Part 3: Satan, Loneliness & Social Rejection

PART 3 - Satan’s Weapons of Choice for Waiters

In addition to inventing a lot of language Shakespeare often used the truisms and platitudes of his time. A well-known expression in Shakespeare’s time was “the Prince of Darkness is a gentleman.” Edgar says it to his father in Shakespeare’s play King Lear. Lear was an impatient character dealing with old age which in his case, also brought mental disintegration and irrational fears, a great combination for tragedy, eh?

We would expect Satan to ride in on billows of fire wearing black robes and spiky horns, like in the movies. But remember he doesn’t have shoulders in which to drape a long black cape. Instead, he’ll use the weapons of a gentleman. He probably comes in an attractive package. He’ll look so enticing. His plan will seem easy, maybe he’ll offer you an “easy” short cut to one of your goals. He may offer you a relationship that seems to solve all of your problems, take away your guilt, or provide you with a moment of companionship or relief from pain.

It won’t be something that is advantageous to you in the long-run, but it sounds and looks so darn good at the time. It might solve your loneliness, or bitterness for a minute. Remember that his only goal is your downfall. He wears many disguises, and every time he moves in to bring you down it will be to come between you and your family, your friends, your God, your peace of mind. He will enslave you with addiction. He will pin you in the bondage of your weaknesses. He will magnify your doubt. He will make you blame your situation, question your shared Heavenly parentage and rage over what may seem like the futility of it all...this life...these trials...this waiting.

He is real. He has goals. I imagine that he also feels joy when he achieves his goals too, in a wicked, subversive way. I imagine that he was an amazing spirit of our Heavenly Father! He had talents! Remember that he was so respected in the pre-earth life that his opinion mattered - to everyone! But he doesn’t have a body - and that is a scary kind of power to me. Just as the Holy Ghost doesn’t have a body - both spirits must be able to wear many disguises to achieve their goals. The difference is, the Holy Ghost is omniscient and will elevate you in every way, and Satan can only get to know you by your actions and lead you down to your spiritual destruction.

Beware: Satan works best when you are alone. Look at Eve. I’m sure he enjoyed a good laugh at her naive expense. I think he also feels rage and futility. Why else would he work so hard? Amazingly he already knows something absolutely true and he doesn’t need faith to know it: He knows God lives and loves him too. he also lives with the fact that it’s he, himself that prevented his eternal progression and he KNOWS IT FOR SURE. That, my friends, is his personal hell. That would be hellacious for sure. 

See, for me, I have to have faith and patience. My faith is a cushion between me and my human failings. I have faith that through the atonement of Jesus Christ - my mortal failings will be forgiven and I will be able to overcome Satan’s temptations. It’s the reason I go to church to take the sacrament. I have to. I’m human. I’m susceptible to Satan’s staggering power. So here’s the real question then: if I can identify Satan’s army in my life just as easily as I can identify the Holy Ghost why isn’t it easier for me to deal with it when it comes? I have to make it easier. What can we waiters do when we sit out in the open, alone and vulnerable?

Well - that isn’t this book. I can, as a long-time waiter myself, tell you that when non-waiters tell me to have patience and tell me that I will surely be blessed in the next life, I want to do a devilish thing and punch them in the gut and run. I know I should get a hobby! I know I should go to the ward parties! I know I should reach out and serve more...blah, blah, blah…How many times do you think we have to be reminded at firesides that “our time will come?” We’re the ones at the firesides!

But truly - we need to open a discussion about the three major tools that Satan uses to deceive the waiters. By understanding what the weapon does, we will be able to identify its power and meet it with stronger weapons of our own.

Chapter 8 - Tool #1 

Loneliness and Social Rejection

The Grand Tools of the Devil

No man is an island,

entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent,

a part of the main...

Any man’s death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind;

and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

it tolls for thee.

Meditation 17 by John Donne, 1623

Some never-married, divorced or widowed children of God have a common denominator and it is loneliness. Loneliness is so destructive that it is one of the biggest weapons in Satan’s arsenal and he uses it with this group of singles more than any other thing I think. Loneliness now has a new modern friend called “social rejection.” So not only are we lonely, but we have been denied access to a tribe or partner. Maybe our past experiences have taught us that being in a tribe is too much work, too scary, even painful.

We are all going to cope with rejection at some point in our lives; it’s impossible to go through our life and have every single person be nice to us every single minute. I cast plays several times a year and that rejection is tough, but it isn’t a bad thing. We can learn from rejection as long as we can put it into perspective and not let Satan use it as a tool to make us feel lousy about ourselves by taking rejection too personally.

Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. I was just about to say to myself, “well, I’m safe because I have 2000 friends on Facebook,” but in Psychology Today it explained the modern irony of today’s social media versus the vast epidemic of loneliness. The article asserts that while some people may point to fame and fortune as the key to their happiness, the vast majority of us indicate that friends and family are the real prizes. It goes on to say that “feelings of loneliness and isolation affect all types and ages of people, although some, like adolescents and the elderly, are more likely to be impacted than others. It doesn’t matter if a teenager has 500 Instagram connections, that vast network can’t ameliorate the emotional desolation of loneliness. Fewer but closer personal relationships are more important.”^[1]

I can’t count the number of resources that I found that can prove that loneliness causes physical and mental illness. One surprising study revealed that loneliness heightens a person’s flight-or-fight response - a physiological reaction to facing harm or danger. So instead of fighting their social isolation, it proliferates it - feeding the heart-breaking cycle. I’ve been in that cycle! I have friends, family members, and students that I see in the cycle too. In February of 2015, scientists reported in the journal Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology that when they isolated ants from their group, they lived only six days, whereas those that stayed with the group lived an average of 66 days. Both groups were given the same amount of food, but the lonely ants just walked and walked around without stopping, exerting all their energy and in six short days, died. In short, the isolated ants didn’t know how to behave without their group.

They died.

I don’t know what actually caused the ants to die, but I’m going to assume that it was loneliness.

Loneliness has been a near-death experience for me and that’s why we should talk about it. It started with isolated crying, a lot of crying. Usually at night and anytime the bed felt larger or colder than it was. I got into a habit of falling asleep in my Laz-y-boy in front of the T.V. at night to avoid the vacant bed. That way, if I staggered to the bed later I wouldn’t have time to think about how empty it was before I had collapsed into my coma. If I got into the bed too soon the loneliness would wrap its creepy, cold arms around me and shake me all night keeping me awake with questions...wondering what was going to happen to me if I didn't find someone to share my life with? Who was going to help me out in my old age? Should I put more money into my retirement so I could afford to hire someone to take care of me? Should I build a house with just one bedroom or three, why three, maybe just one big one…okay two, I should have hope at least. Should I have my eggs frozen now? (Just kidding, I never thought that. BECAUSE I WAS D.U.M.B. and should have thought that but I was an idiot. I SOOO wish I had thought about that then. I digress.) The dialogue I had with myself never stopped.

When you are single you don’t have anyone to talk to on a regular basis and as you ask yourself all these questions all the time, the REALLY big question started to haunt me: what will happen when I started talking back out loud to the voices in my head? Will someone commit me to a psychiatric hospital? Should I just do that now to prevent the inevitable and at the very least save my family from having to do it?

What’s wrong with me that no one loves me?

Am I weird?

I must be weird.

Well, poop. I guess I’ll just stay in tonight.

And the cycle rears its ugly head over and over again. 

The idea that loneliness affects our physical well-being is not new. Dr. James J. Lynch, professor of psychology at The University of Maryland, spoke at a BYU forum in October of 1979. He wrote a book called The Broken Heart: The Medical Consequences of Loneliness (1977). Dr. Lynch, not a member of the Church, found that heart rhythms of hospital patients improved dramatically when a nurse simply touched a patient to take his pulse—even when the patient was comatose and dying.[2]

He presented some ugly data supporting the idea that not only did social rejection and loneliness create a pretty bad life, they are also a major cause contributing factor to an early death. Here are a few examples of his research:

● Seventeen married people commit suicide for every ninety-two widowed and divorced people.

● For every eleven married people who die of cirrhosis of the liver, seventy-seven single adults do a seven-fold increase.

● Six married people die of pneumonia for every forty-two single adults who do, a seven-fold increase.

● Between two and three times as many single people die of heart disease as married people; twice as many single adults as marrieds die of cancer.

Douglas Nemecek, MD, Cigna’s chief medical officer for behavioral health, said the findings of a May 2018 study suggest that the problem of loneliness has reached “epidemic” proportions. He said “Loneliness has the same impact on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, making it even more dangerous than obesity.” [3]

!

My single friend Justin has such an incredibly positive outlook on loneliness:

“I hate being alone but like I’m sure you experienced too, you’re not really ever alone. You just get lonely sometimes and wish life were different but there really are compensatory blessings and there is always hope if you keep working at it.”

Yes! Thank you, Justin! Compensatory blessings are everywhere! Back in 2016 when the church remodeled it’s home and visiting teaching programs, I was unsure how to go about “ministering” to the women on my list. I really do love the simple word change from visiting to ministering. It’s so active. The hardest thing for me is starting a conversation with someone I don’t know very well. I’m just not great at being forced into a relationship with someone out of the blue. But I can bake a loaf of banana bread that will knock your socks off. So that’s what I started doing. I just bake extra and take it around. Andy calls it “bake and take.” The banana bread is the world’s easiest conversation starter and so far - only one person in the world has ever denied its entrance into their house. But I tried! And that’s all you can ever do.

