Sharing Bread Together
View from Hallet Peak (Rocky Mountain National Park)
When I was growing up in Lake Havasu City (Arizona), I used to hang out with a few close friends who shared a couple things in common: we were all in band and we were all pastors’ kids. Neither of those two criteria put us very high on the social ladder in high school, but we figured we could at least gain some credibility around town by being the coolest of the band nerds. After all, there are social orders within every social order, right?
We looked up to the upperclassmen in band and considered it the highest honor to be invited into their circle, even if their motives were less than pure. Well, that’s the context for how my high school friend and I found ourselves stranded on the second-story balcony of a hotel room in the middle of the night in Southern California, with no choice but to scale the wall and inch our way back to our own room.
We were two naive young guys who found solace in the fact that we both knew what it was like to grow up under the searing heat of the spotlight constantly cast upon us as the sons of small-town preachers. Neither of us wanted to do anything that would make our fathers look bad. We both wanted to be witnesses in our school, but, if I’m being honest, there were a few things we wanted more.
We bonded over wanting to make first chair in band. We bonded over our shared hope that we’d both be selected for the venerated jazz band (where all the upperclassmen solidified their reputations as the coolest of the cool). We bonded over who the cute girls were and how brave we had to be in order to ask them on a date. Most important, we bonded over our shared obsession with a really cool band from Ireland called U2. The Joshua Tree Album was EVERYTHING!
As I alluded to earlier, we would often go out of our way to try to fit in with the upperclassmen in band. So, it was no surprise that we said “yes” when, on a band trip to California, the guys from down the hall invited us to come over and hang out. “We’ll be right there!” First, we would have to carefully make our move, which involved scouting the hallway, gaining credible intel, and covering for one other as we made our daring escape.
Safely in the room of our older and wiser role models, we were treated to maybe five minutes of fun before one of the guys invited us to come out to the balcony with him. Next thing we knew, we were locked out. Stranded. Nowhere to go. We tried begging and pleading, but all we saw were smug smiles, high fives, and pointing fingers.
We couldn’t be too loud, though, because we really weren’t supposed to be out of our rooms in the first place. The last thing we needed was to get caught by a security guard making his rounds outside the hotel. (Who thought it was a good idea to house a bunch of high school students in a hotel with outside balconies leading to nothing but trouble?)
Eventually, we mustered up the courage to carefully climb onto the outside of the balcony railing and slowly position ourselves on a small ledge that ran horizontally along the wall. After a few minutes of literally scaling the wall, we were hit with a bright light and an accusatory question, “What do you two {expletives} think you’re doing?”
Busted. The security guard ordered us down, escorted us into the hotel lobby, called Mr. Humphrey, and subjected us to one of the worst tirades we ever heard from our beloved band director. Oh, how we paid for that! Andy and I became the scapegoats upon whom the sins of the whole jazz band were cast.
We eventually survived the long period of embarrassment and castigation. What’s more, our little stunt was memorialized in one of U2’s best known songs, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” All the band members - even the upperclassmen - relished in singing these lyrics about us for years to come:
I have climbed highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city [hotel] walls
These city [hotel] walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
What I was I looking for way back then? What have I been looking for ever since, if not a place I can be fully seen, known, and unconditionally loved? Social connection, a sense of belonging, identifiable companions on the journey, these are all fundamentally important to our human existence. We simply cannot thrive if we don’t have someone with whom we share our lives.
On May 3rd, 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General released a comprehensive advisory entitled “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” You can read the full report here. Here is a segment from the introduction:
Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling—it harms both individual and societal health. It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and even greater than that associated with obesity and physical inactivity. And the harmful consequences of a society that lacks social connection can be felt in our schools, workplaces, and civic organizations, where performance, productivity, and engagement are diminished.
Given the profound consequences of loneliness and isolation, we have an opportunity, and an obligation, to make the same investments in addressing social connection that we have made in addressing tobacco use, obesity, and the addiction crisis. This Surgeon General’s Advisory shows us how to build more connected lives and a more connected society.
If we fail to do so, we will pay an ever-increasing price in the form of our individual and collective health and well-being. And we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country. Instead of coming together to take on the great challenges before us, we will further retreat to our corners—angry, sick, and alone.
Rather than retreating to our corners, we follow someone else’s lead. Jesus, the Word at the beginning, “became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood,” as Eugene Peterson phrased it in John 1:14. The cure for the world’s loneliness and isolation is to embody the hospitality and the love of God and simply show up with curiosity and care. This is what it means to companion someone else. In fact, the etymology of the word “companion” is literally to share bread together. To offer a seat at the table to someone else. To provide a safe place for someone to relax, enjoy some rest, receive some nourishing food, and to savor the moment together.
This is ultimately what I experienced during my month of sabbatical - the companionship of Jesus. I felt as if Jesus was inviting me to walk with him, to enjoy his created world as much as he did, to savor the moments when I heard him laughing and delighting, and to share my heart’s deepest longings as honestly as I could. I sensed Jesus offering me a new way of relating to him for this next season of life; it was an invitation to receive Jesus as my friend, and to be a friend to him, too.
This is also the nature of our ministry here at LifePoint Resources. We are soul companions accompanying other pilgrims on the journey, giving each person space to explore their life with God, and encouraging them along the way as they listen and respond to God’s voice of love. We are making space to simply be with Jesus, the one who offers bread that alone will satisfy our deepest hunger - to be seen, to be known, to be unconditionally loved.
As I write this final article in the series on being with Jesus, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude at the lessons God taught me along the way. Of all the hallmarks of a healthy relationship, I’m most thankful for the gift of companionship. I’m not alone. And neither are you. God is right here, with you, right now. Do you sense God’s loving gaze? The Spirit’s comfort? The tender, healing compassion of Jesus?
May it be so.
In just a few days I’ll be meeting up with my high school friend - Yes, the same friend who scaled the hotel walls with me - and we’ll be singing at the top of our lungs at an epic U2 concert. “I STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR…”
This time around, though, I’ll pause and offer a prayer of thanks to God.