You can make Christmas happy or sad for others.

Christmas can be one of the happiest times of the year and it can be the unhappiest. Christmas brings back memories of the past and those memories can be good or bad. Christmas can be a time when people come together with family and friends or a time when people find themselves alone. This is especially true for the elderly, but it is also true for the young and middle age.  

Early in my ministry I got acquainted with nursing home ministry. I discovered a world that I did not know existed. I was shocked to discover elderly people being warehoused in nursing homes simply because their families did not want to be bothered with them. The elderly person had served their purpose, born them, and supported them through their childhood with clothes, medical needs, transportation, education, love, shelter and companionship. The young had no need for the elderly any longer because the young were not intellectual enough to realize the elderly had wisdom to share with them that only comes through experience. 

I have mentioned this to children that were neglecting their elderly parents and have been told, “I did not ask to be born”, “They only did what parents are expected to do”, “I cannot help they did not prepare for old age”, “I have my own life and children”, I am just too busy trying to survive”, etc.

I must also add there are situation when nursing home facilities serve a real need and provide care that can not be provided at home. If children decide on nursing home care because it is in the best interest of the parent and do not neglect them the children should not feel guilty for making the decision to do so.

One of the nursing homes I visited weekly in Houston had many elderly that were there for the right reasons, but there were some there for the wrong reasons. One Greek man who had founded a restaurant in Houston and passed it on to his son had no visitors for years. The son, daughter-in-law and grandson lived within blocks of the nursing home in the elderly man’s elegant home.  The man was neglected by the nursing home staff because they knew no one ever visited him.

On Christmas Eve 1978 I carried Communion to the nursing home and found him tied in a wheelchair, soaked in urine and complained to the staff. The staff showed little interest so on the way back to the parish I stopped at the elderly man’s home where the son was now living. I knocked and the college age grandson came to the door. I ask for his father and was told his dad and mother was on holiday in Paris, France. I ask the young man if he had visited his grandfather in the nursing home and he said, “No, did you come to tell me he is dead.” The grandson showed no emotion whatsoever. I saw no one cared about the elderly man. I left a Christmas gift with the grandson for his father, a business card with this notation, “Check on your father regularly or I will go to the newspaper”, Fr. Tom.

When they returned from their holiday in Paris I got the response I expected, threats of a lawsuit.  I stood my grounds and they started checking on the elderly man and later sent me a letter thanking me for bringing to their attention that the nursing home was not giving the care they were paying for.  Not one word that they were in anyway responsible. I suppose their lawyer advised them that would be the best thing to do.

I could give many more examples of elderly being neglected by their families in nursing homes and in their own homes. What most Americans do not know is that studies reveal the wealthy are less likely than others to look after their elderly parents. The wealthy visit their elderly parents less and call them less than others. Research found twice as many well-off individuals were ignoring their elderly relatives than those earning ordinary or below average pay. This research makes clear money is not the primary issue in not caring for elderly parents.

A YouGov poll of 1,008 children, 45 to 60 year olds, with elderly parents, found 500 parents over 65, felt neglected by their children. This poll also revealed that the children with the lowest incomes did more for their parents.

Many psychiatrists believe loneliness is one of the largest contributors to psychiatric illnesses in young and old.  God created us to connect to other humans and when we are disconnected; our souls shatter into a thousand little pieces.

I have heard it said a thousand times that crazy people prefer to live on the streets and be homeless. I do not agree with that. I think loneliness and homelessness is what makes people on the street crazy.

People in solitary confinement, deprived of interaction with other people, begin to doubt everything, including their own existence. The same is true of the elderly robbed of interaction with other human being. Americans tend to think of ourselves as self-sufficient, self-made individuals. But that’s not really true. God called us into existence and at the same time called us to be in relationships with other people. Other human beings play an important role in us keeping our sense of identity intact. Many do not realize how important hearing our name spoken by others is to maintaining our sense of identity.

We all have or had parents and we all came into this world completely helpless and needy. Many often forget that fact as they grow into adulthood and begin to make their own decisions and creating their own lives.  It is contributing to a sense of peculiar loneliness in modern societies. Modern societies have begun to want their own personal space and it results in isolation.

