Let’s Talk about ……..

Let’s Talk about ….. is a continuation of our Synodal journey and we plan to have monthly talks

Our first Let’s Talk about ………, a continuation of our Synodal journey was on 29th January and was entitled Let’s talk about loneliness and how we can overcome it.

9 attendees from 2 different churches heard the articles below and then discussed what we hear and thought about it. The notes from the meeting follow that.

Input

A Failsafe Cure for Loneliness  by Johann Christoph Arnold

Feelings of emptiness and loneliness affect us all, but often the elderly especially. How many elderly people dine alone each evening, in their own apartments or in assisted-living centres, financially supported by their children miles away?

In each of us, there is a longing for community, to share whatever we have with others. God created us as communal beings, not as hermits. It does not matter whether we are old or young, sick or healthy. We belong together, and this togetherness brings fulfilment.

We innately know this, of course. Many veterans tell me they returned for multiple tours of duty overseas because of the sense of family and community they felt with their fellow soldiers. Former gang members have also told me that their “street family” was closer and stronger than their biological family. In schools, coaches and teachers often find they are the only ones providing a family for their students.

As society becomes more fragmented, it is often the old who suffer most. They hurt for a sense of family and community. In my experience, they need to live in communal settings, where they can not only be looked after, but also continue to contribute and love and share. In Galatians we are told to “carry each other’s burdens, and in this way fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). When we feed the hungry, care for the sick, or visit someone else who is lonely we lighten their burden as well as our own.

My neighbour Ken Johnson, a retired physician, founded several organizations to address these issues. He remembers:

In every community there are very old people who live alone with serious disability and without adequate family, social, and financial supports. Their children and grandchildren are dispersed to far distances or live in spaces insufficient for accommodating an aged parent.

To combat these problems, I envisioned a multitude of the nation’s churches, temples, and mosques forming local interfaith coalitions to recruit and train volunteers, many of them elderly themselves, to serve the needs of people with serious disability and with inadequate social support, and in so doing fulfill their spiritual destiny. The world’s great religions all call upon their adherents to give succour to the helpless.

In our programs, volunteers handled a person’s mail, saw that checks went to the bank, that utility bills were paid, and that there was enough food in the refrigerator. The volunteers came alive with a simple task like driving an elderly person to a doctor’s office, doing minor repairs to steps and banisters, or changing a light bulb.

The elderly care receivers experienced a reprieve from their sense of abandonment and worthlessness. Their sense of dignity was restored. They could get a hot bath. Their hair and clothes were in good order. They were somebody because somebody showed concern for their well-being.

One caregiver wrote me once that before he became a volunteer he spent his day keeping busy doing things like visiting with his grandchildren. He was content to do so, but since becoming a volunteer, he said, he felt “special” because now “someone really depends on me.”

Charlie Simmons was another friend of mine who found new happiness in his advanced age, in little ways. His contributions to society were not great, but they were important. A life-long New Yorker, he moved upstate after a career driving trucks and buses. After his beloved wife, Margie, died, he started to join us for dinner and worship services.

It didn’t take much time for Charlie to feel completely at home. He missed no chance to point people to the peace and happiness he’d found in his simple and childlike faith, and he noticed when someone else was having a bad day. He would often claim that he kept a low profile, but would say it with a laugh, since he knew that it couldn’t be further from the truth: standing over six feet tall, he preferred to shout everything from the rooftops, and he could not stand it when people whispered. He liked to loudly tell people, “You sing well,” or “You’re looking good for your age,” or “I think you’ve lost weight!”

He loved to tell a good story, like about the time he ate thirty-four pancakes in a competition and had to “unload” them behind a tree on the way home (which he claimed is growing incredibly well as a result), or about the time he fell asleep during collection at church and they took his check out of his pocket anyway. But he was at his best when he was reaching out to others, bringing flowers – or ice cream or local apples – for a birthday or anniversary.

Charlie had a deep love for Jesus and was never afraid to witness to this. In our church services he always responded with a strong “Amen” when someone was preaching. And whenever we’d sing a hymn, invariably a loud “Praise God!” would follow the last stanza.

Charlie showed me how simple it can be to combat loneliness and depression. The possibilities are endless. Is there a child near you that needs one-on-one time with an adult? Invite him over to play a game, help him with school work, or read him a story. An elderly neighbour may need someone to accompany her to an appointment – or she may just need remembering with a card on her birthday.

If we look at what we can give to others, rather than our limitations, we will find the purpose in life we so desperately need, and our loneliness will evaporate.

AGE UK – a testimony by Mary Hollingdale

I started working for Age Uk about 15 years ago but when my husband Ted became ill and sadly died I gave it up for a while returning about 3 years ago.

My role is to telephone the housebound and I think of myself as a friend calling to the lonely and isolated. I also listen to whatever other help we can offer and I pass things on to my land manager Trudie Harrington.

Being a widow and living alone I find it also helps me as at times as I too can feel a bit lonely. Most of my clients/friends want to know all about me as they want to trust and get a picture of you and your life.

There was a time when I used to go into an office and use their phone but now I do the calls at home on a Tuesday

There are 26 of us who have a list of people to phone and we all choose a day to do this often in the mornings is their request often wanting a nap in the afternoon. We usually don’t have more then 8 people and its up to each caller how long they want to chat. I am told its about 200 calls a week.

Referrals can be done via GP surgery, Website Family, Posters and Age UK shop [nearest in Letchworth] Trudie Harrington visits everyone and is able to give us details about each client which is useful and of course Confidential

Age Uk offers Visiting service too which I hope to do in the future. My late husband used to do that. Men enjoy chatting to another man…..football and such like.

I never usually end the call without knowing it has helped their loneliness and I also say a prayer before I phone them.

Discussion points

Discussion Points

If you know someone who you think is isolated or lonely please let us know and we’ll try our best to help them.