the withness factor

Years ago when our oldest daughter was thirteen, we moved into a new school district. Since Rachel was typically an internal processor and often learned through quiet observance, it was sometimes difficult to know what she was wrestling with in her inner world, particularly since she tended to be even-tempered and optimistic.

One night my wife came out of Rachel’s room and said, “I’m not sure what’s wrong. She’s just being very quiet.” It was a hot August night—almost midnight and she was still up. All the Workmans tend to be late-nighters, especially during the summer.

We had moved to the new district over the Easter break but were driving our girls to the old school for the remaining couple of months so they wouldn’t have to switch mid-stream. Now five months later, we had settled into a new neighborhood over the summer and Rachel had kept her friends at church. But after eight years in a small school, she would be attending a very large one where she knew no one. To us at the time it didn’t seem like a major issue, particular since she was so involved in the youth group at church.

But she was clearly down. And the reality is, any problem is big when it’s big to you. I knocked on her door, walked in and sat on the edge of her bed.

“You okay?” I asked.

Without looking up, she responded, “Yeah.”

“What’s wrong?”

A pause, then, “I don’t know.”

You don’t have to be a psychologist to know that from here on out it’s going to be short answers. We sat there in silence for a few moments, then I asked, “Have you ever gone on a bike ride at midnight?” She looked at me quizzically.

When I was a little boy, I idolized my big brother. He was five years older than me and the coolest guy on the planet. Or at least in Augusta, Kentucky, population twelve-hundred. One summer night when we were kids, he invited me to go bike riding after our parents had long gone to sleep. He didn’t seem to be embarrassed to be seen with his little skinny baby brother, but then again maybe that’s why we went out at midnight.

We taped flashlights on our handlebars and took off down Bracken Street. We made our way to a pitch-black country road heading out of town along a marshy field bordering the river. My eyes suddenly widened: the field was littered with what seemed to be thousands upon thousands of fireflies. It seemed as if we had somehow coasted our Huffys beyond the rings of Saturn into a sea of twinkling stars.

I can close my eyes and still see it to this day. It’s a wonderful memory; I owe my big brother for that one.

Still sitting on the edge of Rachel’s bed, I looked down at her and said, “Let’s go for a bike ride.” She flashed a puzzled grin.

We pulled our bikes out of the garage after I duct taped a flashlight on my handlebars.  We rode past the massive eighty-year-old WLW diamond-shaped radio tower, once powerful enough to broadcast on children’s braces. Seriously. A few cars slowed to look at the white-haired man on a bike with a flashlight and a blond thirteen-year-old. We didn’t talk much as we rode across the moonlit blacktop, past darkened houses, sneaking glances voyeuristically at the windows with a slight blue glow from televisions. We simply gulped in the warm midnight air. How often do you get to do that in life with your thirteen-year-old?

We eventually made our way home. Rachel smiled, gave me a hug, and went off to bed. Sometimes we just need someone to be there, to be with. What words, rational explanations and clever justifications don’t do, withness does.

In C. S. Lewis’ poignant journal kept after the death of his wife, he writes:

“There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anybody says, or, perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet, I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.”

Lewis, former atheist and one time confirmed bachelor who became the greatest apologist for Christianity in the 20th century, found he simply needed people…people to be with.

We were wired for this mysterious thing called community, for withness. I struggle with it, but understand more and more as I age how critically vital it is. It doesn’t take much for any of us to feel valued, to feel loved, to feel accepted. The inevitable changes and losses of life are much more manageable in the withness of others.

Are you experiencing the withness factor in your life?

“...And I will be with you always, to the end of the age.” ~Jesus (Matthew 28:20)