By Steven Norris
When I was a kid, I loved playing Barrel of Monkeys. The player who linked the most plastic monkeys arm-in-arm in a long chain won the game.
I thought about that game recently as I reflected on an encounter from my Camino pilgrimage. Trevor and I met at the end of my second day of walking. We were staying in the same albergue (hostel) and, along with a Canadian pastor, shared dinner and talked about our hopes for the journey ahead.
The next day, Trevor, the Canadian pastor, and I walked together into Pamplona, talking about fatherhood, marriage, faith, and life. One thing I quickly noticed on the Camino was that most pilgrims had little interest in superficial conversation. The masks we often wear in polite company back home didn’t seem to fit on the trail. People opened up. We spoke honestly. We became vulnerable with one another surprisingly fast.
Trevor and our pastor-friend decided to spend the night in Pamplona, but I needed to keep moving if I was going to stay on schedule to meet my wife. So, somewhat reluctantly, we parted ways.
Imagine my surprise the next day when I rounded a corner in a small village and found Trevor sitting dejectedly on a park bench, scrolling through his phone. The albergue where he planned to stay was closed for renovations. He was exhausted and unsure whether he could continue.
I invited him to walk the next six miles with me, fairly certain there was room at the albergue where I planned to stay. Over and over, he told me how much he had needed someone to “pick him up” at that low moment. “I think God put you there at just the right time,” he said.
The next morning, we parted ways again. By midmorning, however, I approached a roadside café and laughed when I saw Trevor sitting there with an empty chair at his table.
This time, I was the one who needed help. I had discovered two significant blisters that threatened to derail my journey. Trevor slowed his pace, walked with me, and “picked me up” during a frustratingly low point of my own. I think God placed him there when I needed it most.
Maybe there is more wisdom in that childhood game than I realized. We need one another.
Scripture repeatedly challenges the myth that faithful people are meant to go it alone. “Two are better than one,” Ecclesiastes reminds us, because when one falls, the other can help them up. Paul tells the Galatians to “carry each other’s burdens.” And before sin ever enters the Genesis story, God looks at the solitary human and says, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”
There are times when we are called to reach out and lift someone else. There are also times when faith requires the humility to take the hand being offered to us. Perhaps God’s intention for humanity looks less like rugged individualism and more like a barrel of monkeys — linked together, holding on, and helping one another make it down the road.