All The Lonely People

There is a difference between solitude and loneliness. There are those in every community who appear totally satisfied with being left alone. They are never rude; they just are content with their isolation.

But in every community there are also desperate people, lonely not of their own choosing. They may be widows or widowers. Their nest may at last be empty, or perhaps it never resounded with the laughter of children. There are those who continuously reach out, but no matter how often they have taken the risk of being ignored, they keep trying—without success.

Among the lonely, what about the thousands of the homeless whose presence may immediately evoke our distaste without the faintest understanding of what they may have lost. So they sleep on our streets, and few give a care. We just want them to go away. Their very disability is an affront.

This year has witnessed the creation of a whole new body of lonely sufferers. COVID-19 created over a quarter of a million empty Christmas dinner table places. In some cases there was more than one family member to be mourned. What is more, Christmas is usually a precious family time, and even though Americans had been discouraged from traveling, mostly to reunite families, airports were mobbed by people traveling at their own peril. And for many of the millions who remained isolated, the pain of being separated from loved ones was—and remains—just too painful to admit.

This lonely loss has hit Wendy and me. As our years are running out, not to see and hold children, grandchildren and now great-grandchildren has been terrible. One day at a church convention I saw a very old friend accosted by a young woman who said, “Dr. Van Boskirk, I have always wanted to know you,” and he, supported by his cane, replied, “You had better hurry.” If these young children want to know us, they had better hurry. So, loneliness has descended on apartment 204.

Perhaps there must go out a call to each of us to be particularly aware of all the lonely people while they may be hesitant to reach out, their pain is real.
Isn’t there always room for one more friend? Well, the year has been tough on all of us as fewer and fewer have escaped the dark domination of loneliness. So why not reach out to some lonely person out there?

A generation ago the Beatles riveted the world’s attention on two lonely people whose names you may have forgotten. Eleanor Rigby sat by her window waiting for someone to love her, but no one ever came. She silently cleaned the church hall following someone else’s wedding. And when Eleanor Rigby died, there were no mourners. Father McKenzie wrote sermons no one cared to hear, and was Eleanor Ridgy’s solitary servant at her death. So alone, he was reduced to spending silent hours darning his socks, just as her name was buried with her body.

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people
Eleanor Rigby
Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

Father McKenzie
Writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working
Darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby
Died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie
Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved
All the lonely people (ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people (ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all belong?

So we pray, “Lord allow us solitude, but save us from loneliness.”