OSCA
NO ONE IS AN ISLAND
Awareness of a shared humanity
I think it was in 1967 that my brother introduced me to Kathy ’ s Song , with the perceptive observation that Paul Simon had rightly divined that the ‘ truth is personal ’. Kathy ’ s Song was the ‘ B ’ side of the hit single I am a Rock . Later I bought the album Sounds of Silence , which was a massive hit for Simon and Garfunkel . Kathy ’ s Song was dropped , but I am a Rock was remastered and retained .
Twenty years later I was delighted when my own children , rifling through the old record collection , started playing Sounds of Silence . I thought it a great tribute to Paul Simon that the young troubadour , busking in England at the time , tapped into such deep and enduring human concerns , and gave them expression with such simple eloquence . His lyrics capture the social and emotional isolation that can so easily diminish our humanity :
I am a rock / I am an island / I ' ve built walls / A fortress deep and mighty / That none may penetrate / I have no need of friendship ; friendship causes pain / It ’ s laughter and it ' s loving I disdain /… I have my books / And my poetry to protect me … and a rock feels no pain / and an island never cries .
Over the years this lyrical concern has escalated to a Western epidemic . In 2018 the UK government appointed its first Minister for Loneliness . The Australian government ’ s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that while social isolation and loneliness are difficult to monitor and assess , they have a significant negative impact on mental and physical health . The
2016 Australian Census notes that one quarter of dwellings in Australia are lone person households . Arguably social media has exacerbated the problem . Paul Simon tapped into a deep well of human sentiment . In the 1620s , John Donne , Dean of St Paul ’ s Cathedral in London , used the ‘ island ’ metaphor to express our human need for connection . The most familiar part of his exquisite Divine Meditation # 17 , is often called For whom the bell tolls . In part it reads :
‘ No man is an island , entire of itself ; each is a piece of the continent , a part of the main ; if a clod be washed away by the sea , Europe is the less , as well as if a promontory were , as well as if a manor of thine own or of thine friend ' s were ; any man ' s death diminishes me , because I am involved in mankind , and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls ; it tolls for thee .’
Just prior to my 1964 trip to the UK I had applied to become a candidate for Christian ministry . On board ship , in a way that I took to be quite freakish , but also preordained , I discovered fellowship with a group of Christians which coalesced from across all denominational boundaries . Each afternoon during that month while the ship was at sea , we made time to discuss , read and pray together .
This was my first ecumenical encounter with Christian disciples and a comprehensive introduction for my teenage self to a new sense of connection . I shouldn ’ t have been surprised at this . Jesus taught his disciples to say together ‘ Our Father ’. This address creates an immediate sense of family connection . But on board ship for a month is perhaps an idyllic removal from real life . How does it work under daily life pressures ? For Lent 2021 , the little church to which I belong invited members to share in Lenten readings from the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer . As a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany , whose family sheltered Jewish people , he lived with massive daily pressures . In his book Discipleship , he writes : ‘ The community of disciples does not shake off suffering , as if they had nothing to do with it . Instead they bear it . In doing so , they give witness to their connection with the people around them .’
Living out a ‘ connection with the people around them ’ is part of Christian discipleship . It can be mutually beneficial and edifying , but it may also be costly . As it was for the Lord himself , so it proved for Bonhoeffer . Two weeks before the end of World War II , on the orders of Adolf Hitler , he was executed . His last known words were ‘ This is the end – for me , the beginning of life ’.
This should come as no surprise . It is common knowledge that those who pray ‘ Our Father ’, have heard Jesus ’ words about his Father ’ s house . A home at the last . He said there are many rooms , and ‘ I have gone to prepare a place for you ’. Let COVID renew our awareness of a shared humanity . And if your Christian faith is hanging by a thread , reconnect with fellow travellers . No one is an island !
GRAHAM BRADBEER – OSCA CHAPLAIN
72 Great Scot Issue 162 – April 2021