Breakfast Burritos on Holy Ground
We thought we were on our way to spend a day in silence at a retreat center a couple of hours down the coast, but God met us instead at the Whale City Bakery, Bar & Grill over breakfast burritos.
Photo credit: Gaby Aziz (Unsplash)
In some respects, ours is an unlikely friendship – we live on opposite sides of the country, and haven’t yet enjoyed the opportunity to do life as neighbors (add that to the list of reasons I’m looking forward to heaven). We only met because her son spent a college spring break with our family, commenting repeatedly, “I really think you need to meet my mom… You remind me so much of her!” And then she and her husband “just happened” to be coming to our neck of the woods a few months later, and accepted an invitation to stay in our home instead of a hotel en route to their conference. As I recall, we may have been strangers for two minutes, but from that point on it’s felt like we’ve known each other all of our lives.
That morning, we headed south along the coast, full of anticipation for what Jesus might have in store for us as we spent time alone with Him on the grounds of Villa Maria del Mar. It had been a full season for each of us, and we were eager to accept Jesus’ invitation to “‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest’” (Mark 6:31). Fog hugged the shore, obscuring the sun and shrouding our car in silence as we drove, the ocean a deep slate blue, reflecting the sky. Our one “rule” for the day was that we wouldn’t hurry. We thought we were being spontaneous when we pulled off and parked at a beachside cafe for some breakfast. Oh, how Jesus’ eyes must have been twinkling as we unknowingly arrived for a divine appointment! We placed our orders at the counter and found seats at a little table outside, where blustery breezes had shooed most guests back indoors. Anyone else who glanced our way would have seen two women in deep conversation over their breakfast burritos, but there were three of us at the table and we were meeting on holy ground. Our burritos and coffee might as well have been bread and wine for the sweet communion we were savoring with each other and Jesus! As my friend and I shared our lives with each other, expressed our deep desire to grow more wholly in love with Jesus, and sat with curiosity and wonder at His work in our lives, His Spirit moved in ways we couldn’t have anticipated or put into words.
Photo credit: Sam Hojati (Unsplash)
More than three hours later, the conversation continued as we left the cafe and found our way to a farm with a field of strawberries all to ourselves. We luxuriated in the silence, the sun-drenched rows of plump, red berries, and the gift of a day our good, good Father was unfolding for two of His precious daughters. Meandering back up the coast, we stopped in the midst of a grove of redwoods, soaking in the beauty and strength of those towering trees, and wondering at the mystery of spiritual friendship … experiencing the love of God in being seen, and known, and loved by another. Our day was not at all what we had anticipated, and it was exactly what Jesus knew our souls most needed: His Spirit blessing ours with the blossoming of spiritual friendship.
Photo credit: Delaney Van (Unsplash)
Twila Paris must have been reflecting on such a friendship as she sang:
You are a true friend pointing me to Him
Lifting my downcast eyes
Turning my wandering gaze to the sky
Proving your love again, you are a true friend
You are a true friend
Out of the overflow of loving relationships shared within the Trinity, God created us for relationship with Himself and with each other. So when God “became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14) love was lived out in community. Jesus ministered to the crowds, but He did life with the twelve, and of the twelve, three – Peter, James and John, and John even went so far as to refer to himself as “the one Jesus loved.” It was in the everyday moments of life, as Jesus walked, and ate, and laughed, and dialogued with His disciples that they experienced love incarnate. Peter, James, and John’s friendships with Jesus forever changed and shaped their lives in intimate and impactful ways. Theirs were spiritual friendships with Jesus. Beautiful. And messy. And real.
Photo credit: A still from “The Chosen” Season 4. Mike Kubeisy, The Chosen
Don suggested in last month’s blog that spiritual friendships in which we do life together overflow from our friendship with God. We learn how to enter into spiritual friendship as we grow in our friendship with God. Jesus is our example: His friendship with the disciples flowed out of His friendship with the Father. Jesus “often slipped away to be alone so he could pray” (Luke 5:16). He was conversing with His Father and enjoying deep relational intimacy. Jesus and the Father shared mutual trust; the Father entrusted to Jesus the salvation of the human race, and Jesus entrusted Himself to His Father. Jesus also modeled for us a posture of relational humility, as He made clear: “‘I can do nothing on my own. … I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will’” (John 5:30).
Jesus and the disciples spent a lot of time together, sharing their ordinary, everyday lives with each other. And as they spent time with Jesus, trust was established - even when the disciples couldn’t predict His actions, or understand His parables, they knew that His heart towards them was good and loving. Jesus went beyond teaching, ““Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else,’” (Mark 9:35) and modeled humility in his relationship with them: “Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him” (John 13:3-5). Jesus also modeled reciprocity - as God in the flesh, He arguably could have lived independently, yet He chose to live interdependently. Jesus told His disciples, ““I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. … I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father’” (John 15:9,15). Jesus’ friendship with His disciples reflected intentionality. He pursued their hearts, asked great questions, gave them space to wrestle with their doubts and fears, spoke truth, held up a mirror, and always, always He loved them. And Jesus’ vulnerability with His disciples, His friends, was both beautiful and mind-blowing. They witnessed His laughter and His tears, His anger and His delight, His pain at being unknown and His grief over hard hearts and blinded eyes. When so many turned away from Him, Jesus asked His friends, “Do you also want to leave?” and in His darkest hour, He yearned for His three dearest friends to stay with Him, confiding, “‘My soul is crushed with horror and sadness to the point of death . . . stay here . . . stay awake with me’” (John 6:67; Matt 26:38). In all of His interactions with them, even – perhaps especially – when they let Him down, Jesus listened, spoke, and acted with empathy towards His disciples.
To be loved but not known is comforting, but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.
Timothy Keller’s observation, made initially in the context of marriage, also casts a vision for the transformative power of flourishing spiritual friendships. Reflecting on my friendships, over the years I’ve found myself speechless with awe and gratitude that God has blessed me with such an “embarrassment of riches.” I am thankful for every one of them. A few have further deepened and blossomed into spiritual friendships. Those are the relationships of which Solomon observed, “a true friend sticks closer than one’s nearest kin” (Prov 18:24). Our hearts are knit together by the love of God and because of the highs and lows we have journeyed through together. It seems He often has us in similar seasons in our life with God, and as we share our lives, reflecting with curiosity and wonder on what He is up to, we grow, challenge, strengthen, and encourage each other as we travel “further up and further in” (as C.S. Lewis expressed) into the heart of God, into the Father’s embrace. We experience what Don expressed in last month’s blog, that “Loving God and loving each other … complete each other. The one without the other is inauthentic.” As my friend and I would attest, looking back on that morning of breakfast burritos and holy ground, friendship with God enriches our spiritual friendships with others, while they – in turn – propel us deeper into a vibrant life of union with God. The Celts recognized and prized these friendships to such a degree that they coined the term anam cara to refer to that rare soul friend. And, oh, what a gift such a friend is!
Photo credit: Rosalyn Otto
Such soul friendships grow and flourish when we are committed to relate to one another with:
Trust
Humility
Reciprocity
Intentionality
Vulnerability
Empathy
God continues to grow and minister to my friend and me as we invest in our spiritual friendship. We pray for and with each other, excitedly share the latest ways in which God is teaching us, reflect back areas of growth that we see in one another, wonder with holy curiosity where God is at work in our stories, and companion each other in the joys and trials that are a part of life in this beautiful and broken world. How might God be inviting you into the adventure of spiritual friendship? If you do not yet enjoy the rich relationship of an anam cara, I pray you soon will, for that is how God has designed us to thrive.
Written by: Rosalyn Otto