20 October 2005

Lonely People

I wonder how church marketing experts would respond to the following: one of the major cross-sections of people the Church in the West has failed are those who can legitmately be called lonely. By lonely I mean isolated, marginalized, invisible, etc.

One of my good friends (and future super theologian) recently reminded me of the lyrics from a popular artist.

Ben Folds, Fred Jones, part 2

Fred sits alone
at his desk in the dark
there's an awkward
young shadow that waits in the hall

he has cleared all his things
and he's put them in boxes
things that remind him
that life has been good

twenty-five years
he's worked at the paper
a man's here
to take him downstairs
and "I'm sorry,
Mr. Jones, it's time"

there was no party
and there were no songs
'cause today's just a day
like the day that he started

and no one is left here
that knows his first name
yeah, and life barrels on
like a runaway train

where the passengers change
they don't change anything
you get off
someone else can get on
and "I'm sorry,
Mr. Jones, it's time"

the streetlight
it shines through the shades
casting lines on the floor
and lines on his face
he reflects on the day

Fred gets his paints out
and goes to the basement
projecting some slides
onto a plain white canvas

and traces it,
fills in the spaces
he turns off the slides
and it doesn't look right

yeah, and all of these bastards
have taken his place
he's forgotten, but not yet gone
and "I'm sorry, Mr. Jones"
and "I'm sorry, Mr. Jones"
and "I'm sorry, Mr. Jones, "it's time
"

“The song paints a portrait of an under-appreciated, long-term employee who for too long equated what he did with who he was, and here he is on his last day struggling with feelings of insignificance in the face of the big picture of his life. Where now? What was left? Why was he even here anymore? Why didn’t anyone care? Why didn’t anyone even notice?” (N. Adam Hill).

---

A prayer for churches trying to resuce lonely people.

God give us your eyes. When we see the other help us to see you. When we see unimpressive help us to see your son working as a carpenter. When we see homeless help us to remember your son told us “he had no place to lay his head.” When we see poverty help us to remember that you often identified with those the world would call the least. When we encounter divorced and abused help us to bring a healing touch and soothing word. When we see the lonely help us to bring relationship and life.

9 comments:

Jason said...

What do you say to that ? Sad, the world we live in and the little responsibility we / including myself, take upon ourselves to take care of the lonely or needy. If I can only step out of my comfort zone more often, would be more pleasing to God. I lift up the needy and lonely children in prayer; especially after noticing most of the cloth at God's helping hand needed are for children. Every hanger hanging without cloth on it is a sad reflection on the "class" segregation thourghout America and the world.

Jason said...

Classmates - Please pray for my two great friends whom were married last week and are currently near cancun. This evening our Pastor received the call that their hotel was being boarded up; please keep everyone in the hurricane's path in your prayers also - thanks peep

Anonymous said...

That song... I remember the first time I ever heard it, I felt such a sense of sympathy for "Fred." Actually, as soon as I began reading this entry, I listened to it, and that feeling rushed back to me. I think that sometimes we all feel lonely, within the church or not, and I think we need to be more sensitive to that specific emotion.

adam said...

I'm not sure how much that N. Adam Hill actually knows knows. He seems pretty weak in general. I wouldn't trust him if I were you.

PatrickMead said...

A very famous poem by Louis Untermeyer in 1919 was "Richard Corey" and revealed that the rich and popular can be as lonely as the one who sits alone at lunch. It reads:

WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Josh Graves said...

Courtney,

Thanks for the post and the song lyrics...I was impacted by this.

It is interesting and so encouraging to read the comments of all the other students who posted on this particular subject.

JG

Anonymous said...

Iam not sure if I am familiar with this song, but it reminds me of myself sometimes. I am such a social person that I guess its easy to feel lonely when there's nobody around. It also reminds me of myself for another reason. I Often write songs like this when I am feeling alone, which brings me to my point. I have found that self expression in, it's various forms, seems to be the best cure for things like loneliness and depression( at least for me,anyway). Not only is it theraputic, but it helps you not to bottle things up and let those feelings begin to eat you up from the inside. It also gives you something you can physically examine. Self expression, weather it be a painting, a story, or a song, offers you a way to analize your thoughts and feelings, weather we can make a living at it or not does not matter, we can all bennnifit from creativity and self expression.

Anonymous said...

Not that it matters, unless for some reason you really wanted to read more of that poet's writings, but I believe "Richard Corey" was written by Edwin Arlington Robinson.

Anonymous said...

It's interesting that we are on the the subject of loneliness. Last Sunday, I sang a song about loneliness at a gospel concert. I've also experienced loneliness for a long period of time up until recently. I use to go to a church where there seemed to be lots of cliques and I was in the choir. At choir rehearsals during long intermissions I would feel so lonely because no one would talk to me, just to each other. Also when I became a christian, I had to give up all my worldly friends and I prayed for new ones. It took a while but now I have friends. I went to other colleges and my biggest fear was that I would be the only black person in the class because no one would talk to me and when it came time to pick a partner, if I didn't speak up first, no one would pick me. When I came to RC, I automaticly expected something different because of the christian environment and for the most part things have been great. I'm saying all this to say that we need to pray for lonely people and when we see someone sitting alone or someone who doesn't look like us, please remember my experience and be a friend and speak. It could make a person's day.