This morning I texted an old friend of 15 years something I saw on the topic of bachelor vs. married life. My friend is not a Christian, but we've always stayed in touch and hung out. We spent our twenties and early thirties in the city, so I guess he just came to mind. I thought it was an interesting diatribe on the shallowness of material living (specifically, in this case, young urbanites) that is fun at first but gets lonelier as one ages if they stay in it. I thought it gave some food for thought. He responded that he thought it was judgmental, negative, and narrow minded.
I don't have an issue with people being of different opinions about things. But it did give me pause, and made me kind of reflect on the life cycle of our friendship. What bound us together? Was it that we went to bars together and lived in the same geographic locale? Was there anything deeper? I kind of assumed there was, just by virtue of the years, but I'm not sure. We live near each other and we like riding bikes. Beyond that, I'm not sure.
It also made me think more fundamentally, "Well, what is a friend? What is friendship, really? What constitutes a friend?"
As I may have mentioned previously, I am an Augustinian at heart. My conversion to the faith came by way of dissatisfaction with the temporal nature of the world--I wanted something true, something beautiful, something that would last. "Love is real, not fade away," as Jerry Garcia said. My friendships in high school were solid but, looking back, shallow and utilitarian; I wanted more than my friends could give, I think. One of my closest friends in particular I realized years later really didn't care about me, as close as we were. I was just someone to occupy time with.
Years later, I would lose another good friend of many years (whom I recount in The Day That Cost Me My Friend) over the issue of gay marriage. I remember Jennifer Fulwiler when she still talked and wrote about Catholics things recounting this elephant in the room with one of her close (gay) friends when he asked her, "So, what do you think of gay marriage?"
"At the end of the evening — way too late, as always — we all exchanged hugs and promised that we’d do this more often. I watched Andrew and Tom walk away, holding hands, and prayed that I hadn’t done a totally terrible job of articulating my beliefs. I hoped that, if nothing else, he understood that there is no contradiction between me being a faithful Catholic and a close friend of his. I have converted to the religion of the crucifix, a belief system that promises joy in exchange for losing it all. Most people don’t want to sign up for that. I get that. I hope they consider it, for their own sake, since their lives would be better if they did — but it doesn’t change how I feel about them if they don’t. As the guys disappeared down the street, I hoped Andrew knew how much I loved him and Tom, and I hoped they still loved me too."
I'm not sure if "Andrew" is still in Jen's life, but I would be surprised if he was. Not that it's not possible. But at some point, there is a degree of eggshell naiveté the older we get when belief systems, race, class, religion, and politics are different. We tend to homogenize over time according to our values. My sophomore year of college I read a book Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria? by Beverly Tatum. The title alone suggests that it's not an uncommon sociological phenomenon. Race, like friendship, is complex.
Hate to say it, but I'm no exception. I have no gay friends, no Muslim friends, no African American friends, no truly poor friends. It's not for lack of trying or desire. I consider myself pretty open minded. But it just seems like the natural state of things. If you're honest, you're probably in the same boat.
Friendship is complex and for some individuals (like those, I imagine, with Autism or social anxieties) it can be frustratingly elusive. Cicero defined friendship as "a perfect conformity of opinions upon all religious and civil subjects, united with the highest degree of mutual esteem an affection." Augustine adopted this pat definition early in his life as a rhetorician, but as he aged and matured the subject became for him more complex. Mike Aquilina of the St. Paul Center notes,
"It's not the agreement of religious and civil subjects that makes friends. It's the grace God gives us that allows us to love others and become friends. That means the only real friendship is Christian friendship."
That's something, isn't it? "The only real friendship is Christian friendship." I'm at the point in my life when my time is in short supply and I have to make sure it's being utilized judiciously. Why waste time with what's not authentic? I want the real deal, and if that means that the only real friendships in my life are because they are built on a Christian foundation, then so be it. Some men don't have any friends, or maybe one or two....and sometimes by choice. It might not even bother them--their family and their job and their solitude may be enough for them. The Age of Social Media adds an additional layer of obfuscation. We were not meant to have 1k+ "friends." The term itself in this context is a misnomer.
As for me, like the way our unhinged society is debating "What is a man? What is a woman?", I am wrestling with this question that is maybe bigger in my life than it should be: What constitutes a friend? Do I have any true friends? Why have so many people come into my life...and ultimately exited as well? Does anyone truly know my heart, is there for me unselfishly? Am I for them? What does it mean to love someone? To be a true friend?
If anyone has a "theology of friendship" they would care to share in the comments, please do.
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Good stuff. I think it's possible to be a good friend to one who doesn't have the same values, but that probably means they won't be a good friend back to you, and so you might find it a painful lack of reciprocation, and then you have to decide how much of that you can tolerate. People are so...limited. Nobody has enough time and energy to absorb all we have to say and think about and care enough about us to really understand us. It's a constant feeling of lacking and loneliness. And the constant coming and going of people in and out of life make it seem fruitless to spend so much effort cultivating something for it to just dissolve. And if their values preclude them from Heaven? Why bother having the earthly relationship that will end at death? I often wonder about this when I think of my non-Christian friends, but also, wonder if God will take pity on them anyway?
ReplyDeleteAlso-the transient nature of friendship reinforces the bond of family who are more or less the same people for a lifetime, and taking comfort in that, and especially in the friendship shared between spouses. The closest relationship most people can hope to achieve on Earth.
ReplyDeleteI think Fuzzy has a good point about being able to be a friend TO non-Christians, but I also think there are different degrees of friendship, and, while true Christian friendship is the best, others can be fulfilling in their own way. I think it’s perfectly ok to have a bike-riding friend, even if that’s all he ever is, although one can also, if inclined/called, work to make it more, maybe even in hopes of bringing him to Christ.
ReplyDeleteAs for having friends that are similar to yourself, I don’t find that’s true for me, but maybe that’s because I’m a woman and we tend to make more friends. I have friends who are years older than me and years younger, friends in higher and lower income brackets, one of my best friends in college was dark skinned and just time and distance has separated us. When my daughter went to college in the city she lives in, I looked her up and we got together and introduced them, partly so I’d know that she always had someone I trust to turn to in an emergency. So, we’re still close enough that I’d trust my daughter with her. Another friend from high school helped me when my girls got stuck in Greece where they were on vacation when the pandemic hit!
I guess I’m just saying I have all different sorts of friends in age, color, socio-economic conditions and degrees of friendship. But I’d consider them all friends.