>> Julia: Welcome to Things I Wish I Knew, the podcast from

Thinking Faith, a work of the Jesuits in Britain.

I'm Julia. I'm in my early 30s and I used to live

in a Jesuit young adult community. We

all live hectic lives and often don't get time to

reflect on what's happening both to us and around us.

This podcast is meant to help you to take a moment to

stop and think about where you are, where you're going

and where your relationship with God fits into it all.

Every week, I'll meet a new guest who tells me about something they've

experienced which changed their life forever. And by talking

about the things they'd wish they'd known at the time, we'll explore the

idea that God is in all things. And we'll talk about

the part that faith plays in navigating life challenges.

Today I'm speaking to Justin about loneliness.

Justin is a Jesuit priest from Los Angeles living in the

uk, studying art. I love talking to him because I think

his experience is so relatable. I'm sure at times we've all

felt lonely and his perspective on it as a Jesuit priest really

challenged me. So, Justin,

when have you experienced loneliness?

>> Justin: Like, the last time I noticed it, was

in the first semester of my programme

here in London. And

I remember feeling a bunch of different things.

There was a lot wrapped up in it. One was moving

into a new city, not feeling like I'm

connecting deeply with my peers

and not feeling like I'm spending enough time with

my community, my Jesuit brothers. And

I also remember going into the

tube and realising that I'm

training myself not to notice

anybody. And it just became

this expectation and I'm like, wow, like.

And not to say anything to anybody except sorry. And

not to notice anybody. I'm like, wow, this is a

new experience. But I would say the

loneliest times of my life. So notice being lonely. The

loneliest times of my life one was when

I was doing my year of Regency Jesuit

training work. Period.

>> Julia: What is Regency?

>> Justin: Yeah. Ah, Regency is the period in Jesuit priestly

formation between philosophy studies and

theology studies. We have a period of full

time work where we can live with Jesuits and work in

usually Catholic or Jesuit institutions.

And so I did one year of this work, experience

in the Philippines, with the Philippine

Jesuit Prison Service, working in the National Prison,

National Belibid prisons in Manila. And

I remember that being an especially lonely

time in my life. so that was something that's always a place where I

can go back to learn something about

Loneliness. The other time, honestly, was

during the pandemic and after ordination and becoming a

priest. There was like, of course, the really beautiful

consolation of ordination. But it

was mixed also with the strange experience of the

pandemic that we were all experiencing. And lockdown. And

my first Masses as a priest were in an empty church

with a phone camera and,

trying to find ways to connect with parishioners

without actually seeing them in person. But then just this long

period of time, understanding my role

and my responsibility toward the people of God.

And that is kind of couched in

with a lot. Yeah, there was just a lot of shifting

understandings and narratives of what I was telling myself,

who I was, and what other people were telling me they wanted me to

be. And so that was a lonely time as well,

but a beautiful time and a very instructive time. I think

I can say that now, looking back on it and always looking at it

with the eyes of faith.

>> Julia: Yeah, I was going to say it's always easiest to look back on

situations, isn't it?

So I guess in that situation of you just

having been ordained during

lockdown or like during COVID meant

that you suddenly became this new role

without the community to support you.

>> Justin: Yeah.

>> Julia: How was that?

>> Justin: The community, they were as supportive as

they could be, given the circumstances, you know,

they were also. Yeah, it was such a beautiful. It was such a beautiful

time, the, first few months. And it was such an

awkward time as well, because as we moved

from lockdown to outdoor Masses, there was

a lot involved there with setting up and getting to know people,

but only seeing, like, half their faces because everyone had

masks on. So I remember the time when I finally got to see the

parishioners full faces. It was like getting to know a

new person. And on top of that,

and this is interesting too, that both in the Philippines and in the

parish where I served, there were language

barriers or there were language challenges. In the

Philippines, it was with Tagalog and Filipino, and in

my parish it was with Spanish. And I was

basically just learning Spanish on the fly, on the job.

So that can be a very lonely experience because when

you're in physical proximity with someone, there's still kind of

a distance of understanding and

desire to connect. It takes that much

more effort when you're not understanding each other.

