grill outside where they
could cook some of their meals. She told them that the four of them
would be totally isolated from even seeing other people. They were sold
on the idea. When the day came to depart, she told them to leave
their cell phones at home.
The three of them were emotionally disturbed by this sudden turn of
events. They resisted
mightily. The thought of
giving up their cell phones was unimaginable.
Their mom reminded them of the
article they read about addictions and the challenge it is to give up
their dependency. She said, “Not to worry, I am taking a camera. The
three of you may use it.” The first two days, her teenagers were miserable
almost as if they were giving up the most important part of their lives.
Their mother challenged them by saying, “So, you have a dependency that
is stronger than your willpower?” As the time passed, they took the
challenge and were free to enjoy themselves.
They never realized the similarity of drugs and alcohol to their
addiction of being dependent on their cell phone usage.
They went on hikes without looking at the screen of
their phones. Her teenagers
fished, cooked on the grill, laughed, and actually communicated with
their mother. At dusk, they
witnessed a doe and her two fawns walk past their cabin. They slept well
at night and actually enjoyed their feelings of being liberated from
their neediness to include their friends while on a vacation.
The world of nature suddenly opened to them.
Their mother was a naturalist who taught the three of them how to
identity various trees by their leaves and the quality of their bark.
She knew the names of the fish they caught and released.
They had never seen the beautiful caterpillars that would later
become Monarch butterflies. During their nightly campfires, she read stories to
them of how John Muir sought and got the attention of President Abraham
Lincoln and members of Congress.
A law was passed that stopped lumber companies from cutting down
the two-thousand-year-old Redwood forests in California.
As a result, future generations can still enjoy seeing them.
In 1890, The Sequoia National
Park became the second National Park in the United States after
Yellowstone National Park in 1872.
She read to them words written by some of her heroes.
John Muir wrote: Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms,
while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn. Henry Thoreau wrote: “I love to be alone.
I never found the companion that was so companionable as
solitude.” Her children were getting the message that cell
phones had made the larger world invisible to them.
They began to understand with a new vision.
They recalled the times when they saw adults walking everywhere
with their eyes glued to the screens of their cell phones as they
missed seeing the world around them.
They collectively did not want those images of adults to be their
future. This wise mother had exposed her children to her
world of nature, but more than that the importance of taking back their
freedom to be an individual that mattered.
What their mother did was plant a seed in them that they were far
more than how their social groups were defining them.
They were all insightful, beautiful people just as they are.
They recognized what neediness feels like.
She asked them to tell her the ways they have grown
because of their exposure to the cell phone culture.
They were silent.
Next, she asked what they had learned during their two weeks in Nature’s
wilderness. They could not
stop talking about all that they had learned during those two weeks.
Their mom said: These days in nature will feed the spirit by which
each of you will live. Only
time will tell if you will revert back to becoming sleep-walking
zombies who isolate themselves from the world by staring at their
cell phones and texting. The world is filled with behavior and attitudes
that can sabotage or rob us of finding our genius that is needed to
contribute meaningfully to the world. Dependency is an addiction.
Wise are those who realize this and leave their safety nets
behind. Wise are those who
awaken and treasure their aloneness.
Each of us is alone.
Each of us is in charge of our destiny. |