麻豆约拍

Ruth Scott Anglican Priest and Quaker:

Listening to Desert Island Discs on Sunday I was really touched by Tom Hanks who was Kirsty Young鈥檚 guest. Totally unexpectedly he found himself getting choked up talking about the 鈥渧ocabulary of loneliness鈥� that captured his teenage experience. Like Tom there are many young people, perhaps more than we imagine, who know what it is to feel lonely. Technology doesn鈥檛 necessarily help with this: The ability to be in touch with others at any time can just accentuate the pain of feeling you have no one who really understands you. It鈥檚 not just youngsters who have this experience. We鈥檝e heard a lot in recent times about the loneliness of older people whose partner may have died or whose mobility and financial circumstances limit what they can do.聽 I, too, at different times in my life have felt acutely lonely. Early on, I tried to deal with this by keeping busy, but that didn鈥檛 resolve the root cause. It just held it at bay. Loneliness, like physical pain, lets me know that something is out of kilter in my life and needs attention. It may be to do with what鈥檚 going on inside my own head or it may be symptomatic of a sickness in wider society. Loneliness experienced across generations suggests we鈥檙e suffering from the loss of community spirit and sense of belonging that are vital for mental health. Faith doesn鈥檛 offer easy answers but encourages us to address the issues. The gospels tell us how Jesus himself experienced the anguish of profound loneliness. His response wasn鈥檛 to deny or run away from it. He faced it head on, crying out with the pain of it, yes, but also reaching deep inside himself for the resources to work with what he learnt from it. Loneliness is a tough teacher, but with growing understanding it can be transformed, sometimes into contented solitude, and sometimes into reconnection with other human beings, as Tom Hanks went on to discover for himself.