But they were so accommodating to me. I think the only

reason why I picked up Spanish is because they were so patient

and would. They wouldn't shame me for getting anything

wrong. And, they would help me along sometimes with

the words. Or they would try so hard

to understand me when I was speaking such broken Spanish to them.

So it was really a work of love on

their part. I really believe that

when priests are ordained and they give themselves over

to the community, like the communities who forms

them to be priests, because we are all priests

by our baptism. And so the ones who

are ordained and for the ministerial priesthood

are reflections, I think, of all of our

baptismal priesthood. But it was a lonely

time because of this shift of identity, I guess.

My name also doesn't really translate neatly into Spanish. You know,

going from Justin to Justino, like, sounded a bit weird

because I never was called Justino growing up. And

then on top of that, there's always the shorthand. It's like, well, they don't need to know my name. They

can just call me Padre. And then I could always just call

this person senora or this person senor,

or all those very polite ways of relating to people.

There's a distance there, but there's also an

acknowledgement of responsibility. Like, okay,

if you're padre, like, you know, I

tacitly expect a certain

way of comporting and behaving

and service. And that's cool,

because that's what holy orders are.

But then it can be. I know that in my

job and in my role as a priest, I'm not

looking to be best friends with everybody. I'm

serve. I'm at the. I'm at your service. Like, I'm at the service of all. And

that's, you know, know that's what Jesus has called me to do.

So the feeling of loneliness creeps up when

either I collapse myself into my role

so that I am only Father Justin,

and nobody knows. Justin just knows Father. Oh,

crap. Like, I'm not. I'm like, I don't. I'm not connecting with

anybody on this. On a deep and

emotionally, vulnerable, intimate

level. But the loneliness can also creep up just on the

basic things about not connecting

when it comes to the language, and not having.

And failing to find ways to find time to

be with my friends who have known me for a long time, who

do know me as Justin, who have known me before I

was a Jesuit, who knew me through the

formation. And I have my best Jesuit friends and

my friends from high school, family members and all these

sort of things which, like, they're there in Los

Angeles. But my priority especially was to be with the

people of God who are even now going through a deep

crisis. so being able to work with

the Loneliness and through the loneliness and find that

connection was a really. Was. It was a challenge. I'm still not

quite sure if I've really processed all of

that yet, honestly.

>> Julia: That does sound like a lot to process.

>> Justin: Yeah.

>> Julia: So how do you feel like people could have supported you

more?

>> Justin: Well, they honestly did everything they could.

Really. They honestly did everything they could. The

people of God. Like, like I said, they taught me

Spanish, they fed me really delicious

Mexican food.

>> Julia: You know, I'm sure you weren't complaining about that.

>> Justin: Oh my gosh. Like, so much good food. The pupusas

and the tacos, the enchiladas and

just lots of love. Just lots of love. Lots of love.

>> Julia: I think my question is coming from. You're making me think.

Cause I have three good friends who I've known since,

well, one since I was much younger and then two since university.

And they've now all become ordained, which is a real

blessing for us all. But I'm now wondering, like,

could I be a better friend to them?

>> Justin: Oh, so there's already the history of that relationship?

>> Julia: Yeah.

>> Justin: Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. Like, I don't know where I

would be if I didn't have friends who also did come to

check up on me, you know, and in some ways

it's always. It's. It's even better that I had, like,

I had a lot of non Catholic friends growing up in high school.

So the whole like, Jesuit priest thing didn't really hold the

same sort of like

contextual weight for them as it did

for a lot of my Catholic friends or my

Jesuit friends. So they were able to approach me

knowing, you know, the ex

goth punk kid from the suburbs that they

knew and for them to reach out, for you, to reach

out to your, to your friends.

there was a mentor priest. I mean, he

was a guy who I really look up to as a priest, Amon

senior over in Los Angeles. And he told me the story

one time of when he went to a retreat house for priests in

Los Angeles. And he was talking about

what he was going through and everything. And

the elderly priest who was at the retreat centre looked at him and he's

like, you know, what's the most important thing in life?

