Originally printed in the Custer County Chronicle on October 8, 2025

Recently I had the blessed opportunity to revel in the company of some two dozen other women, fellowshipping together in a sweet time of encouragement and camaraderie. As I looked around the room at all of their faces, old and young, all walks of life, I reflected on how we had met. How long ago. Our shared histories. How our lives had intertwined over the years. How God weaves individuals together into an amazing tapestry called community.

Community. History. Belonging. Friendship. Isolation. Loneliness. As seemingly connected as we have become as a society, with easy access to hundreds or thousands of acquaintances through a handheld device, with the ability to communicate instantly and share bits and pieces of our lives with the world, you’d think that loneliness would be a thing of the past. The past – you know, back when communication was slow and travel was slower. Yet today we are more disconnected than ever. At no other time in history have we been able to converse with people across the globe with the mere tapping of our fingers on a keyboard, and yet the cultural sense of a local community is anemic at best. Phrases like “epidemic of loneliness” are tossed around almost with nonchalance, and who is in the least surprised by high percentages of people, young and old, experiencing the pain of loneliness?

But how did we get here? And what are we doing now to perpetuate it?

We can look back 200 years and see the slow degradation of the family unit, in the name of efficiency and modernism and industrialism, that removed families from their farms, fathers from their homes, and children from the care and instruction of their parents.

We can’t change what happened 200 years ago or 50 years ago, but we can recognize unhealthy patterns that are being perpetuated through choices made today.

Choices such as relegating to second or tenth place the things that used to give life meaning, like faith and family and marriage and civic responsibility, in favor of financial stability and a coveted career. Those second or tenth place things are seen now as the icing on the cake, nice but wholly optional. Professional development takes precedence over personal relationships any day of the week.

Choices such as separating life from work. We no longer live where we work or work where we live, to give a nod to author Wendell Berry. We have separated work and life, and give most of our best energy to our work, leaving little for life, and wonder why our relationships struggle. Few people live in one place long term, let alone for life, oftentimes choosing career paths that move them hundreds or thousands of miles, then struggling to engage and put down roots.

We have chosen for church to only inconvenience us on Sunday mornings, if that, preferably demanding no more than 45-60 minutes of our time, and we’ve slowly chiseled away at the many ways that church life and daily life would intersect and interact, allowing recreation, sports, and misapplied “rest” to rise in importance and priority.

Granted, there are nuances to this broad topic that simply couldn’t be fully explored in a book, let alone in a newspaper column, but I see patterns of choices that our society encourages people to make, and the breakdown of community ceases to be a mystery. It is a series of little choices that led to and perpetuates the breakdown, and I honestly believe that a series of little choices could help us to reclaim much of what has been lost.

Choices, like intentionally instilling in our children the importance of marriage and family. Instilling in them and cultivating in ourselves the importance of faith and civic responsibility. Committing ourselves to our local churches, more than just on Sunday mornings. Choosing to be a neighbor to our neighbors. Choosing to sacrifice financially for the sake of relationships and long-term effects on family and community. Choosing a simpler life. A less lavish life. A life that allows for greater flexibility and time outside the office.

I have experienced loneliness over the years. Deep loneliness, feelings of isolation and depression. And I can look back and see how my choices were perpetuating those things, how my career and life choices were hindering, not helping, my ability to form meaningful relationships and connections. And then I look at where God has brought me, at where I am now.

As I looked around the room at all of those dear ladies’ faces, representing several different occupations and vocations of wildly different sorts, two different church congregations, and other delightful chance encounters over the last 10 years, I was blown away. Blown away at how God brings people together, allowing them to bless one another, allowing relationships to form and strengthen. Blown away at the happenstance crossings of paths that have led to years-long friendships, the role models of childhood who have become dear friends in adulthood, women who cared about me and took me under their motherly wings.

And it made me so very thankful for the tangling of lives that creates a strong and vibrant community.