"St. Paul aptly summarizes the New Testament's view on loneliness in a very powerful metaphor. In I Corinthians 13, he writes: 'For now we see in a mirror, dimly (as through a glass, darkly), but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.'
"What Paul is doing here is contrasting how we live and love now with how we will live and love when God's kingdom is fully established. Now, before death, we live and love as 'through a glass, darkly.' Our life is lived within a certain mist of unreality, within a certain fantasy, within a certain loneliness. We never see God, others, or reality as they really are ('face to face'), but see only certain reflections of them, as one sees an image in a mirror. Hence we are always partially separated from everything else, living behind a veil and having to sort through a riddle in order to try to meet fully God and others. Only after death will this veil be fully striped away. Then we will encounter God and others face to face. Only then will we be entirely unlonely.
"In using this image, Paul is drawing on an ancient image from the Hebrew scriptures, namely, the motif of the face of God. In the Jewish scriptures, God is always understood to be veiled, partially hidden. No one ever sees God directly. The scriptures present the idea that nobody can look upon the face of God and live.
"As the Hebrew scriptures develop, so, too, does this motif of the face of God. It begins, at a certain point, to refer not just to the veil of faith that separates us from God, but also to the fact that, as persons, we live our lives within a certain riddle, behind a veil that separates us partially from all that is real and keeps us lonely. Eventually, the Hebrew scriptures begin to express all the longings within the human heart with this plea: 'Lord, show us your face!' In effect, they are really saying, 'Lord remove the riddle, the veil, the mirror of unreality, show us yourself and each other! Take our loneliness away." . . .
"Jesus, in his most famous sermon ever, answers that question by saying, 'Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.' These words by Jesus must be understood with some background in mind. His Jewish listeners would have made the connection — that when we cut through the riddle of life, we pierce the mist of loneliness and encounter God and others face to face, to the extent that we attain purity of heart. The whole Christian life (that which has classically been called 'the spiritual life' and which today we generally call 'spirituality') is nothing other than this, an attempt to strip aside the veils and mirrors, riddles and walls, barriers and shadows, fears and fantasies, facades and mists, and selfishness and unreality that separate us from God and each other.
"The Christian life is an attempt to pierce the mist of unreality and encounter God and others face to face. To the extent that this happens in our lives, we enter the kingdom of God and community of life, which will wipe away all our tears and take our loneliness fully away. To the extent that this happens in our lives, we begin to attain already the heaven that is promised to us."
