Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection, for which our leader is Mike Pilavachi MBE, who is senior pastor at Soul Survivor Watford church.
Good afternoon.
Late one evening, a friend of mine was on his way home when he saw a 15-year-old boy sitting on a fence and sobbing. They began to chat, and the boy shared his story. He had never known his dad, his mum had died two years earlier and both his older brothers were in prison. He was being looked after by a social worker who, in his words, “Didn’t want to know,” and his girlfriend had just broken up with him. The boy kept repeating through his tears, to a complete stranger, “I just want to know that someone loves me. I just want to know that someone loves me.”
That boy’s cry—the desire to be loved—is rooted inside the heart of every person. It might just be that some of us are better at hiding it than he was. Some time ago, the mayor of Watford visited our church and we asked him what, in his opinion, was the greatest problem that Watford faced. His response? “The number 1 problem is loneliness. The number 2 problem is car parking.” I am here to tell you that car parking in Watford is a very big problem.
Sometimes, we need to remind ourselves why we continue to wrestle through the challenge of elected politics. It is because there are people in our nation who are hurting. There are people in our nation who are broken. There are people who are dying—sometimes literally—of loneliness.
There have never been more of us living on this island that we call home and yet, in a way, we have never lived further apart. We need to recognise that loneliness is as much a social ill that needs fixing as are inflation and the price of petrol.
How might we fix that? We cannot outlaw loneliness. No legislation can wrap an arm around that young boy’s shoulder and comfort him, but the leaders of a country set a tone through their behaviour. We can start by modelling love and by remembering the words of Mother Teresa, who said that
“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.”
We can follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ, who demonstrated in life and death what it was to love friend and enemy alike. Publicly and privately, we can be gracious, listen well and disagree agreeably. In that way, perhaps, we will begin to give a lead in addressing the deep need of the people whom we are here to serve—that “I just want to know that someone loves me.”
Thank you.