A religious sister working in a diocesan pastoral center for the prevention of suicides writes in the View from the Ark of the Catholic Times that we need others to live a full life. She mentions last month in a city of Korea a man 47 years old with a chronic kidney problem was found dead in his house and the police say he had been dead for a week and are still investigating.
In the same city on the same day in another house, an 81-year-old man, dead for a week, was found. Five years before he was operated on and never really recovered. He lived alone and the police are investigating the reason for death and talking to the acquaintances of the bereaved.
This is not a rare occurrence. According to government statistics in 2011, 639 died alone, without any known relatives. In 2016, 1032 died alone, twice the previous figure. Loneliness and dying alone was seen as a problem of the poor, sick and old persons, but that is no longer the case. Nowadays, the divorced, unemployed, and those facing financial ruin are found dying alone.
Last year in Seoul 162 died alone and 137 of them were men and 36% of them were in their 50s. The social network has broken down. Farming areas of the country still have a place for the aged and the welfare of the old is still a big concern. However, when the young or middle-aged are unemployed, living alone, poor and where contact with others is limited, we have the dying alone situation occurring.
The situation is not limited only to those living alone. According to the OECD (Better Life Index), Koreans in comparison to other countries in the support they have in community is the next to last of the 38 countries in the OECD. To the question: When in difficulty do you have persons to go to? 75.8 % percent answered Yes. The average for the OECD was 88%. Two years early in Korea, it was 77% who answered yes.
One in four respondents said they had no one to ask for help and are not receiving any social or psychological support.
Many who feel the crisis of life and think about suicide do not want to burden their families with their pain and suffering.One can sympathize with their feelings but often their choice gives the family more pain.
Pope Francis in his visit to Korea in 2014 said in a meeting of religious leaders: "Life is a road we can't walk alone. We need each other we need to live in relationships with others."
She closes with the hope that even though we are a burden to others, in need of help, we should ask for help. Our society benefits and coldness and loneliness will be greatly diminished.
According to the Church's liturgical calendar, we are now in the month of the Holy Souls, the last month of the liturgical calendar and late fall. A seminary professor reminisces for the readers in a diocesan bulletin on his visit to the cemetery for Mass and the thoughts that came to him walking as on a picnic viewing the grave sites. He thought of his own death and considered it 'practicing for death'.
Many ancient philosophers believed that it was proof of a true philosopher to spend time during life 'practicing for death'. From the time of Socrates and Plato in the Greek era to Marcus Aurelius and Seneca in the Roman era, reflecting on 'Practicing for Death' was the preeminent example of a philosophy of life.
For the ancient sages, the meditation on death was the 'ars moriendi' ( the art of dying) which was the way to prepare to live: 'ars vivendi' (art of living). This was the way to put our minds and souls in order to enjoy the gift of life, true happiness and to learn the way of correct living.
In the book Phaedo by Plato he talks about the death of his teacher Socrates: true philosophers spend their entire lives preparing for death and dying, so also with Socrates who welcomed death when the time came.
It is the practice of meditating on death that one has the correct perception of what life is all about and this was also the teaching of the wise in Christianity.
Imitation of Christ, a book that was familiar to many from the middle ages to the present has some wise words on death. "Very soon your life here will end; consider, then, what may be in store for you elsewhere. Today we live; tomorrow we die and are quickly forgotten. Oh, the dullness and hardness of a heart which looks only to the present instead of preparing for that which is to come! Therefore, in every deed and every thought, act as though you were to die this very day. If you had a good conscience you would not fear death very much. It is better to avoid sin than to fear death. If you are not prepared today, how will you be prepared tomorrow? Tomorrow is an uncertain day; how do you know you will have a tomorrow?" (1st Book chap. 23)
Living life sincerely, fully and happily is preparing for death and being thankful for the gift of life. Thankful for what I was able to do and offer up all my failings and with empty hands to trust in the mercy of God with a transparency of soul.
The writer finishes the article with a mention of the Cantata #82
Ich Habe Genug, composed by J.S. Bach for the Feast of the Purification
of the Blessed Mother:
"It is enough.
I have held the Savior, the hope of all peoples,
In the warm embrace of my arms.
It is enough."
On Oct. 26, 1909, at 9:30 am shots rang out at Harbin station in China. Ahn Jung-geun a member of the Korean freedom for peace and the fatherland army in Siberia and Manchuria, assassinated Ito Hirobumi of Japan. An article in the Catholic Times reviews the ways Korea views the history of the Japanese war of aggression in Asia.
