God Places the Lonely in Families

This guy has me thinking . . .

I see one just like this flying north, alone, across our little lake every morning. And then, like clockwork, at sunset, we see him flying back south toward the trees at the end of the lake. Again, alone. He’s a Double-Crested Cormorant and he is amazing to watch. Cormorants eat fish, floating on the water like a duck or goose, but then diving underwater for 10 or 15 seconds, then popping up 30 or 40 feet away from the spot from which he disappeared. Here’s the thing.

He should not be alone.

Cormorants, like ducks and geese are flock animals. They normally live in large colonies and migrate together. Last winter we had a flock of eight or ten of these diving right outside our back windows. This year, just the one. So this loner has me wondering . . .

Where are your people?

We could ask the same question of many of the folks we encounter every day. We were created for community. For connection. To know others and to be known by them. Indeed, The Cup & Table Co. was born of this hunger for community.

Even before the Covid thing, technology and trends were already isolating people and creating whole seas of lonely people in crowds. A glance around a typical busy coffee shop reveals mostly individuals, sitting alone, earbuds or headphones on, staring at screens. Isolated in a crowd.

The advent of virtual reality—the “metaverse”—will only exacerbate this crisis. Which puts me in mind of what I think God is asking of us in the year ahead . . .

The headline of this post is taken from Psalm 68:6. Here it is in context, in The Passion Translation:

This is indeed our God. This is precisely the heart of our Father as perfectly reflected in the actions and words of His Son.

Not every person in our respective paths in the days ahead is supposed to become a part of our family at the Cup & Table Co., but some are. That means we will need open eyes and discernment. We have a wonderful family. And I believe God, from His Holy Place, by partnering with us, is keenly interested in setting some lonely people in it this year.