mark johnston words

Mark Johnston

In 2019, a documentary film, 5B, was released about the doctors and nurses who treated the patients in the first AIDS ward in the United States at San Francisco General Hospital back in the 1980s.

If you’re old enough to remember the uncertainty of those times—all the confusion— what exactly is this disease, how is it transmitted—even medical professionals had a lot of unanswered questions at the time. But these men and women put their fears and biases aside to create care practices for those who were, in most cases, rapidly deteriorating and dying, with no cure or way to slow its progress down anywhere on the horizon.

Patients who were, in many cases, abandoned by their families, or left alone because of fears of the epidemic had no other contact with human beings, outside of their caregivers. 

My favorite songwriter, Jackson Browne, along with singer-songwriter Leslie Mendelson, and her regular collaborator Steve McEwan were asked to write a song for the end credits of the film, and they obliged. (In addition to being released in the movie, the song A Human Touch, was included on Jackson’s 2021 record “Downhill from Everywhere.”) 

Now, every new record of JB’s is a cause for celebration for his fans, most of whom have scooped up everything he’s been associated with for 40, or sometimes 50 years. I’m unapologetically one of those fans, and have several songs from that latest album in my regular driving rotation, mixed in with the great stuff from the earlier years in his storied career. 

A few weeks ago I was driving home from work and A Human Touch came on and, although I’d heard it several times before, it hadn’t really resonated deeply until that car ride. 

You can call it a decision

I say it’s how we’re made

There’s no point in shouting from your island

Proclaiming only Jesus saves

There will always be suffering

And there will always be pain

But because of it there’ll always be love

And love, we know, it will remain

Now, in that first verse, some Christ-followers may take offense to the line “there’s no point in shouting from your island, proclaiming only Jesus saves,” but I think it’s brilliant and 100% accurate. 

Oftentimes, as Christians, we shout words about salvation to those drowning in the ocean around us, without a thought to sending a raft or life preserver their way. Then, as we watch them sink, the typical response is ‘well, I tried to tell them’ and we go back to our comfortable spot under the palm tree, until the next would-be-survivor attempts to swim by. Then we repeat the process. 

The staff and some key ministry leaders at our church have been reading a book on servant evangelism, Conspiracy of Kindness by Steve Sjorgren. The book focuses on community projects, and describes doing things like washing cars, or cleaning the restrooms for local businesses as a way of showing Jesus to folks by serving them, with no strings attached. The idea is that some of those people will be curious at seeing a church actually giving instead of asking for something, or telling them how awful they are, and how hot hell is gonna be, that they might be interested in knowing more about a faith that has action behind it.

That type of interaction is sorely lacking in the world. A lot of us have taken classes on how to witness to people, and most of the time it comes across as being nice to someone to set up a sales pitch. Jesus as a used car we’re trying to get off the lot. (I remember taking notes in some sort of “witnessing training class” years ago where I scribbled ‘try to take a personal interest in the victim before hitting them over the head with the Gospel.’)

Sometimes, simple kindness is all that’s needed as the impetus to a relationship that can lead to real conversation somewhere down a sometimes winding road. And in our post-pandemic world, many people still work remotely, live remotely, and secretly crave interaction with the outside world when they venture out of their sometimes self-imposed bubbles. Christians can, and should be leaders in being caregivers to the broken.

The song goes on to say this:

Everybody wants a holiday

Everybody wants to feel the sun

Get outside and run around

Live like they’re forever young

Everybody wants to be beautiful

And live life their own way

No one ever wants to let it go

No matter what they do or say

And here’s the chorus:

Everybody gets lonely

Feel like it’s all too much

Reaching out for some connection

Or maybe just their own reflection

Not everybody finds it

Not like the two of us

Sometimes all anybody needs

Is a human touch

There’s a lot to unpack here— these short verses speak volumes about living, and dying, but the part of the song that absolutely wrecked me that day was this line in the chorus, “Not everybody finds it, not like the two of us.” 

When I pulled into the driveway at the RV park, I composed myself for a minute, went inside, hugged Angie and just started crying. Weeping for those who thought they’d found ‘the one’ and ‘the one’ turned out to be someone far different down the road. For people who are stuck in lifeless marriages, or relationships with little hope for the future, who just slog through their days tolerating each other instead of loving, or are filled with resentment for the lives they gave up to form an imperfect union with someone they no longer recognize. For those who have lost and are grieving a spouse, and are trudging through years, or sometimes decades, as ‘half of the whole’ they used to be. For those who are single, and have never found their match, some of them wanting desperately to have the sort of relationship that the blessed few of us take for granted.

It, like many things in this life, is heartbreaking.

“Not everybody finds it, not like the two of us.” 

Now our marriage is far from perfect, don’t misunderstand me. But Angie and I love each other, are best friends, and the past four years of ‘just the two of us’ have been probably the best years of our marriage. More than we have in the past we rely on each other, encourage each other, and help each other wade through sometimes difficult circumstances, monetarily, since I’m working at a church for peanuts and she is in school, and emotionally, since frankly, being cooped up in a 25 foot RV, 24 hours a day… well, let’s just say that sometimes that ain’t a picnic.

But at the end of the day, I can’t imagine going through this life with anyone else. I didn’t meet Angie until right after I’d turned thirty, so I’d been in several relationships before then. Some of those girls were really wonderful, some of them really sweet, and a few of them I still consider friends. But nobody else had the combination of spunk, sass, and looks that just bowled me over from the first time I noticed her at my job on Forest Lane, from our first date at the Old San Francisco Steak House, from her looking so overjoyed at our wedding, from seeing her holding our kids for the first time, from loving on our grandchildren… the list of special moments goes on and on.

However this life together won’t.

“No one ever wants to let it go, no matter what they do or say”

So I intend to cherish the days that we have remaining, to pray for those who are still searching, still grieving, still floundering, still lost… still hopeful. 

And if I can hand them a water bottle in the name of Jesus, I hope that I’ll realize that sometimes planting the seed is enough, that others will come along and water, others will harvest. 

But when it’s all said and done, God is the one who draws people to Himself, and if we can give a human touch along the way, it will all have been worth it.

A Human Touch. Songwriters: Jackson Browne / Leslie Mendelson / Steven McEwan © 2018 Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Here’s a link to the video of the song on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtLFSUfwsqI