Singleness, paradoxically, is not a single thing. There are varieties of singleness. Once upon a time in the olden days, for example, everybody seemed to have an unmarried maiden aunt.
My maiden aunt was Auntie Grace.
Grace Moore was born when Queen Victoria was still alive and lived to be 93.
Once, many years ago, in the aftermath of the First World War she was engaged but she never married. But that was not what defined her.
She was a teacher and headmistress.
She was Captain of a Guide Company and a leader of bible study and prayer groups.
She travelled, to Europe and the Middle East, to North and West Africa.
She wrote innumerable letters to me and my family.
She was Amazing, Grace.
The thing about Auntie Grace, though, wasn’t the stuff she did or how busy she was. It was that she was never alone. Towards the end of her life, she was still visited almost daily by all sorts of people: her family; members of her church; even her old Guides, in their seventies and eighties.
Now the Bible is full of people whose stories are of a single life.
But they are seldom solitary people.
St Paul’s letters reveal his huge circle of friends, stretching from Jerusalem to Rome. Miriam, the sister of Moses, was a prophet and leader of the people of Israel – and a single woman. The sisters Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus, all single, shared a home in Bethany caring for each other and friends like Jesus who came to stay when they passed through.
Like theirs, Auntie Grace’s singleness was never solitary. Rather, it was lived out in a rich array of relationships. She taught me that to commit to your friendships in the long term, to serve in your community, to open yourself and your home to the people you meet are ways of being that not only demonstrate love but gather love.
And Auntie Grace gathered more love and more respect than almost anyone I’ve ever met. But it wasn’t because she was single and therefore had more time. I reckon it was because she knew that, single or not, the potential for a good life resides not in one relationship but in many. Not in one person who somehow chooses us – but in every person we encounter.
I actually had two extraordinary aunts, Grace and Joyce. Grace was my grandmother’s sister and Joyce my mother’s sister. Here they are together at my parents’ wedding in 1961.