Text: Riik­ka Lin­nan­mä­ki

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

Face-to-face in­te­rac­ti­on enab­les many sen­so­ry ex­pe­rien­ces that are ne­ver pre­sent in vir­tu­al com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on. The 2022 Sum­mer Ser­vi­ces sta­red my won­der­ful July. It seems my cup has been overf­lo­wing for many days, and I am re­al­ly gra­te­ful for that! The won­der­ful pe­op­le that I met at the Sum­mer Ser­vi­ces made my ext­ro­vert he­art blos­som.

I re­cent­ly dis­cus­sed hap­pi­ness with some friends. We ag­reed that there is no re­a­son to hide one’s hap­pi­ness, nor should we think that so­me­o­ne may feel bad see­ing us hap­pier than them. Ul­ti­ma­te­ly, we are on­ly res­pon­sib­le for our own fee­lings. If we take care of our­sel­ves, pro­ac­ti­ve­ly if pos­sib­le, that ma­kes it pos­sib­le to feel hap­py. And hap­pi­ness inc­re­a­ses when it is sha­red.

Many things are sha­red in so­ci­al me­dia these days. I think we should not on­ly show the po­lis­hed side or our li­ves. I have re­cei­ved po­si­ti­ve feed­back for this at­ti­tu­de.

But I am sure July 2022 would not have been such a won­der­ful month if all my in­te­rac­ti­ons had been on the so­ci­al me­dia. Vir­tu­al mee­tings can ne­ver rep­la­ce the good fee­ling of being ab­le to hug so­me­o­ne, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­joy the pre­sen­ce of ot­hers, the smi­les, the ges­tu­res and exp­res­si­ons, and the great joy we feel when we hap­pen to see a dear per­son at a dis­tan­ce and can run up to him or her.

How about you? Did you find mee­ting pe­op­le ea­sy? Or did you pre­fer to avoid such mee­tings? Or do you not have any­bo­dy to meet?

There have been dis­cus­si­ons about lo­ne­li­ness in conc­re­te so­li­tu­de and al­so about lo­ne­li­ness ex­pe­rien­ced in crowds. I re­mem­ber that when I was yo­un­ger, I had a hard time wal­king alo­ne to a mee­ting place in Sum­mer Ser­vi­ces and ot­her big ser­vi­ces. “Do the ot­hers think I am a poor cre­a­tu­re all alo­ne? Is my exp­res­si­on ter­rib­ly sad?” Such were my thoughts.

I re­mem­ber a pre­sen­ta­ti­on where the spe­a­ker said that when a per­son has roots, they have come to terms with them­sel­ves and feel they do not al­wa­ys need to be with so­me­o­ne el­se. I was hap­py to re­a­li­ze that I did not mind mi­xing with pe­op­le by my­self at these ser­vi­ces. Though truth to tell, I was not alo­ne for much of the time. I had my dear fa­mi­ly along, and some of my close friends were sta­ying in the same part of the ser­vi­ce area.

I hope that es­pe­ci­al­ly the yo­ung pe­op­le who have mo­ved to a new lo­ca­li­ty will be in­vi­ted to par­ti­ci­pa­te in the lo­cal ac­ti­vi­ties and to vi­sit lo­cal be­lie­vers. We can pray that the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her would give us an open mind to in­te­ract with pe­op­le of all ages and na­ti­o­nal backg­rounds.