Japanese occupation of Korea took over half the land away from Koreans occasioning the ruin of Korean farming and causing the exodus of 400,000 Koreans to migrate to Hawaii, Siberia and Manchuria. A Korean historian expressed this as: "when a Japanese house comes, five Korean houses leave." Japan dragged the young people into the war of aggression, into the cold mines and darkness.
In the Chinese Nanking Massacre Memorial, they show the killing of one person every 12 seconds in a dripping water exhibit. Young girls were forced into sexual slavery and if they refused would be killed cruelly. From December 13, 1937, the Holocaust killed 300,000 people in six weeks.
The Nanking Memorial shows in detail the times of tension and chaos. Of the many 'comfort women' serving the military in the area, 36 were Koreans, forced into sexual slavery. The atrocities of the war of aggression remain in the memory of many Asians. Nanking is called the great massacre and leaves one shuddering thinking about what transpired at that time.
Patriot Ahn at the age of thirty was moved by the cruelty shown by Japanese imperialism trampling the peace of the East which he could not ignore. Both as a Korean citizen and as a Christian he couldn't close his eyes to what was happening in Asia. "God, in Christ, redeems not only the individual person but also the social relations existing between men" (Compendium of the Social Gospel #52).
While in the Lushun prison after the assassination, he asked the Parish Foreign Missionary priest Fr. Joseph Wilhelm to hear his confession. Bishop Mutel was the eighth bishop of Seoul and refused the request of Ahn considering him a terrorist but Fr. Wilhelm disobeyed and went to the prison and heard Ahn's confession.
Japanese authorities refused to return the body to the family and the bishop supported the decision. The change in people's opinion and the way the assassination is viewed now in the church and society is far different from what it was 100 years ago.
Real friends are beginning to disappear is the topic of an article in the Kyeongyang magazine by a university psychology professor. He begins with the story of a student who was in the States studying for a doctorate at a time when a telephone call to Korea was expensive. Receiving his degree he was fortunate to find a teaching position at a small rural college but the loneliness was overwhelming. He missed Korea, acquaintances, and food. On the spur of the moment, he traveled for about an hour to buy a container of kimchi which he devoured with tears flowing freely.
In our present world, this situation may be hard to understand. SNS and the internet allow instant communication and all kinds of friends. The very definition of friend changes. Friends were not easily made; a lot of time was expended and according to the French: like a good wine the longer the friendship the better.
Thanks to SNS contacting friends is easy but at the same time making friends is no longer what it was. The ending of friendship is easily done on both ends. To keep the friendships going requires a lot of time the more friends the more time and a feeling the friendships are superficial.
Worse, is the time spent with those friends online the less time spent in the real world with those you are relating with offline. In the real world when a topic of discussion ends we have a period of silence until another topic is introduced with the smartphone this dynamic is not so readily experienced.
The writer mentions being in a restaurant when a family of three entered. They selected a table and the mother and daughter were busy with their smartphones and the father with his newspaper. Mother and daughter ate with the smartphones in their hands. After finishing the meal the father mentioned it was time to go but the daughter did not hear and continued sending a text message. The only words emitted during the meal was the ordering and the father reminding the family the meal was over. A family meal with the smartphone.
This scene is not so infrequent as we would like to believe. Lovers both sitting down at a table with their smartphones in their hands: personal interaction, place of contact in the here and now, has moved to another location.
Benefits from the smartphone are many. However, they will never replace the human contact with another person that we all need. Frequently we need to put the smartphone down and look straight into the warm eyes of another. It is there that we will be feeling the warmth of another person's heart and mind.
A college professor in an article in a diocesan bulletin asks the readers if they are familiar with a word that has only one vowel sound different from another word that means tedious, bored and weariness. The word he introduces to the readers is a new word that those in their twenties use meaning tired of relationships made on SNS. (권태기 and 관태기)
Relating on the social network the number of friends increase but intimacy is reduced. Of course, there are different symptoms and degrees of response. College students are concerned with many things: studies, working to increase specifications for future work and part-time work. Making friends on SNS is too time consuming.
