Life sometimes makes us feel a certain loneliness, experiencing sadness, anguish, pain and emotions that prevent us from moving forward. Some call these moments “desert.” They are opportunities to enter within ourselves and be able to experience that we are not alone, because it is right there, in that place, in this new situation, that we can perceive a presence or the warmth of those who are at our side.
It is an opportunity not to stop and to give a new meaning to life, to the things that have happened to us, and orient our actions based on this new perception.
However, we must try to revive the awareness that, beyond our feelings at that moment, we are not alone on our journey, love exists in us and around us and we can make it flourish again even in our 'deserts'. Let's not escape from heavy and painful situations, let's take advantage of them to discover who is next to us with their love and seek a relationship with them and, if we deem it appropriate, sharing the pain that saddens us.
This sharing will support us and allow us to sweep away that sense of loneliness that seemed to oppress us and we will once again find the freedom to love those around us.
Thus, custodians of the presence of this love that accompanies us, we too can return to being messengers, bearers of this love: observing the needs of others, helping our brothers and sisters in their 'deserts' without judging them, sharing their joys and their pains.
The greatest effort is to understand that those sad feelings and emotions experienced arise from essential vital needs, such as understanding, trust, sharing, esteem, reassurance, communion; well we try to satisfy these needs with those who can offer them to us, and at the same time we keep our eyes open to the humanity in which we are immersed, offering an attitude of understanding and esteem for a lost friend like us, a word of sharing towards those who are looking for meaning and an answer to the many questions of life: friends, family, acquaintances, neighbors, work colleagues, people in economic difficulty and perhaps socially marginalized, an encouragement to those who have lost faith in their future.
We can thus face the difficulties of life together with others and discover in the deserts we cross that "golden thread of love" that will open us to hope, rediscovering that trust in ourselves and in others that seemed to have faded.
This was the experience of P., who lived alone during the pandemic. She says that, from the beginning of the total closure of all activities in her country, she remained in absolute solitude at home, with no one close to her with whom she could share this experience and trying to fill the day as best she could. As the days passed, she became more and more discouraged. In the evening she found it very difficult to fall asleep and she felt as if she could no longer escape from that nightmare of loneliness that oppressed her. The strength not to succumb came to her from the thought that there were so many people around her to ask for something or give something. To her great surprise she experienced that in the love given or received there was a great strength that prevented her from continuing to break down. Small signs and glimmers of light from fraternal friends began to reach her, making her feel certain that she could do it. Like the time when, while celebrating a friend's birthday online, she received a slice of cake from her neighbor.