In 2007, we moved into a townhome unit in St. George and were the first to buy. It was what two teachers could afford at the time. You've got to really love your neighbors when you move into a townhome and be a good neighbor. Eventually, the neighborhood filled in and they were incredible people. Like the kind of people you run to when your end of the building is on fire and you're in your underwear. Those people were stellar. So when the last people moved in, the people that would share a wall with us, we were excited to meet them and welcome them into our awesome club.

They were not excited to meet us.

While the moving truck was pulled up out front we went over and introduced ourselves. They were polite. Their small son had a Batman costume on. Which, incidentally, he never took off in four years. Dad shook Andy's hand. He was very nice. Mom looked about my age which secretly made me happy because everyone else in the hood was half my age and bearing children right and left. We offered to help bring in boxes and it was like we had an infectious disease all of the sudden. "Don't touch anything," she said flatly, "we're fine." I stepped back in shock and put my hands down.

Who says that? No one. You smile and say, "Oh, we're almost done but thanks anyway," or "You're so nice but we've got a system..." or something. Sheesh. "Don't touch anything."

I was unphased. I would go down with the ship as usual. So…

A few days later, instead of crashing on the couch after work, I got out the old Ninth Ward cookbook and baked some famous Zona Steiner Banana Bread (I had a hard time letting it out of the house). While it was still hot, I wrapped it, tagged it with "Welcome home neighbors!!!!" Smiley face. Too many exclamation points. "Please rely on us for anything you need. Andy, Jan, Gus and Lily." Then I took three steps over to their front door, lights on everywhere, I could hear and see the T.V. on, the kid running around screaming, mom yelling at him. "They will fit right in here," I thought. I rang the bell.

Silence.

More silence. Like everyone inside the house had frozen, wondering what to do. Eyes shifting.

I took a step back. Maybe I was too close, "in their space" so to speak. That bread was hot so I switched hands. Rude to ring twice? Oh well. I was committed. Loud bell.

Creepy silence.

I saw the blind shut quickly. Too quickly. I took another step back.

By this time I was thoroughly confused. Maybe they were in their underwear. So I waited a little longer giving them time to throw on clothes. LDS women with hot banana bread to no go easily into the night.

Third ring. Going down with the ship...

Lights went off. Really?! Okay, I get it, letting my macro smile fade. Should I take the banana bread back home and slice into that goodness myself? It had a sugar crust for crying out loud!!!! I wrestled! Hung my head and debated with myself. No doubt the other loaf was almost gone, I had left Andy alone with it. No. I was taught better. Pause. Crunchy hot sugar crust. Dang!! I gently laid the loaf on the welcome mat, took a deep breath, bid it goodbye and hoped it would call me as soon as it got inside to tell me what was really going on in there.

But it never got inside.

The next day, I saw it sitting there on my way to work and my way back. Poor thing was probably now as hard as a brick, and feeling bad that it had not fulfilled the measure of its creation.

But I'm starting to. So...that's good anyway.

Recipe for Chapter 8

Zona’s Banana Bread for Trying Hard

(or Crusty Banana Bread for Crusty Types)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

½ cup shortening

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups white flour

½ tsp Salt

1 tsp baking soda

4 T milk

2 cups mashed ripe bananas

1 cup walnuts or your choice of nuts (optional)

¼ cup Demerara Cane Sugar

Cream together shortening, sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla.

Add dry ingredients until just incorporated. Don’t over mix.

Add bananas, milk. Beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Stir in nuts.

Pour batter into two loaf pans and sprinkle with a good coating of Demerara cane sugar before you put them in the oven. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour or until a toothpick, inserted into the very center, comes out clean and not sticky.

  

Homework for Chapter 8



So what’s the prescription for loneliness? I can take a pill to control my blood pressure, but what can we do to help the “epidemic proportions” of us that are lonely?
List two people you would call “In Case of an Emergency”




#1 - In case of emergency call:



Phone number:



Address:



#2 - In case of emergency call:



Phone number:



Address:







3. You have probably been assigned to minister to two or three people/families in your ward. QUIZ!


What are their names (without looking at a printout)


1. 2. 3.


4. List their birthdays:






5. What do these people do for a living?






6. What do these people do in their free time?






7. Do these people have children - how many and what are their ages?


8. Are they active in your ward or ward activities?






9. Where are their immediate families located?






10. Are you active in your ward/community activities? If you aren't, why not?


11. When is your next ward activity? What is it? Make sure you go if you can.

---

^[1] Psychologytoday.com

^[2] Ensign, June 1980

^[3] WEBMD health News, Nick Tate, May 4, 2018