He's like, what is it, Father? He's like, friends. And I

kept that in me because that's like, friends,

real friends can get you through so much, you know, like,

if you are friends with these guys, you

know them and you see them, like, you really see them,

for them to feel seen, it's a great

consolation. It's a great consolation,

but I don't think it's necessarily

an. I don't think it is incumbent upon,

you know, an average parishioner, you know, to make

sure that they're, you know, that their father, that they're, that

their priest, you know, is, you

know, to fulfil that role for them. I think that would be.

There's a lot there when it comes to like, safeguarding and boundaries

and things like that. Yeah, yeah.

>> Julia: Do you think we all have times in our lives when we feel

lonely?

>> Justin: I'd like to think so, but maybe there are people who don't, like. I

don't want to speak for them, but

it seems like a bit of a, bad word to even

mention it in public. But I mean, I'd ask you.

Well, I don't. I can't speak for everyone, but have you felt lonely?

>> Julia: Oh yeah, I would say that I definitely have.

for me, there's two, like, very clear times.

I remember it, both when I was studying. So I have my

undergraduate and my master's. So one of each.

in my master's I

remember just there was a stage where,

I can't. I had people around me. So it wasn't like I was alone. It

was just like I had this time of loneliness where

I was just not sure what I was going to do afterwards. And I

didn't know where my life was going and like, I didn't really know who

I could talk to or share that with. And eventually I worked

out I could share it with Jesus. But you know,

like, I just remember that feeling

quite lonely in that. Making those

decisions.

>> Justin: Yeah.

>> Julia: And I did have people I could like, share with, but

it felt like it had to be a decision I had to come to myself,

make myself. And I remember my undergraduate

definitely feeling loneliness. I think

that was more to do with I was on a path of

I'm going to university. And then I got there and I was

suddenly like, I'm, here now, but what do I do?

Because my whole life had been built to be going to university. I

remember kind of feeling that I don't really have friends

where I am. Eventually I made them. I'm not going to

pretend I was sad and lonely the whole time, but I just

had that. Yeah, that. What was the expectation on me now?

Because the expectation I'd had on myself for so

long was I was going to university and then I was there.

>> Julia: And then what next?

>> Justin: What next?

>> Julia: Yeah, what am I doing here? Etc.

>> Justin: So, so what was. So in that university experience, what

did you. Can you notice a time when that

passed, when the loneliness passed?

>> Julia: I don't know if there was a particular time. I think

I ended up like, a bit like you were saying

with rock climbing. I got involved in different

activities and made friends. And I think for me, one

of the things was going to our Catholic chaplaincy and

making friends there. And I ended up being president

of our Catholic society. which won't surprise

anyone, but I, think one of the

challenges I found in that was

Catholics have only really one thing in

common, which is that they believe in God

or Jesus and they go to Mass. But

then if you try and find links

outside of that, it's quite challenging to get a group of them together.

It's not like we all like swimming or we all like, I don't

know, roller skating.

>> Justin: Yeah. Or the same kind of music.

>> Julia: Or the same kind of music. So there's also a

challenge in that in terms of how do you

unite people outside of church as well?

>> Justin: Hm. Oh, yeah, that goes. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense.

Going into the. That's why there's also that question about, well, and what do

we do within the church? And there's also that tension then,

like, I was. I was like, well, now that you know you have this thing in common

whenever you're connected with everyone there. Well, that you.

Then you can be the leaven for all the connections outside

where you do have something else in common. But maybe you don't have

in common the Catholic faith or something like that. Well, I do share

the same musical loves is this other person and a friend

of mine, but at least I'm rooted here, you know?

>> Julia: Yeah. Yeah. It's a really good way of thinking, actually,

of being rooted in your Catholic faith. But

then being able to share it and share other

interests as well with other people.

>> Justin: Yeah. Oh, thank you for sharing that. No, that's beautiful. And I think that's really

honest. And part of me feels like, why do

I think loneliness is a dirty word or lonely

is a dirty word. And maybe if we

all talked about our experiences of loneliness, like,

you just shared very, you know, very generously

with me, maybe no one would. Everyone would feel

a little less lonely and it would feel a little bit more like a

normal experience rather than, an aberrant sort of thing. It's

like no one would judge me if I said, oh, I'm hungry right now,

you know?

