Let’s Talk About Loneliness
By Gabby Llewellyn
Last week on our Storied Zoom call, our Community Director Heather brought up the topic of loneliness and let’s just say it really hit home for most of us. Funnily enough, even though we started Storied with the hopes of bringing a bit of community around this experience of “deconstruction”, we rarely talk about the loneliness that started the whole thing.
What happens to our sense of community when we spiritual evolve? Why does it so often go away? Who’s responsibility is it to pick up the pieces? How much of our faith has been carried by collective dogma? How do you move forward? How do you grieve something that might feel strange to call a loss?
Spiritual loneliness is something I’ve spent a lot of time in— especially the last six years. It’s something I think about a lot, so in this issue of Storied, I want to talk about some of the ways I’ve processed it and how I personally have moved into deeper and sweeter community than ever before. If you find yourself in a place of spiritual loneliness, I hope that some of this will resonate and maybe even give you hope that there is light on the other side of all this.
Our Community Origin Story
For many of us who grew up in church, community and sense of community, have been at the heart of what it practically means to look like a Christian. Our Christian faith was our membership card into not only deep sense of community, but a wide one. For me, I was part of small groups, prayer groups, ministry teams, evangelistic movements, leadership teams, accountability partnerships, etc etc. It was honestly one of the things I loved the most about my faith life. That human connection element for me was everything. The moment when you’d see a burden lift off of someone’s shoulders, those times when you’d get to connect on a deep spiritual level. The tears, the laughter, the joy. I think for many of us, it’s part of what we love the most about being Church. On a deep level, it’s incredibly fulfilling, and on a surface level, it’s like being a part of the world’s largest fraternity! (I was reminded of this when a dear friend had a medical emergency in the middle of nowhere on a road trip with her family AND their dog. We were able to phone up a local church who sent someone to walk and feed their dog while they spent hours in the hospital that day. ps. everyone is healthy and fine now!)
I have yet to come across anyone who has deconstructed their faith who points back at the intense love, support and family nature of Church as a negative. Rather they started to realise the problem was often about who is left on the outside, or given restricted access, or how outsiders are treated as reasons they started questioning their faith. In large part, because they know how good it is to be a part of such a beautiful community.
Ideological Isolation
I remember when I first started pulling at the threads of my faith, I spent a lot of time and energy trying to prove to everyone that I was still a Christian. I was loud about it. With my friends in real life, and on social media. I felt like I had to be, because I knew from a lifetime of experience, that the Church is not often kind to questioners. Our membership is dependant on not rocking the boat. On not shaking things up or proposing new ways of doing things. I didn’t want to lose my community, I just wanted to explore the edges of my faith. To see how far God’s grace could go. (Turns out it goes infinitely further than the Church’s.)
As I started forming more concrete ideas about who God is, who the good news of Jesus is for, what it looks like, I began to realise that isolation was inevitable. But I still fought it. I thought if I could prove with the fruit of my life that the Holy Spirit was alive and active inside me, I’d be allowed to stay. Maybe (I naively thought) I could help instigate change!
That turned out not to be the case. For many years I participated in traditional church, while inwardly feeling isolated, hoping it would change. It never did, and eventually I was effectively kicked out.
Whether you’re actually excommunicated or you self-excommunicate, that loss of community is incredibly traumatising. I took two years to stop and grieve that. I didn’t attend church. I would talk about with Chris, go on walks, process it in therapy, read books, and just allow myself to feel the loss.
My “Ah-ha!” Moment
After my first big faith shift (and the many that followed after) I noticed who stayed and who didn’t. At first I could only feel entirely safe with people who thought all the same things as me, because honestly that was how I was trained to participate in community. I just switched my value system but not my practices. But then I started to realise that some of the dear, dear people who stuck around maybe agreed with thirty percent of the things I now believed about God, and yet continued to be people I could share anything with. They truly loved me for me, and even though I can count these people on one hand, they still made a profound impact on me.
I began to realise that loving people based on ideological similarities is an incredibly shallow way of relating to one another. At first that way of being community feels so noble, but when you see it played out, you begin to realise just how fragile and abusive it actually is.
(I’m not talking about “hate the sin, love the sinner” rhetoric here, by the way. I’m talking about wholly loving, seeing, accepting, respecting and participating in friendship with someone even though you see the world differently.)
Going Deeper
Six years into this journey, I can honestly say I have some of the most stable, real, and healthy friendships of my life. It’s not utopia, but that’s the point! Gone are the days of spiritually bypassing, here are the days of showing up to the gritty, uncomfortable, parts of life. Goodbye to “agreeing” on everything as a way of avoiding confrontation, hello to being humble, open, teachable and actually listening. Goodbye to emotionally, physically, and spiritually bleeding out for the “greater good”, hello to having kind boundaries that support you and your relationships.
What’s Next?
I can’t promise you that you’ll ever really have that experience you might have had in community pre-deconstruction where your beliefs were SO aligned with SO many people that you never felt like you needed to question anything. I know it might feel tempting to find that sense of (false) belonging on the other side of deconstruction. But that’s actually not why we’re here, is it? But I do believe with my whole heart that you can experience deep, satisfying, real, raw, laughter-filled, sorrow-shouldering community while living in the tension. Our goal posts for what make healthy community have changed. They’ve grown with us. May they continue to grow.
To Read
Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor— This was the very first book we read for our Storied book club back in 2020. If you’re feeling alone and in the dark spiritually, we highly recommend this beautiful read.
Field Notes by Sarah Bessey— If you don’t already subscribe to Sarah’s Substack and you want more Storied-esque content, definitely sign up. Sarah has a way of putting words to things inside me that’s so compassionate, level-headed and raw. If you’re not already here, you want to be I promise.
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk— Not a faith-based read, or even a very new book at all. But if you’re curious about the impact of trauma and loneliness on the brain and body this might be a helpful read. Head’s up, she’s a dense one!
Our next community Zoom call will be Saturday March 18th at 10:30am CT/ 4:30pm UK Time. This is just a monthly opportunity to connect in real-time with the wider Storied community. These times are led by our Community Director Heather Potts who does such an amazing job of drawing out real, tender and thoughtful discussion around topics of faith. Zoom meetings are for paid subscribers only and the Zoom link will be emailed out to you the day before.
By now you know the drill, here’s a mixtape from our hearts to yours. Pretty much a playlist what we’re listening to on repeat this month. LISTEN HERE
“To see how far God’s grace could go. (Turns out it goes infinitely further than the Church’s.)”
The healing deep breath I took reading that 😭💛
"just allow myself to feel the loss"... beautifully written. I so appreciate your gift for putting your experiences into words. Thank you for helping me understand my own experiences on a deeper level.