Stories teach. That's one of the reasons the Bible is full of them - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; David and Goliath; the Savior's birth, death, and resurrection. Stories. Jesus used a bunch of them; remember the parables?

Stories teach. The three stories (allegories, actually) that follow are especially intended to teach. But you'll have to think in order to learn. The characters all represent something else. They help us understand what loneliness is and how to deal with it.

The Dance

When the slow music starts, don't expect the world to glide over, hold out its hand, and murmur, "Let's dance." Won't happen. Promise.

Life's more like a fast-paced roller skating party where the longer you wait on the sidelines hoping for courage and a partner to hold you up, the more proficient everybody else gets at banking, cross-overs, and cutting people off. Get in there - now! Friendships are formed in the fray.

Scrabble

I'm lonely," said the misplaced Scrabble letter. Not a Q or a K or an X, of course. Just an E, one of a dozen. And the kids hadn't counted tiles for ages since Mom always won and who needs an E when an I or an O or an A can get you plenty of 3-point-let's-just-get-this-over-with words at midnight.

So the letter pined away in the game closet, deep in the toe of Dad's golf shoe.

One day an obsessed-housekeeper-fairy-godmother discovered the listless letter. "Ready to go home, E?" she asked with a laugh. "A lot's been happening since you left - a dramatic 'quiche' finish by Miranda, and Mrs. C broke her old record with 'quixotic.' If you'd been there, Davey could have made 'eerie' and won for once. The A's spread rumors you went to go live with the Boggle letters because you hated your two-dimensional life, and remember that E with the chipped corner? He's been looking for you every game he gets, tumbling off the table on purpose, asking the cat to bat him around a bit. I can't believe you've been gone all winter! Good thing I found you too since Mr. C just broke his leg and cancelled his golf membership."

Opening her palm, she held him high above the box called home. How tiny his friends and family looked, chattering and clattering about their business, some face-up and hopeful, others turned away from the light as if sad or tired. And he missed them all! The divas and the drones, the vociferous vowels and the courtly consonants.

"E's 'ere!" shrieked the chipped E as our blond, half-inch square slid back down into his anonymous, happy life.

"I wonder if Davey or Mrs. C will even notice," the fairy-godmother mused as she gave the box a healthy shake and shut the lid. Probably not, she decided, but she also didn't see what the two E's (one slightly chipped) and a few friends formed in the companionable, crowded darkness: that seven-letter winner's word, S-E-R-V-I-C-E.

Loneliness or Solitude?

Two roads diverged in a conscious mind, one leading to Loneliness, a desolate place where no trees cast shadows, the other to Solitude where streams and blossoms abound.

In Loneliness three creatures nibble at our toes and sanity, while in Solitude the beasts all have soft eyes and wait for us to ride them willingly. Those hungry hounds of Loneliness are Fear, Worry, and Depression. Fear is a horrid wall of hair and teeth that will not let us move or think in his presence (sometimes we wonder if our mothers hired him to keep us safe), while Worry is a starving film artist demanding feedback on his latest flick called "What If?" This week we critiqued a catastrophic relationship between an A-student and a pot-head and what happens when an uninsured teen totals his parents' only car.

But Depression is Loneliness' most insidious inhabitant. A frail, vulnerable waif, she clings to our backs and whispers over and over in our ears, "I can't, help me, who cares, nothing matters." We try to claw her off or console her with a few hours of attention. Nothing works, and more frightening still, she's somehow climbed under our skin! Each day the load of her feels more and more natural. In Loneliness, Depression makes us think she is our soul.

In Solitude, we are not passive and waiting for the worst to happen. We act! We meander purposefully and think with peaceful animation. Three beasts, called Peace, Planning, and Productivity, do creep near, but only to let us pet them and gradually learn to see and use their strengths.

Peace is a bird with gorgeous plumage, always drawing our eyes upward in hope. Planning is a work-horse, steady and strong, but with a unicorn's horn to remind us of the magic of everyday commitment. And Productivity is a luminous glowing presence that can't be seen nor grasped until we stop thinking of ourselves and reach out to others. In fact, she's the reason we leave Solitude - she draws us into service, relaxed and ready to give again. But when we go she slips Creativity, her little sister, into our pockets as a reminder to come back and visit often.

Two roads diverged in a conscious mind. I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Ramona Czer teaches at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Minnesota.