>> Julia: Yeah. And I think my question earlier of like, do you

Think everyone feels lonely coming from that is, I

think everyone does. The amount of conversations I

have with people where they're like, there's a real, like

loneliness in this country. And particularly if you're living in London, people

feel it.

>> Justin: Yeah.

>> Julia: so many conversations I have that people have this real desire for community.

>> Justin: Yeah.

>> Julia: Partly that comes from that feeling of loneliness.

>> Justin: Yeah. And that's, I mean, I hate to say it

in a, in a crass way, but like, I think that's a good thing. I think

it's people getting in touch with the heart. It's like,

yeah, we're not self sufficient, we're in a big city

now. We're trained to be polite. I'm trained to not look at people,

you know, and trained to say sorry anytime I need to bump into

somebody. Like, I'm not touching anyone, you know what I mean? And

even now it's like I'm coming from a, I'm come from a hugging culture.

And for now to be just like handshakes and everything is already kind of

like, oh, that's kind of interesting, you know, where there's all

of this like, mitigation of connection

in the, for some good reasons, I guess,

of tolerance and proper

propriety and things like that. But this hunger for

community is, I think it's tapping into

who we're made to be. We're made to be like

God and to give ourselves to other people and

to receive other people as God receives other people.

>> Julia: So what would you say to someone who wakes up feeling that

loneliness? What should they do? How should they reach out?

>> Justin: Well, I think first it's you know, we have

so many resources in faith and it sounds a bit trite,

but the first thing is prayer. You know, in being

in the Ignatian world, you know, we trade in all of these

Jesuitical type things. And one of the great gifts that

Saint Ignatius gave the church gave all people was this

prayer of the examen where we don't use

formulas to pray like the Our Father, the Hail

Mary, the Glory Be, but we use our memories, we use our life, we use our

situations to pray. So people who

wake up feeling that can pray and examine,

look at the relationships that you have in your life. Who are

the people that you feel most distant to that you wish you

were closer to? Who are the people that are close to you

in proximity, but you feel far from in terms of your heart?

And Pope Francis talks a lot about this in his last

encyclical, Dileksit Nos,

which is on the Sacred Heart he uses the image of the heart

and the symbol of the heart to sort of connect everything.

So a very simple question is like how is your heart?

Where is your heart? Have you

felt connected with somebody on that heart level

recently? When was the last time you did? What

was that? Like who are the people that you would like to connect

to in your heart to tell your griefs, your hopes,

your joys, your sorrows?

So that's one practical thing starting with that

self reflection. Another thing

that I do, looking back on it, something

that really helped, M is making a list

of all the people that I want to pray

for. A lot of them of course are friends and family.

But for all the time now it's always people that

I'm in proximity with, people at work,

people at school, people in my community,

like just like physically writing

out their names and in my prayers, like

actually praying for them, saying their names and even just

saying their names. and even

people far away from me, people I don't know, you know, the people

who are suffering in Gaza, people that are suffering in

Los Angeles, people who are suffering in prison. So many

anonymous people, like I don't know what it is

but I feel some sense of connection there

with these people. and especially when I

start to pray the names of people who care about me, who love me.

So that's another practical thing. So there's the

self reflection, there's the prayer

and then there's praying for ourselves to have courage.

Because I think when I'm lonely

the emotion I would most associate with that would

be a sort of a low grade

fear, maybe an anxiety, maybe I'm

afraid of rejections in any kind

of form. Like maybe somebody doesn't actually want to hang out with me

or people don't think that I'm worth spending time with.

And I start to notice these thoughts that

start to spiral and self

become a self fulfilling prophecy when I start

isolating. So instead to cut that off and to ask for

the grace of courage and to ask for the grace and the virtue of

fortitude and to practise

connecting with people. When's the last time you spoke

with your best friend if you don't live with them, when's the last time

you spoke with them? Actually reaching out, sending a WhatsApp text or

actually giving a call or writing a letter, writing

an email. Who's somebody in my life

that could be feeling lonely right now? Maybe it's somebody

at my school or maybe it's somebody on the

street or somebody that I see often, like, what can I do to reach out to

them? Because then it's not so then, so

then my, my loneliness doesn't become the reason for me

to reach out to people. Like, like it's,

you know, they're supposed to solve my problem. Like it's a transaction.

