Gluttony?

It's been a while since I posted and I've been busy- mostly hanging out with twenty-two seven-year-olds by day and connecting with friends by night. In fact, I believe that tonight will be the first evening in the last ten that I plan to stay at home. One friend last week labeled my schedule as indicative of a "voracious appetite for people." Then Sunday in church the sermon was about gluttony which was defined as an excess of something that gives you pleasure (a paraphrase). So I began to wonder, "Can one become consumed with people to the point of gluttony/excess?"

For the most part, I tend not to answer complex questions like that with a simple yes or no. Instead the answers seem jumbled up like a tangled ball of yarn. One of the threads of truth in this untidy mess argues that I was created for community, given a perfectly-natural desire to be in relationship with both God and others. Another thread argues that I am simply being proactive about initiating with others in order to avoid isolation in my basement apartment out in the countryside. Yet there is another part that knows there is real value in solitude, quiet and silence. That part of me wonders if I am just running away from the empty space, afraid of what I may find if I have time to sit and reflect.

This tangled ball analogy reminds me of a professor that I had in seminary who was talking about Proverbs and the way that sometimes there seems to be truth at both ends of a spectrum. (Like sometimes Proverbs talks about it being a good idea to save money and then other times it seems like the author is saying don't save because it can be dangerous). He said simply that sometimes they're both true; in the example above, saving can be both good and dangerous. And somehow I can almost hear his charming British accent in my ear, responding to my present jumble of thoughts, "The answer is yes. Connecting with people can be both good and dangerous."