蜜芽传媒

Good morning. A song which has moved three generations now since it was first released by the Beatles in 1966 is Eleanor Rigby with its haunting line 鈥淎h, look at all those lonely people鈥�. And that, it could be said, is what 蜜芽传媒 North are doing today with a series of programmes under the heading 鈥淎 life less lonely鈥� together with the engagement of 20 charities up and down the country.

Loneliness is not just confined to the elderly. There is the loneliness of the adolescent, especially if they come from a troubled home, or are finding it difficult to make friends at school. There is the terrible loneliness of bereavement. Someone suddenly finding no one there after years together with a partner. There is the loneliness of a person critically ill in hospital, cut off from the life they have known and fearful about the future. Then there are some people who have always felt alone like the poet R.S.Thomas. He wrote some lovely poems to his wife of 50 years but when she died and he was asked if he was now lonely he replied 鈥淚sn鈥檛 one lonely within marriage鈥�?

So many forms of loneliness but we cannot ignore the fact that we are most of us are living longer now and there are an increasing number of elderly living on their own who do not see anyone from one week鈥檚 end to another-not just women, for a recent study said that more than a million men over the age of 50 suffer from a sense of isolation. I find it very poignant when I go through my address system on the computer and have to delete a name. Some people reach the stage when the names of all their friends have been deleted. Overall some 10% of people over the age of 65 say they are lonely most or all of the time. All this is intensified at this time of the year. Priests know that Christmas can be tinged with some heart rending conversations about the pain of loneliness

Existentialists used to stress that as human beings it is our lot to be fundamentally alone. There is no escape, and certainly this tendency has been reinforced by the rampant individualism that has dominated European thought and life for 3 centuries. But I prefer the African notion of Ubuntu, that life is essentially interpersonal. We become and remain persons in and through our relation to other persons. Hence those great words addressed to Adam in the Garden of Eden 鈥淚t is not good for man to be alone.鈥�

Mother Theresa who did so much for the destitute poor on the streets of Calcutta once said 鈥淟oneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.鈥� Charities and voluntary organisations do much to help overcome this. Even if we have not able to volunteer ourselves we can I think all do more to connect with other people, a phone call, a visit, a greeting in the street, a smile across the counter. For we belong together and it is not good for man-or woman-to be alone.

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