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Loneliness is an experience we all have and it emerges in different ways. Sometimes in the night when we awake in a panic, or when we see others socializing and we aren’t included. Or when we have lost a loved one via death or distance and we miss their presence. Sometimes it is when we walk among the locked down empty streets and closed buildings. Loneliness is a common experience, especially at Christmas.
So what do we do? How do we combat loneliness? Alex Beirman, who teaches in the University of Calgary Department of Sociology, has helped me understand this. He suggests that two key factors help the struggle against loneliness. The first is when people feel that they matter. When people feel that they matter, they are valued and needed, and feelings of loneliness diminish.
Our job is to remind people that they do matter. This is embodied in a comment, a text, or an email. Even an emoji can let someone know they matter. When we know we matter, or make a difference to someone, we feel better about our situation and the bonds of interconnectedness deepen. Loneliness abides.
The second weapon to battle loneliness is agency, which refers to the ability to do something. When we have something to do, we are lifted up. When we are able to act, we feel empowered. When some action is called for and we are able to respond, we have agency. Having something to do helps us get out of bed and be active in the world.
Funnily, these two messages — that we matter and we have agency — are the very heart and truth of Christmas. The birth of Jesus is the Christian doctrine of incarnation, the word for becoming flesh. Jesus is “God with skin on.” His message, “you matter” is experienced in story after story of his engagement with the least, lost and the lonely. Continually, Jesus engages with the one who is shunned, the one who feels they don’t matter and he proclaims their worth. Rich, poor, ill, smart, abandoned, afraid — all are welcomed and told that they matter.
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