We All Need a Rock – We Don’t Need to Be an Island

The Faraglioni rocks off the Amalfi Coast at Capri,
Italy are a popular subject for photographers. 

During my college days, listening to music was a favorite pastime. Each week I’d march down to the campus record store and check out the latest releases. The Beatles and Rolling Stones were big then, and protest songs were popular. Everyone was into hard rock, but I often gravitated toward moody, pensive tunes. Simon and Garfunkel were among my favorites of that genre, a duo whose popularity peaked in the late 1960s.

Their songs were the kind that tended to get stuck in your head. They included some lilting tunes like “Feelin’ Groovy” and “Mrs. Robinson,” but Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel also recorded their share of mournful songs. It wasn’t until recently that I gave the meanings of their songs much thought. Maybe it was because of my own frame of mind in those days, but I hadn’t realized how gloomy some of them were. 

 

Consider, for example, 1964’s “The Sound of Silence”: 

“Hello darkness, my old friend – I’ve come to talk with you again

In restless dreams I walked alone, narrow streets of cobblestone 

‘neath the halo of a street lamp, I turned my collar to the cold and damp….”

 

“Bridge Over Troubled Water,” released in 1970, was a bit more hopeful: 

“When you’re weary, feeling small, 

when tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all.

I’m on your side, 

oh, when times get rough and friends just can’t be found….” 

At least it offered a sense that in times of aloneness, there was someone available to offer comfort.

 

Perhaps the most striking was one that was always a particular favorite of mine,1966’s “I Am a Rock”:

“A winter's day
In a deep and dark December

I am alone…
I am a rock I am an island

 

I've built walls
A fortress deep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain…

I am a rock I am an island….”

 

How’s that for the angst of youth? Maybe it appealed to me especially because of the words of another stanza: 

“I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock I am an island”

 

Being an avid reader and an aspiring writer, those closing words resonated strongly with me. If you’d asked me then, I might have proudly told you that, “I am a rock. I am an island.” Problem is, that’s no way to live – at least not a healthy way.

 

Fast forward more than five decades and I have a very different perspective. Being an “extroverted introvert,” I value my space, but being alone, hiding in my room where no one touches me isn’t part of my emotional menu. Having gone through a number of formidable challenges during my lifetime, I’ve discovered I’m not “a rock,” and being “an island” seems like a pretty miserable existence.

 

Instead, my Rock is Jesus Christ. Psalm 62 expresses it so well. In verses 2 and 6 the psalmist writes, “Truly He is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will never be shaken.” Another psalm also written by King David of Israel asks, “For who is God besides the Lord? And who is the Rock except our God” (Psalm 18:31-32).

 

I’ve also learned the value of spending time with others for support, encouragement, comfort and mutual exhortation. Just as human organs can’t function properly apart from each other, people usually work best when they're together. I often think of the challenge from Hebrews 10:24-25, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” 

 

That “Day” is the promised return of Jesus Christ, His second coming. No one knows when that day will be, but certainly we’re one day closer to it than we were yesterday. 

Perhaps, to paraphrase Simon and Garfunkel’s lyrics, when we’re weary, feeling small, when tears are in our eyes, God’s on our side. Even when times get rough and other friends can’t be found. He’s our Rock, and we don’t have to be an island.