Tag: Loneliness

Alone and at peace?

Michael Collins, the ‘forgotten third astronaut’ of the 1969 moon landing, died last week aged 90. I can remember as a 13 year-old boy being allowed to stay up late and watch this historic event on black and white TV. My diary records the mission nightly, with more or less the same comment each day for a week, conveying a little of the suspense of the incredible venture: ‘Apollo 11 still all right‘. After the success of its return, I was then inspired to go out and use my pocket money to buy an Airfix model of Apollo 11 and to persuade my parents to let me have a telescope for my next birthday.

It was, of course, Neil Armstrong who captured the imagination with his ‘one small step’ and, to a lesser extent, Buzz Aldrin, who also caught everyone’s attention back in 1969. Typically then and subsequently, Michael Collins avoided publicity but his role in the Apollo 11 Moon Mission was vital. He was left alone for 21 hours whilst Aldrin and Armstrong were in the lunar module or on the Moon and every time his orbit took him to the dark side of the Moon, he lost contact with mission control at Houston. ‘Not since Adam has any human being known such solitude’ is the reference in the mission log. Collins had the vital task of maintaining a precise orbit so as to ensure the safe return of his fellow astronauts. In addition to being for a while ‘the loneliest man in the universe’, he it was who looked down on the Earth and commented on its beauty and its fragility – a clarion call to environmentalists today.

In his 1974 biography, ‘Carrying the Fire’, Michael Collins wrote: “I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have.” In a world where there is so much striving to be ‘the best’, or to be ‘one better’ this is such a telling comment from a man of great integrity and humility. Can we say this, too, of the role we have in life – and be at peace with ourselves and God?

(A slightly expanded version of my weekly ‘thought for the week’ sent to TISCA Heads and Chaplains.)

Heartbreak

It was on this day (27th January), 65 years ago, that the King of Rock, Elvis Presley, released his first million-selling single ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ achieving the accolade of reaching the ‘top five’ of Country and Western, pop and Rhythm and Blues simultaneously. The lyrics were inspired by a recorded tragedy of a man jumping from a hotel window through jilted love.

‘At Heartbreak Hotel
Where I’ll be–where I get so lonely, baby
Well, I’m so lonely
I get so lonely, I could die.’

As we are all aware, loneliness, this lockdown, has reached epidemic proportions and the homes that people have been confined to through ongoing restrictions have indeed become their Heartbreak Hotels: hearts that have been broken, through not reuniting with friends and loved ones they crave to embrace and hold and have the simplest of conversations with. The ‘Hotels’ may quarantine the body but never the mind, heart and soul. The Psalmist stated that ‘the Lord planted the lonely in families’ but it has become the Hotel of Discomfort that has separated them again and as we daily imbibe our news updates, we share the anguish of all who are in isolation.

It seems almost trite to provide easy religious messages to massage the pain that so many are enduring, but as humans created for intimate relationship, it would be wrong also not to point people back to our Lord. He it was who Himself endured loneliness, not just in coming to this earth, or in the misunderstanding of those who claimed to follow Him, but on the cross when He experienced the desolation of the Father abandoning him – why? so that we could be reunited with Him. It is the cry from numerous psalms that it is in our human desolation and out of our depths – brought on by any number of circumstances – that we call out and look up. It is as we are still before God that we are reminded that He, who knew anguish of soul, is the One who stands by us at the very worst of times. How do we know this? Because it was not only in His becoming like one of us and sharing our experience of humanity in all its glory and its degradation, but through the work of reconciliation on the cross that He restores, comforts and reminds us that we are not alone. Nothing about us, nor how we feel about ourselves or our condition can separate us from the love of God, and it is the promise of His holy and indwelling Spirit that He gives to us – the pre-eminent Comforter – that reminds us that we are not alone.

The monument to Presley’s hit, ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ stood for thirty years in Memphis, but it was torn down to make room for the new Guest House at Graceland – now there’s a parable! We are all, as humans, welcomed into His house and habitation of  Grace, but he does not call us His guests, but as friends for ever: the ‘Heartbreak’ for Him is that not more of us welcome the move.

(Reproduced by kind permission of Revd Alex Aldous, Prestfelde School chaplain)