But it's like, well, now this is a call for me just to notice

this in other people, that other people are having this problem

too. And Lord, what can I do

to help them to lighten their burden? Because

by doing that I actually find that I feel it less

myself. And that was true even in the darkest moments

of my early priesthood and

even in the Philippines when I was working in prison,

I felt lonely. And then in prayer I realised,

well, guess what? Prisoners feel lonely too.

You know what I mean? And then what can I do now?

Now that I can connect with them on that heart level,

what can I do now to help relieve their burden? And then I found

myself even more intimately connected with that and I was like,

okay. So then it sort of passes just like

when I drink water after I'm thirsty,

like I don't feel that thirst anymore. When I'm not

sort of worried about myself and my loneliness anymore and I'm actually connecting

with other people and I'm helping other people, then I don't feel that

bracketing all any

psychological things that could be at play with people because I don't want to

discount that too. Sometimes loneliness, there's probably some

biochemical things that could affect that as well.

>> Julia: In some ways you've kind of preempted what I was about to ask you, which

is like. So I was just thinking about how

the easiest thing to do is if you're feeling lonely is like, reach out

to like 10 people and be like,

I'm feeling lonely, come come talk to me, come

come give me benefit. Like,

I'm, not. I mean, don't phrase it like that, but I mean like that's

what you essentially doing your training people,

which is great because obviously that helps with the loneliness. But as

you kind of mentioned, there's then the challenge of. Then your

relationships become quite transactional. And I feel

like a lot, maybe not a lot, but some people

when they're feeling lonely, the next thing they do is go on a dating

app or they like look for someone

to get romantically interested in and then

that becomes almost transactional. So have you got

any advice? Maybe not on the dating app specifically, but

how do you build that relationship intentionally,

whether romantic or friendship, without it

becoming transactional. It's being. I need it now because I'm feeling

lonely.

>> Justin: Yeah.

>> Julia: Benefits.

>> Justin: Yeah, yeah.

>> Julia: Ah, both sides.

>> Justin: You know, saint or not saint.

He's not a saint very much not a saint, but he influenced a lot of saints. The

philosopher Aristotle, he,

gosh, leave it to a Jesuit to reference philosophy on a

talk about these

things, but something I found useful in my philosophy studies and

reading Aristotle. He has a whole book in his ethics

treatise dedicated to friendship. And

he has three categories of friends. The first

category is friendship of

utility. Second category is friendship of pleasure.

Third category, friendship of virtue.

I'm not an expert on parsing it all out, but

the easiest way of interpreting it, you know, the friendship of

utility is like, well, we're friends because like,

we're both useful to each other. Or you're

useful to me, or I can be useful to you.

so that, yeah, that could be like

friends who are classmates because like, hey, like,

you got, you have the notes that I didn't take and I

can, and I can borrow those. Hey, how can I be helpful to you? And

maybe I can buy you, buy you lunch or something like that. We're friends

in a certain sense and friendship of pleasure, it's like, okay, we

enjoy doing the same thing. So I have my rock

climbing friends. It's like, well, friendship of utility and friendship of

pleasure, because don't drop me from the rock. But also

like, we enjoy doing this thing and we can connect on that level.

and sometimes these friendships can build on each

other. That's the thing that I think is worth noting too. It can

start maybe seeming like this transactional thing, like, oh,

there's a usefulness to this relationship. And then

it's like, well, not only is it useful, like this

relationship that I have with you, it's also pleasant

and we enjoy being around each other. But

then the way that I think we

are all called to go to is to

the friendship of virtue, to self giving love.

Where then it's not about, it's not, I, love

you because I need you. But it's like, I need you because I love

you. There

is something about how I want to

give myself to you and how I see that you're

giving yourself to me. That there is the need that's created not

out of any sort of transactional thing, but because I choose

freely to do that. So that's one thing that I would

say. So do not be afraid of starting,

starting with a little bit of that transactional mentality.

If it stays there, then maybe that's not.

Maybe a friendship can only. Recognising that.

