Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 ESV
9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.
10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!
11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?
12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
This week Governor Jay Inslee announced the stay home, stay healthy order will stay in place until May 4th. Many people have already been isolated or quarantined for weeks. Loneliness in the best of times is hard and in the worst of times it can prove fatal.
Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. was the most isolated man on the planet for five months. In 1934 the naval aviator and polar explorer spent the winter alone in Antarctica. Stationed at a meteorological station he braved the harsh elements for the sake of science and discovery.
In his book Alone, Admiral Byrd writes about the high hopes he had for his time of solitude. He looked forward to the peace, the stillness, time to learn, to think; unencumbered by the business of everyday life.
“I paused to listen to the silence. My breath, crystallized as it passed my cheeks, drifted on a breeze gentler than a whisper. The wind vane pointed toward the South Pole. Presently the wind cups ceased their gentle turning as the cold killed the breeze. My frozen breath hung like a cloud overhead. The day was dying, the night being born — but with great peace. Here were the imponderable processes and forces of the cosmos, harmonious and soundless. Harmony, that was it! That was what came out of the silence — a gentle rhythm, the strain of a perfect chord, the music of the spheres, perhaps.
It was enough to catch that rhythm, momentarily to be myself a part of it. In that instant I could feel no doubt of man's oneness with the universe. The conviction came that the rhythm was too orderly, too harmonious, too perfect to be a product of blind chance — that, therefore, there must be purpose in the whole and that man was part of that whole and not an accidental offshoot. It was a feeling that transcended reason; that went to the heart of man's despair and found it groundless. The universe was a cosmos, not a chaos; man was rightfully a part of that cosmos as were the day and night.”
― Richard Evelyn Byrd
His enjoyment did not last long; Byrd nearly died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to a failure in the ventilation system for the heater designed to keep him warm. At the end of his time he realized that solitude was as much a danger to a person as the the -76 degree Fahrenheit weather he endured.
I began this post with a scripture from Ecclesiastes extolling the benefits of friendship, kinship and marriage. In the beginning God said it was not good for man to be alone. He calls us to assemble together and to worship together, the tells us when we gather in his name he is there with us. So much of the word of God speaks to how we are to treat and interact with each other and our commission depends on us reaching others.
We are not made for Isolation, we are made by God, to know and worship him. We are made for each other, to know and care for each other. Hell is a terrible because it is a place of isolation; where people are isolated from the goodness and presence of God. Many people we may know are experiencing a personal hell because of this pandemic. They can no longer seek out the entertainments that distract them from the emptiness of the hearts.
This is not a time to fall back, but a time to push forward.
In this time of social isolation we don't have to be disconnected. Call a fellow Christian and pray with them on the phone, call someone you care about that hasn't given their life to Jesus and witness to them. Don't let the bonds of fellowship grow weak in this desperate time. We are the Church.
Yours in Christ,
Matt Layton
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