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Friendship, loneliness, and prayer: Saying “thank you” to friends

Lynne Baab • Tuesday October 10 2023

I learned about polite, dutiful gratitude in childhood, and I’m grateful for those lessons. David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, taught me something new about expressing thanks in his book, Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer. Brother Steindl-Rast emphasizes the relational component of thankfulness: “When I acknowledge a gift received, I acknowledge a bond that binds me to the giver. . . . The one who says ‘thank you’ to another really says, ‘We belong together.’ Giver and thanksgiver belong together” (pages 15-17).

A simple “thank you” tells the other person that I value what they have contributed to my life. I value my...

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Friendship, loneliness and prayer: A listening skill with two purposes

Lynne Baab • Tuesday October 3 2023

Imagine that a friend is telling me about a funeral she attended. I’m watching her body language, and I say, “You look really sad.” She continues by describing how much the person meant to her. Then she outlines the whole funeral service in detail, including the postlude, a Bach organ piece in a minor key that spoke to her in her sadness. I am getting pretty bored with all the funeral details, so I pick up on the one thing she said that interests me. I love Bach, especially on an organ, so I’m hoping she’ll give some more details about...

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Friendship, loneliness, and prayer: Praying about “learned loneliness”

Lynne Baab • Tuesday September 26 2023

“The most salient social feature of the pandemic was how it forced people into isolation; for those fortunate enough not to lose a loved one, the major trauma it created was loneliness. Instead of coming together, emerging evidence suggests that we are in the midst of a long-term crisis of habitual loneliness, in which relationships were severed and never reestablished.” —Arthur C. Brooks, “How We Learned to be Lonely,” The Atlantic, January 5, 2023

Arthur Brooks is a Harvard professor who teaches a popular class about happiness, drawing on sociological and psychological research. He believes that for many of us, the pandemic taught...

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Friendship, loneliness, and prayer: A “small” listening skill

Lynne Baab • Wednesday September 20 2023

Imagine a scene where you are talking to someone you don’t know well. Perhaps it’s coffee hour at church, a neighborhood event, or a work or school setting. You’ve never had an extended one-on-one conversation with this person before, but in this moment, no one interrupts you, and you find yourself talking at length. They listen so well that you find yourself talking about something you’re upset about. As the conversation draws to a close, you realize that some of the burden of frustration has been lifted. You feel heard by someone who understands.

How does your companion indicate that they are...

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