Strange as it may seem many of those using the social network are faced with more anxiety, feel lonely and empty. Facebook or Twitter would impact some one way, Instagram in another way, the feelings are not always positive. Those they meet on the social network continue to increase but the superficiality of the encounter becomes boring, the heart to heart exchange between intimate friends is missing.
Humans are social animals is a phrase that begins to have less meaning. More time is spent eating alone, going to the movies alone, traveling alone for it is restful. Society is giving them less joy and a lot of weariness.
A flower stays in one place and spreads its roots underground and conveys its beauty but it doesn't do this alone but helped by the wind, rain and the sun's warmth.
Young people may have been too anxious to relate with as many as possible and temporarily reached a surfeit. All that may be necessary is a rest from the busy world of SNS and a return to the normal world for a time.
Korea is traditionally a collectivist society but this is changing especially among the young. Korea has one of the fastest growing single person household increases, helping the trend towards individualism. Still far from the west but the young are quickly closing the gap.
Along the road, in the city, various signboards catch the eye. Around schools, it is not rare to see the phrase drug-like rice cakes, drug-like kimchi, drug-like pork. Of course, it is an effort to give the greatest value and to attract to what is being sold.
Drugs are dangerous substances they destroy bodies and souls. Using the word drug repeatedly connected with food we eat daily desensitizes the young and old alike to the evil of drugs. A college professor in the Catholic Peace Weekly brings the subject of hidden violence in our daily expressions to the attention of the readers.
A lawyer on a broadcast news-program criticized politics using the phrase repeatedly: 'putting a knife in a person's back'. What does the phrase mean? Nothing to do with killing the person but to put a person into a corner or make problems for the person. Not something good to imagine. On the SNS to increase the number of clicks strong sexual suggestive descriptions are chosen conveying much with little.
A great deal of violence is contained in this language. Frequency of contact with these images makes the reality of the imagined all the more tangible. Familiarity doesn't necessarily make for correct thinking or choice. If we do not have a critical view of the information we are given we can eventually think and act according to the information received.
A male penis appeared in a promotional sculpture made to announce a local government event. Explicit sexual descriptions are often reported in college festival sites. Dramatic expressions increase our emotions and effectively convey meaning in a short period of time. This can lead to a violent response. The virtue of modesty and sublimation in society has long disappeared. When wants and desires pass the level of reason we are approaching violence.
What we express with words or pictures is a reflection of our lives. Expressions of violence flow into our culture and daily living. Physical force is not the only way violence appears. We need to remember that symbolic expressions that we use and common ways of acting are often a cause of harm to our bodies and minds. We need time to reflect on what we see and hear, to discern the hidden violence in-bedded in what we are exposed to in the mass media.
"Alcoholism is a disease cured only by death." Lament of many families who have members addicted to alcohol. View from the Ark column of the Catholic Times has an article on the issue by a person working with alcoholics.
After many years of hearing lies, frustration builds up and despair appears in the form of a pitiful scream. A hopeless disease gives birth to frustration. Alcoholism makes the life of the victim a mess, and brings depression and insecurity to the family. They can't blame each other leading to the break down of the family. Often the alcoholism is handed down to other members of the family.
Even the doctors who have tried to help the sick person have a feeling of failure. The sick persons, tears in their eyes, stopped drinking and leave the hospital and within a few months completely drunk return to the hospital and threaten the doctor. On occasion when a family member returns to report the death of the person the bewilderment of doctor is hard to imagine. In fact, the death brings the end to the addiction.... Efforts to help the alcoholic seems meaningless.
However, those who have achieved success and the doctors with one voice say there is hope with alcoholism. In a local Korean study 50 to 60% of those who have been treated in a hospital return to drinking within three months. Only 15 % stay off drink. Out of ten only 1 or 2 stay off drinking. Another study showed that 80% of those that stay away from drink for two years continue.
Those who are addicted to alcohol have a difficult road to travel: " I consider my years as an alcoholic as a blessing." Words uttered by a middle-aged person who was freed from alcohol for the last two years. Before he became an alcoholic he was not a happy person. He worked hard and made a lot of money but was not able to handle the stress and no direction to his life.
When he hit bottom and started to change, his way of life changed giving new direction. Relationship with family and friends all changed for the better. If the drinking problem was not there he would not have changed and he would not have found the joy he now has.
Christians not only remember the failure, suffering, and death of Jesus but the new dawn the Resurrection. We need to overcome the momentary failures. As long as one does not despair there is hope.
