Our age of isolation calls for bold neighborly love. Let’s reclaim community—because loving God means loving each other.
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” the lawyer asks Jesus in Matthew 22:36.
Jesus replies that the entirety of God’s law can be summarized as follows: love God, and love your neighbor.
Most of us find loving God considerably easier. God doesn’t let the weeds grow or park in our spot or post yard signs that make us cringe. During the pandemic, I learned how much I need neighbors — not just the people I live alongside, but real neighbors who help one another, deliver groceries to the door when your family is quarantined or pick your kid up from school in an emergency. So when my family moved to Virginia in the summer of 2021, I intentionally reached out to befriend my new neighbors. Since my default mode is “isolated introvert,” this outreach went against my natural grain. But it has paid off. Our new neighbors feed my daughter’s fish when we are out of town and, during a recent scare, used our spare key to enter our home to ensure everything was okay.
In his January 2025 article “The Anti-Social Century” for The Atlantic, Derek Thompson writes about our increased and intentional isolation. It’s not just that we are lonely, as Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stated in declaring a national health epidemic; we are also choosing to sequester ourselves, to quarantine our own spirits rather than risk “catching” our neighbors’.
Thompson cites data from the National Restaurant Association revealing that takeout and delivery traffic increased by 61% since 2019. Solo dining has risen by 29% in the past two years. While many are still protecting their health and that of at-risk family members, the top reason given for these trends is the need for more “me time.” One restaurant owner, Steve Sales, told Thompson, “I think people feel uncomfortable in the world today. They’ve decided that their home is their sanctuary. It’s not easy to get them to leave.”
This rise in chosen solitude, supported by the expansion of food delivery services and streaming television, is creating what economist Enghin Atalay, quoted in Thompson’s article, has called a “century of solitude.”
I understand this desire for solitude. A quiet night alone with a hot cup of tea, a good book or a Netflix binge will never lose its appeal for me. But too much withdrawal breaks down community.
The consequences of our antisocial behavior go far beyond not having someone to help feed the fish. When we don’t know our neighbors, we don’t have relationships that promote care for one another. We aren’t inspired to work to understand one another or to mend broken fences — literally or metaphorically. Retreating from the problems of our world to overindulge in “me time” does nothing to cool the heat of our political divides and stymies all that we could accomplish together.
In her popular 2018 book The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, Priya Parker writes, “In democracies, the freedom to assemble is one of the foundational rights granted to every individual. In countries descending into authoritarianism, one of the first things to go is the right to assemble. Why? Because of what can happen when people come together, exchange information, inspire one another.”
Like many, I am disturbed by the forces of evil that have gained ground in our nation and our communities: greed, misogyny, devaluing of human lives and human diversity, violations of civil rights, censorship and banning of a free press. I’m angered by the “me first” attitude that has led us to an “America first” politics. We cannot resist and work to transform these evils by staying alone in our homes, relishing our “me time.” Like Parker signals, we must assemble, exchange information and organize ourselves into a collective force for good.
That work begins with each of us intentionally reaching out to and building relationships with our neighbors, despite our desire to pull back and sequester ourselves in the sanctuary of our homes.
Love God.
Love neighbor.
We can accomplish neither when our home becomes our sanctuary and “me time” replaces “us time.”
Look out your window. Does anyone out there need their fish fed? Let’s step outside and start by saying hello.
