Page |129 The Elusiveness of Meaningful cycle are not notably successful, in large Connection part because the preconscious disposition of lonely people toward the Kathryn Tanner’s chapter has world is difficult to change. Like Tanner, developed the classical Christian idea although using different terminology, that God is the creator and sustainer of Masi’s review of the scientific literature the world, in order to suggest the ways suggests both that the character of one’s in which this notion of the creator might general disposition toward the world is be one factor providing persons with a profoundly important for one’s sense of social connection and a hopeful, connections to others, and that the generous, and caring disposition toward processes by which these general the world that assuages the adverse dispositions change are complex and health consequences of loneliness. In warrant further scientific attention. this classic interpretation of God as creator, the idea refers not to the origins of the universe but rather to the all- inclusive dependence of life upon God at all times. This sense of a sustaining divine presence spanning the whole time of one’s life thus contributes a deep sense of one’s connection to the whole order of creation. However, as Tanner notes, people may become inattentive to a presence so pervasive, just as people can become inattentive to the forces of gravity holding them to the surface of the Earth as they go about their everyday life. In more extreme versions of this inattention, the person understands humanity as “alone” in the universe, a sort of metaphysical loneliness that might exacerbate more concrete feelings of loneliness. Perhaps surprisingly, Chris Masi, from the perspective of a physician and medical researcher, casts a fascinating and fresh perspective on the theological notion that we live in a sustaining connection to creation as a whole. After describing the negative health consequences of loneliness, Masi proceeds to