Look at all the Lonely People

When I lived in Liverpool I remember seeing the moving statue of Eleanor Rigby on her bench in Stanley Street. The plaque reads: “Dedicated to all the Lonely People”. It recalls the song Paul McCartney wrote and that the Beatles released in 1966. “Oh, look at all the lonely people” goes the refrain, “where do they all come from?”

 

I took the funeral of my friend Pam this week. She was one of those lonely people and she told me how she would travel to Lakeside or Basildon Eastgate Centre most days because that’s where people were and she didn’t have to stay at home looking at the walls.

 

She enjoyed her work as an Avon lady and her friends in the pub and at the church because she loved a good chat. But it didn’t stop her being lonely any more than the thousands of others in our towns and villages that go home to a cold and empty house and long for company.

 

Pam had good neighbours and caring friends and when the end came she passed peacefully, trusting God and knowing there was hope beyond this “vale of tears”. Not all our lonely people experience such care and friendship. We need to look out for them. There’s more than you think.

 

Let’s all of us take the time to reach out to one another. Show them a stranger is just a friend you haven’t yet met. God bless you!

Lest We Forget

 

The recent media discussion regarding the age of young people entering the armed forces has prompted me to reflect once more upon the great sacrifice of former generations so many of whom were still in their teens when their lives were taken. On Remembrance Sunday our memorials were crowded with thousands of young people remembering what was given by their great-grandparents to preserve our way of life.

 

One of my favourite poets, Wilfred Owen, summed it up in the poignant words of Anthem for Doomed Youth:

 

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns, only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, - the shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; and bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all?  Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, and each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

 

But are our youth still doomed? Not if Remembrance Sunday is anything to go by! Not if the aspiration and inspiration of children and young people offering themselves to serve others is any indication. Patrick Regan of XLP says: “I refuse to believe that this is a lost generation” and I wholeheartedly agree with him!

 

Let’s hear it for the youngsters of then AND now and not forget!