Being more than alone

How can today’s separated selves be more than alone?

There is acute awareness these days of how alone someone can be amidst crowds (busy urban and suburban lives), connections (to include Facebook “friends” and Twitter “followers”), and even communities. The way we are ‘with’ other people is absolutely essential to being a real part of their lives and having them be truly a part of ours. Or we can be ‘without’ them, even being among them.

Let’s dig into that. The Bible shows God in relationship with His people. 1 Peter 2:10 says “I have called my people those who were not a people.” Psalm 145:4 – “One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.” We are connected to one another as a people in community called by God, and as generations of people in relationship with God over many years in time.

Spiritually, we are connected to God and meant to be in connection to each other, but there is much about our culture which disconnects us. Not just our culture, but about our hearts and souls.

I see a second grader on the playground with others but not included. It’s not a far bridge to cross to remind them we are classmates and friends treating others the way we want to be treated. Usually the bridge is crossed, today’s chasm of aloneness is overcome, and our second grader is among friends once again.

I talk with a tenth grader struggling to have friends. Not for blame, but for understanding and for making headway, he needs insight into what he’s doing and what others are doing. This bridge he must mostly cross on his own but with support and encouragement. He is wanting to connect, he is asking to connect; he is pursuing what God intends for his good. There is very solid hope in that, but it’s amazing how hard it is to build relationships. It’s so hard, sometimes random, and seemingly hit and miss that we often don’t try. But there is hope that when pursuing connections you can take confidence that you are joining God in His work rather than striking out in a lone endeavor. He is reconciling you to Himself, growing His body with the Head as Jesus Christ. He is connecting us one to another. By faith and not sight often, I press on knowing that friendship (philia) and committed, self-giving love (agape) are the greatest of His heavenly gifts.

We see our society – our social reality, connected or not – and our culture – the values which shape that reality – pulling and pushing us out of relationship, one with another. Technologically we are more connected to more people than was ever possible. Relationally, we may often be less connected than was ever expected or experienced.

"Desperado" makes for a good Eagles song of the early 70s because it speaks to the rare loner example from a bygone era. The song itself warns that the loner life leaves you out in the cold. Twenty years later, in the early 90s, M.C. Hammer was singing proudly and pluckily in his early pop rap that "U Can’t Touch This”. Establishing himself meant making clear that he stood apart with none as his equal. Interestingly, Hammer a decade later was a Christian televangelist, not providing much more basis for relationship than in his signature song. These are, of course, simply illustrations. They prove nothing, but they show something.

Now bring that song history to the present. And try to make a lick of sense out of this, if you can. Canadian rapper Drake surpassed the Beatles’ 54 year old record on Billboard’s Hot 100 for Top 10’s when he had 7 songs there at the same time, so the culture seems a bit interested in the guy. In January of 2018, his autobiographical song “God’s Plan” debuted at Number 1 on the charts. Drake has called himself “6 God” in multiple songs while at the same time many laud his generous spirit illustrated in the God’s Plan video where he runs all over town, giving away $1 million. Some also see humility and even reverence in his “God’s Plan” lyrics. Who knows? To his girl in the song, Drake raps “She say ‘Do you love me? I tell her, ‘Only partly’/ I only love my bed and my momma, I’m sorry”. While fan mystery lyric alerts point to the reference to son “Mahbed”, the sum total of it all seems at least to be ‘What are you talking about?’ I’ve got as much room for artistic license as the next guy, and maybe more than some guys, but where does this all lead as a cultural influence? Whether it’s love, the meaning of life or God, the actual or willfully communicated confusion is clear. And that fills the charts and the ears of the culture that submerges us.

I don’t want to go dramatic here, but the fact is that this depresses me. I don’t know the cultural effect of Drake’s best-selling music, but I’d rather have some confidence that the effect of someone holding 7 Top 10 spots at once was positive. 

So, let’s look for a little perspective. Over those same 40 years of music history, there’s a Christian counselor who’s had best-selling books in every decade. Numbers nothing like Drake mind you. (Drake has been streaming 1 billion per week. That’s for real. 1,000,000,000 per week! That’s a cultural impact that I have no idea how to quantify.)

Larry Crabb has hit a consistent cord in his teaching about Christian counseling, emphasizing the role that relationships, the Church and community play in biblical counseling. Counseling, in Crabb’s view, and helpful therapy is not happening through self-help or disengaged clinical encounters. Instead, healing and health come through relationships, family, and life in community turned to God.

It’s certainly no Popsicle-stick-advice prescription that fixes it all in a day. But it is the encouragement to pursue something more than being alone.