Faith can be a lonely thing. The friends do not always understand. The family does not always see. The believer stands sometimes in a room full of people and still finds himself alone with the question that he cannot put down. This sonnet honors that loneliness, and the wider company that holds it.
The Sonnet
I sit among the laughing crowd and find A silence I cannot quite share aloud, A quiet question working in my mind That cannot be unfolded for the proud. The faith I carry is not always seen, The convictions of my heart not always known, And so I learn what saints have always been, A pilgrim somewhat present, somewhat alone. But loneliness is not the final word, For Christ Himself was lonely in a crowd, And every quiet faithful soul has heard The kinship of the company unloud. So I am lonely, yes, but not alone, The believer's solitude becomes a home.
Reflection
One of the surprising costs of faith is loneliness. Not because the believer is unloved, but because there are interior commitments that the surrounding world does not always understand or share. The believer often walks through rooms full of people while carrying convictions he cannot easily put into the conversation, and the gap between the inner life and the outer world can feel wide.
This loneliness is older than us. Christ knew it. The prophets knew it. The mystics knew it. There is, however, a kinship among the lonely believers across the centuries, a quiet company of those who carry what cannot always be spoken in mixed company. To name the loneliness honestly is also to discover that we are not the first to feel it, and we are not, in the deepest sense, alone in it.
If you feel lonely in your faith today, know this. The company of those who have walked this way is wider and older than you can see. And the One who walked it first is walking with you still.
