Alone or Lonely!

As I watched this waterbird move through the overgrown grass in the field below our property, I looked out for other waterbirds. Often they are found moving with other birds. It chose to be alone on this occasion!

The need to be alone is not felt by many. Some make being alone as a habit for a short period during a day or for long periods during a week end.There are who practice aloneness as their routine at fixed times. Those who take time for such alone times have discovered that life needs private times for reflection, listening to what is going on within and making sense of events around us. It is also a time for personal debriefing, thinking and spiritual renewal. The Godward orientation to life needs affirmation as we are often conditioned by outward events and activities. The inward orientation to be fully human arises, from the view of life which God offers during our alone times.

There are lonely people who feel that way even when they live in families or live relationally in the work place. This loneliness is not a desirable thing. It is when one feels lonely, it is even more important to convert that into a fulfilling time by finding our companionship in God who is intimately present with us, even when we feel distant or estranged from others. It is a slo a time to confess to a trusting friend about the loneliness and find meaning beyond the unsettling experiences, which caused a lonely feeling. The physical loneliness, emotional loneliness and cognitive loneliness are realities.

 I live with a cognitive loneliness on an issue that has engaged me for about 25 years.

Having had the opportunity to be involved with developmentally challenged children for forty years, I carry an experience and some evidence that there is a neurological causal pathway that lead to a developmental dysfunction in a child, in which case one child with limitations due to Down syndrome might have language disorder due to hearing impairment, another with Down syndrome due to Cortical Electrical dysfunction, another due to severe microcephaly, and another due to hemiplegia which child suffered due to the cardiovascular disease. I feel this diversity of causal pathways would apply to other developmental disorders as well. Although two children have similar developmental diagnosis, the causal pathways would be different for the developmental limitations. 

Although I have held on to this position, I have not got only some professionals to get used to individualise the developmental support programme by understanding the causal pathway. The developmental support offered is set by goals to achieve and not by the possibilities based on the causal pathway. The unfortunate outcome of this approach is that all children with a similar developmental disorder get the same support plan, where as what is desirable would be to plan according to the prospects of response. 

I have suffered due to this loneliness. Although I have written and lectured that one child with Autistic behaviour would be different behaviourally from another child with a similar phenotype in response, often both children areceive a similar intervention programme.

We can be lonely on account of several reasons.

Therefore it is all the more necessary to cultivate the habit of being alone to cope with loneliness.

Being alone leads a person to discover his or her inner resources and God in our  inner sanctuary!  

M.C.Mathew(text adb photo)