That's what it is. It's like, okay to use that

image again. It's like, well, m. My climbing buddy is like, I'm not going to

be best friends with a lot of them, but it's really great

to have climbing buddies. You know, it's like, we could talk about this and we

can go out and we can have fun. That's great.

and I could. I could still pray for them, though. We're, You know, we're

still called to be Christians in that sense,

but to be wary of

staying at the transactional level and then to

get out of myself enough to think about, well,

what is it that they need?

That's one ultimate way of kind of being able to

challenge, letting the Holy Spirit see beyond myself,

helping me to look beyond myself and be like, yeah, we met

each other in this sense, but what is this person actually

going through right now? How is their heart? Like, I knew that

my heart was feeling empty or restless

or disconnected or lonely, but how's your heart doing?

Like, tell me about what you're interested in. Tell me

about your joys, your hopes, your griefs, your

sorrows, and be interested

and want to hear it and even try to delight in it

and see them as Jesus sees them, because

that's the ultimate corrective lens that we could put on anything.

It's like, how does the Holy Spirit lead me to

see this person? And it's usually not

as a means to my end. It's usually

as an end in themselves. Like, God delights.

God delights in me, and God delights in you as we are.

And, we love what James Allison says. It's like, God doesn't just

love you, he likes you. You know, like, oh, yeah,

that's cool. Like, I want. I want

to believe in a God who likes me as I am. Even in the times

when I don't think that other people like me as I am. Because

when I really believe that, you know, God likes me,

God likes me as I am. Like, I can kind of relax into

liking other people as they are and not sort of using

them to cover up, whatever holes that I feel

that I have in my heart. Does that make sense? Is that a little too

heady?

>> Julia: I'm trying to think of sense. I feel like

it. It's a big challenge for each of us, like,

to think about that. Actually. God likes us and to think

about that God also likes that other person and yeah.

Particularly when it's a person that you butt heads against.

>> Justin: Yeah.

>> Julia: To think of as God likes both of them, both you

and that person. And how do you acknowledge that

in that time?

>> Justin: Yeah. And that's, I mean, honestly, my shortcut to that is, I

mean, it's a bit of a cop out, but it's honestly prayer because

a meditative kind of prayer where I'm connecting with the source

of my life and I'm looking

upon Christ who looks upon me with

the sort of knowing smile

or smirk or whatever. It's like, well,

okay, show me how you see this person

who I want to be

more patient with. Or show me how you see this

person who I do want to get to know more.

yeah, that's. It's

coming to realise and coming to see how God,

how Christ sees me and

Christ sees other people and feels for them has been

a huge help to me because then I'm

not talking about loneliness, right? Like

it's, it's not me just looking at something by myself. I'm looking

at it with Christ. I'm looking at them with, with Christ's

eyes and just like how you and a friend can sit on

a bench and just sort of watch the world go by

and like, look at all the people walking around and everything like that. Like,

we can do that in prayer. Like it's, we can do that. We

can sit down on the bench with Jesus and be

like, look at all the people in our lives that are,

that are walking by in the park right now. Like, what

do you think? How do you feel about them? Like, how do you feel about

me as we're sitting here together? You know, like

that kind of stuff. It's good

to sort of rewire, rewire my perception and rewire my

brain when it comes to that kind of thing.

>> Julia: I was just challenged in my own head there of like the times,

particularly in my early 20s, where I'd sit

on a bench and look at people with another friend and we'd be like,

are they on a first date, a second date, been married for

10 years? Maybe I should have been thinking, what was more

Jesus perspective on it than that? Fun game.

>> Justin: Well, I mean, yeah, but it's that same idea though.

It's like, how do we. What is your

best guess on how God

looks upon God's creation? And

even then, if you want to have a playful conversation like

that, why not have a playful conversation like that with

Jesus? You know what I mean? Oh, are they first dates? And I

think I don't Know, I like to believe in a Jesus who delights in

other people who are in love with each other and even sort of

awkwardly fumbling through that romance, you know what I mean?

