I walk into the living room with a plate full of lasagna, my eyes searching for an open seat. I spy a space at the far end of the room near the fireplace. “Excuse me,” I mumble with a half-smile as I navigate the row of legs carefully balancing their own plates of lasagna. 

Lowering myself onto the couch, my hips rub against the woman next to me, a lady who I had met only twice but who always showed up looking like she’d just stepped out of a Macy’s ad. I plopped down in my sweatpants, mentally calculating how long it had been since I’d showered. Life with a newborn had wreaked havoc on my hygiene. I sighed—perhaps a bit too heavily.

The well-manicured woman and I attempted to make conversation in between bites of slippery pasta. I dabbed my face often with a napkin hoping I didn’t have oregano lodged between my teeth. Our small talk seemed to go nowhere fast. I’ve never been great at casual conversation, so when my questions were met with one- or two-word answers, I doubted our talk would go much deeper.

How I ached to go deeper.  

Since transitioning from full-time work on a college campus to staying home with the boys and picking up freelance gigs on the side, meaningful conversation was sparse. I missed the days when students would come into my office and flop down to talk—a routine for a handful of young adults as they made their way to and from classes. Don’t get me wrong: I loved my own babies fiercely, but they were not good conversationalists. 

And neither was that woman, apparently. 

My husband sat across the room, holding our baby and sporadically checking in on our other boys who were making a ruckus in the back of the house. I resigned to pushing my fork around an empty plate until the church small group leader called for our attention and the room fell silent. Another heavy sigh bubbled up.

I knew life together had to start somewhere. Yet sitting there in the awkwardness, I wondered whether this was really what Jesus had envisioned for his people. My gut told me that “life together” was meant to be so much more.

Over the years, I’ve had a handful of similar interactions. We gather silently longing for our lives to be tied together, but our attempts at community fall short.  We long for the full-bodied cup of communion, but settle for watered-down grape juice instead. Yet we were made for more.

From the beginning, God saw how it was “not good for man to be alone” and crafted a similar-but-new being out of the man to live alongside him.[1]  Unlike the other creatures that had been made from dust and dirt, the woman was woven from flesh, from the very fabric of the man. New life began within the life of another—and that pattern has not changed. Children are born in a state of complete dependence, and while that level of reliance changes as they grow, age does not nullify the need for secure relationships.

As a student development professional, I saw that need play out time and time again. Part of my role on campus was to develop community within the residence halls, to create spaces of belonging. While retention rates indicated that students who felt connected to campus tended to stick around and to do better in classes, a more holistic view of student development would advocate that wellness is intricately tied to our dependence on other people for sustenance, shelter, attachment, and belonging. These building blocks are essential for flourishing, and it was painfully obvious when those foundations were not in place.

Students would arrive on campus bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to flex their independence. But when the honeymoon period wore off around November, students who had not yet found a place—even a small space of connection to a club or sorority or group of friends—began to struggle. And that struggle would manifest itself in a variety of ways. Jenna stopped going to class. Robbie no longer attended hall functions, opting to play video games into the early morning hours. Unable to focus, Deja’s grades began to drop. Jessi made regular trips home. In more severe cases, I received middle-of-the-night phone calls from my staff. I’d rush across campus to respond to students who were tripping out on drugs, experiencing mental-emotional breakdowns, or even threatening to take their own lives.

I don’t mean to appear dramatic or to elicit fear for parents getting ready to send their babies off to college. But what these experiences make very clear is that human connection is not optional. The need does not go away with age, and intimacy is not just an ideal, some lofty desire brought on by watching too many episodes of FRIENDS.

Having been made in the depths of another person, part of us wants to remain there. We are wired for attachment, handcrafted in the image of a communal God. Our souls ache for unguarded, unconditional relationships built on mutual trust, love, and willingness to stay. In our friendships. In our marriages. In our families, on campuses, and in our churches. With God himself.

Perhaps now more than ever.

Our current state of disconnect is palpable. A virus isolates. An election divides. Church leaders fall, and congregations step away. Relationships struggle for common ground as the world watches racial injustice on full display. With the holidays in our midst, we look at empty tables and feel the lack each other’s presence.

Weariness leads us to believe that relationships might be easier to cancel than to stay. That we cannot experience intimacy if our convictions are not aligned. That our shadowy thoughts cannot be shared. That we have tried too many times and failed. And so we wax positivity and fake a smile—hoping that if we just ignore the ache, our minds and emotions will be convinced.

But what was woven in the depths cannot be sustained by skimming the surface. Our souls cannot withstand this famine without the nourishment of deep connection. “Life together” has to be more than a party line. More than once-a-week lasagna with a near stranger. More than an occasional Zoom call or sipping wine in someone’s driveway. This is where connection might start, sure. But in order to build the depth of relationship for which our souls crave, we must take down our independent walls and let our tears, fears, and failures be known. We must find small circles of belonging with which to live unguarded and uncensored, where we can “dare to be a sinner” instead of polished and pious.[2]  Anything less will leave us lacking.

As people born of flesh, to flesh we must return. We must fight for connection and pursue life below the surface, no matter what. Or we too will fall short of flourishing.

NOTES:

[1] Genesis 2:18 (CSB)

[2] From Life Together: A Classic Exploration of Christian Community by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

feature image by Zoltan Tasi via unsplash

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