People Need People
Epiphanies happen in unexpected places. I was asked to speak at an AA meeting to celebrate the twentieth year of sobriety for a deacon in the church where I was pastor. I got there early. I always try to do that anytime I am to speak. I like to watch the people gather and interact with them before the program starts. This time I did not interact I just sat back and watched them gather. It became obvious to me that this was a “come as you is and be who you is” gathering. No one seemed the slightest bit interested in impressing anyone else. No one tried to act like they were less of an alcoholic than the rest. No one seemed to feel superior to anyone else no matter how long they had been sober. No one seemed to be the resident expert who wanted to tell the rest how to get sober. Just a bunch of alcoholics gathering to help one another face the horrors of their disease.
Just before the meeting was set to start a young man jumped out of a very expensive car almost before it came to a stop and ran into the building not waiting even a second for his wife to follow. As soon as he entered, he almost hollered “Anyone here whose back hurt when he quit drinking?” One man said yes, and that is who the young man wanted to talk with. They sat facing one another in the back of the room and I snuck in close enough to hear.
The young man asked the older one how long he had been sober and heard the man say 24 years. The young man said he had been sober for eighteen days and the questions began to pour out like a flood.
They interrupted that session so I could speak though I tried to protest that what was going on in the back of the room was far more important than anything I had to say but they assured me their talk would continue as soon as I was through. I made a very short speech so they could get back at the therapy of one beggar showing another one where to find bread.
As I left that night, I realized I had just discovered two things that have had a profound impact on my life until this very day. I discovered:
EPIPHANY I: PEOPLE NEED PEOPLE
Seems like every time I said that in church someone thought I was somehow diminishing God. I would hear, “Is God not big enough to meet all of our needs?” Or, “As far as I am concern all I need is Jesus.” And I would have to explain that saying we need each other does not diminish God in any way. He created us so we need the work He does in our lives and nothing takes the place of that, but He also made us, so we need the work we are capable of doing for one another and nothing takes the place of that either.
From a spiritual stand point most of the things God does for us are delivered to us through humans. The love of God is much more real when it comes from the voice, the touch, the acceptance and the warm hug of a person.
His presence is best delivered by some friend who is willing to just be there and walk beside us in silence.
His comfort becomes a healing force when it is delivered by a listening ear who will hear the story of our loss over and over again.
Most of our prayers require some human action for an answer. He might guide the surgeon’s hands, and give wisdom to the physician, but the action comes from humans.
We are the only hands God has. His only tongue is in our mouths, His only feet are on the end of our legs. His only money is in our bank accounts, His only loving heart beats in our breasts. Makes me wonder if mine are usable.
From the more human side we have a tremendous role to play. People need us.
When I was a young kid a girl I thought was the most beautiful person in the school was killed when a train hit her car. This was in the forties when it was considered bad taste to talk about or even mention the name of anyone after they were dead. We locked people in prisons of silence and expected time to heal their wounds.
The girl’s parents walked into the grocery store where I worked and, before I could stop myself, I blurted out that I thought their daughter, and I called her name, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I thought I had committed the ultimate faux pa and blushed, but the mother hugged me and asked me to come to their home where they got out the albums and showed me picture after picture of their daughter. I did not understand it then, but now I do. They were desperate for someone to hear their story and the only willing ear was a fifteen-year-old kid who worked in a grocery store. They were trying to establish the significance of their loss and the significance of the person they lost and that requires human ears and human compassion.
I do not call myself a counselor. I mostly just listen to folks so maybe I am a companion. I have spent most of my time for over sixty years trying to provide human touch to hurting people.
Most of my time has been spent with people who suffered trauma, loss, abuse, rejection, physical difficulties, emotional pain and never found anyone or any way to work through the devastation these experiences bring. No one heard their stories, no one understood what they felt. Or, if someone was available, they were too afraid or too proud to accept the help that was offered. So, they suffered in silence and tried to swallow the pain.
Swallowed pain does not go away nor is it healed by time. It internalizes and become depression, guilt, self-loathing, anxiety, and the list is unending. When life caves in nothing takes the place of people. Healing hurts can’t happen in lonely caves.
People need us but we also need people. We do not grow mentally, spiritually, or socially in a cave separated from people. Most of what I know I learned from listening to people. The most enjoyable thing in my life is being a safe person to someone in pain. My self-worth and sense of purpose is nourished by the experiences when someone felt safe enough to let me be involved with their need.
EPIPHANY II: THE CHURCH
As I left the AA meeting that night I said to my friend, “You and your friends just showed me what the Christian church should look like.” They were just a group of alcoholics gathering. No one put on any fronts or worried what anyone there thought of them. They were real, they were open, they were honest, and healing can happen in that environment.
Contrast that with how we do church. We seem to go there to impress folks with how little we need to be there. We feel each other’s spiritual pulse to see who we think is really spiritual.
A man told me he was going to quit attending his Sunday School class. He said, “I am having to change jobs and I am scared. My friend, Joe, sitting beside me is going through a divorce and his world is torn apart. He continued telling about each person in the room and each one was in some kind of pain. Then he said, the teacher asked us how we were, and we all said we were fine. No one felt free to admit to any problems. No one trusted the group to not judge and to keep a confidence. So, we spent the hour talking about what God did to somebody else and avoided our problems. There must be a better way,”
A couple pulled me aside from the crowd after I was a guest speaker at their church. In almost a whisper they told me their grandson was in jail on drug charges and they had no idea what to do nor where to turn. After hearing them out and trying to help, I asked them why we were whispering and they pointed to the crowd and said, “Oh, those are the last people we want to know about our problem.” I asked if they had talked with their pastor and they almost turned white in fear at the thought of him knowing.
We cannot be a place of healing until we realize we are all sinners, we all have problems, we need one another but we will never find peace or healing until we stop judging, stop pretending, and stop worrying about what others might think. Our path to heaven does not run through anyone else’s yard.
Scripture says we are to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are too good for this, they are fooling themselves and are really a nobody. (Gal. 6:2-3)
Maybe I should end this with the most profound question I was ever asked. A woman said, “I am thinking about becoming a Christian and joining this church, but I have one question for you.” I told her to feel free to ask it and she said, “You say Christ will change me and I believe that, but what if He doesn’t change me to suite you?”
How we answer that question will determine whether or not we can be the kind of person people need. Know anyone God has not changed to suit you?