yeah, that's. It's possible. And

if we're not, and this is where, okay, maybe I sound a little too

priestly and stereotypical when I'm saying this. If we can't be real

with God in prayer, if I can't be real with God even

in my loneliness, with my loneliness, then how do I

expect to be real with other people? Because

for me, like, Jesus is the safest

person I could ever be with. Like, I know I

won't be, I know I won't be condemned by Jesus

when I'm like, yeah, I'm lonely, but I'm also kind of selfish

and I'm also a little self centred right now

and this person really annoys me or I'm really afraid

of reaching out to this person. Like what if they think that I'm

a loser or just I'm too needy or something

like that? If I can't be that real with

Jesus in prayer, I don't have,

I don't have a hope in actually trusting someone else,

to do that. That said, Jesus has

spoken to me through my friends. and I

hope everyone has a memory of

somebody who's been able to sort of break through

the doom loop in the head where

somebody in your life and a friend in your

life has been able to sort of cut through all the crap and

actually like remind you that no, no, I like being around you.

advice for people. Something I wish I knew

when I was younger about loneliness was

that. Sorry to preempt this, but it's just like I feel like

this is like kind of heading towards this. But

something I wish I knew in my loneliest

moments was that there are people who actually like

being around me and there are people who like to hear from

me and it's not something that I

necessarily earned, you know, it's like, oh

shoot. Like I have to be funny for these people to be around

me or I have to cook really good food for them to want to have dinner

at my house or I have to, I have to, I have to. I

feel like that phrase is something to watch out for.

But then realising and coming to own the fact, like,

no, there are some people who just like me for me and

they've in other, in some ways they've affirmed that

they've actually said that explicitly or they've implied

it by the way they have been with me. And that's something

to give thanks to God for, because then that

could help get me over my fear of connecting with people

and reaching out to people. And instead of fear,

there's courage and trust that.

Yes, like, you like to be with

me and I like to be with you. Let's

catch up. Let's see how we're doing

with each other.

>> Julia: Wow. I was just thinking that's really good advice

of, like, remembering that people do

like you for who you are.

So you kind of touched on this question already. But what do you

wish you knew about loneliness that you

do now know?

>> Justin: M. What I wish I knew

before is that

it's a common and normal thing. That is. It

can be. It doesn't. It's not a moral problem.

I'm not lonely because it's a punishment, you

know, or that I did something that was worthy of

other people's rejection. You know what I mean? Like, to

divorce it from any sort of moral judgement and

think of it as just a biological reality. Like, I'm

made for connection. I'm made for deep connection,

to reveal what is inside of me to other people.

Okay. That's something I wish I knew a long time ago.

but what I said earlier, too,

I wish I knew that I can trust

my friends. And even people who I didn't

think were friends, I can trust that they actually like

being around me and that I'm a likeable person

and someone would like to hear from me, I can trust

that. That's something I wish I knew.

The other thing I wish I knew earlier too, and this is something that

became really close to me in the Philippines,

was that, Jesus felt lonely

too. And

that was a huge revelation

to me because it helped me connect

also with Jesus, in a heart level.

When I thought about the loneliness that he experienced in the

agony in the garden, in his passion and on the

cross, I felt a little bit more united with

the folks in the prison in the Philippines,

and by extension, all of

us. When we're lonely, it's like, wow.

When we're lonely, we're actually even more close.

We're closer to Christ, who also was. Who shared in our

loneliness, who was lonely as well. And I can

even connect with him on that level, you know,

I wish I knew that earlier.

>> Julia: And, what are you most grateful for?

>> Justin: I'm grateful that

I can share what I love

in terms of the arts, with so

many wonderful people now. Like, I can share

beautiful, like, physically, like, with an

artwork. Like, I can physically share beautiful things with

people, and people share that with me. Like, I'm

in a place now where I'm surrounded by beauty and beautiful people

who reflect that in the work that they. In the work that

they do. And I'm so grateful to be around that.

It's inspiring.

>> Julia: Thank you for joining us.

>> Justin: You're welcome.

>> Julia: Thanks for listening to Things I Wish I Knew. I know this

episode is going to change the way I think about loneliness, but also

how am I going to be less transactional in how I relate to

people and in also how I go to church?

How about you? We'd love to hear how Justin's

story resonated with you. And why not also tell us if

you're facing an experience you wish you knew how to look at

differently, it might just be something we can help with.

You can find out more about this theme and other themes at

thinkingfaith.org. Thank you again for listening,

and I hope you'll join me next time on Things I Wish I

Knew.