The rise of social media and digital communications cannot end loneliness. We can be lonely in a crowd and especially now in a digital crowd. A lot of modern technology encourages individual isolation. The other night I watched a group of adults in a restaurant. There were six people and all had their cell phones out playing games while waiting for their food. People are finding it more and more difficult to carry on conversations and technology is being used to keep them from having to.

Have you ever stopped to think that prior to newspapers people got their news at the local pub from each other? Newspapers came along and they began to get their news alone at home. They did not even have to leave home to get the newspaper it was tossed at their front door in the morning or night.  Many of us did not see the face of our dad at breakfast because he was hid behind the newspaper making conversation with him impossible. In our home my mother was an enabler by telling us when we arrived at the table, “Now you know your father is trying to read the newspaper before he has to go to work”.

Prior to air condition we sat out on our porches trying to get cool in the evenings. We engaged in conversation with those on the porch with us and the neighbors that walked by. Sometimes the houses were so close we conversed with the neighbors on the next porch. Prior to central heat the family sat around the fire place to keep warm and the close proximity brought on conversation. Technology has had good and bad effects on modern society often without us realizing it. We do not want to give up modern conveniences, but we need to take intentional actions to correct the negative effects they may have upon us.

Have you ever thought how television taught us not to look face to face with friends and family? As we gather around the television we are all looking at a screen and not looking at one another. We need to set aside time for games, prayer, and conversation without modern technology interrupting.

We must recognize the positive side of communication technology. It allows us to connect in ways that we’ve never before been able to be connected. We can have friends, even good friends, in every part of the country, even every part of the world. We can keep in touch with distant family members. I have a good friend that I have not seen in ten years, but we stay in touch weekly. Our friendship is as solid today as it was when I left the United States January 1, 2005 thanks to modern technology.

The key is to be aware of the downside of technology and to take steps to minimize the damage and counteract it. We certainly should be teaching our kids by our own examples how to use technology correctly and not lose face to face communication skills, not become isolated and the proper times to and not to use modern technology.

There are emotions revealed by physical expressions that emails and telephone calls with words will never be able to correctly demonstrate. We should keep this in mind when sensitive subjects are to be discussed and we can meet with the other party face to face. Humans will never thrive without physical contact we were not created by God to do so.

Our mega churches today often contribute to loneliness. They are just too large for us to build personal relationship with one another. Gone are the days of church ice cream socials, dinner on the ground, pot luck dinners, etc. When a congregation gets larger than 300 it begins to lose the family gathering place atmosphere and begins to take on an entertainment gathering place atmosphere. Some mega churches stress small groups to try and overcome that problem.

Pastors of mega churches generally are not the ones to visit the sick, unless they are large contributors to the church. The man or woman that delivers the message has staff of ministers that visit the sick and does the counseling. The pastor is the church celebrity that the admirers only get to listen to and see from a distance.

When a minister on staff visits the sick they generally have to introduce themselves to the person that is ill and to his or her family. They may have never seen that particular minister before. There is no personal relationship with the person from the church when you need it the most. But, most people choose mega churches for the entertainment value and they do not want personal relationships with anyone at church.  We are becoming a society that chooses isolation and then we wonder why we are having so many societal problems.

If you have not visited a loved one that lives close by, especially the elderly, this is the season of the year to do it. Perhaps if we begin in January 2016 to try and develop communication skills, face to face contact and break our addiction to modern technology Christmas 2016 will not be as lonely for some.

Keep in mind loneliness/isolation is tied to hardening of the arteries, which leads to high blood pressure, inflammation in the body, and even problems with learning and memory. Loneliness/isolation damages the immune system. Loneliness/isolation doesn't just make people feel unhappy; it actually makes them feel unsafe, mentally and physically. Social isolation and loneliness appears to be associated with a greater risk of dying, but isolation is more damaging to ones health than just loneliness. If you are neglecting a loved one, especially an elderly love one, you are doing more harm to them than you may realize!