A car manufacturer once asked a map company to find the most remote place in the country. “Remoteness” was measured by distance from a publicly-maintained road. What was the winner? Well – there is a place in the SE corner of Yellowstone National Park called “Thorofare Ranger Station. The station is just a cabin, a barn, and a corral. The park ranger who looks after it has to drive 15 miles from his home, then saddle up his horse and travel another 32 miles into the wilderness to get to Thorofare Ranger Station. That makes Thorofare Ranger Station the most remote place in the country.
Or is it? I think the most remote place in the world is the heart of a lonely person. That’s what I think about when I hear the next song in our Beatles series, “Eleanor Rigby.”

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
All the lonely people, where do they all belong?
Can you feel the melancholy in these lyrics? They remind me of a passage in Psalm 102.

Hear my prayer, O Lord;
let my cry come to you.
2 Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress.
Incline your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call.
3 For my days pass away like smoke,
and my bones burn like a furnace.
4 My heart is stricken and withered like grass;
I am too wasted to eat my bread.
5 Because of my loud groaning
my bones cling to my skin.
6 I am like an owl of the wilderness,
like a little owl of the waste places.
7 I lie awake;

I am like a lonely bird on the housetop. (Psalm 102: 1-7 NRSV)
“I’m like a little owl of the waste places…I am like a lonely bird on the housetop.” Have you ever felt like that? This Sunday we are going to talk about the epidemic of loneliness that we see in our society. We are going to look at where “all the lonely people” come from. And finally, we are going to look at how we can rise above our loneliness. There is hope! Invite a lonely friend to join you this Sunday!
See you Sunday,
Pastor Sam