On Friendship

Friendships are built on a lot of things. 

There are the big things: shared joys, shared sorrows, having each other's backs in hard times. There are long conversations about the challenges of life and about learning and growth.

There are the little things: shared jokes, laughter, books, stories, adventures. There are long conversations about mundane things and long car rides and ice cream and quiet times just being together.

While friendships are generally build on come commonalities, there are also differences and those are good too. We don't have to like the all the same things or have the same lives. The differences may be enough to surprise people, but they work.

There are friendships for a short time and friendships for a long time. I had friends in university who were for that time and then we drifted apart. That was okay too. We had been friends and had shared a time and it was good, it was fun, and then it was time for all of us to move on to another life.

I used to think that I didn't know how to make friends. My friend group was very small and I often felt on the edge of it. That eventually changed and now I have so many people, and I understand what was going on in my early years. When I was younger, I was at a small school and I was different. I didn't fit in, and I thought it was my fault, that something was wrong with me, but I didn't know how to change. As I got older, I people who were my sort of different, and others who are not but who are okay with my kind of different. I didn't need to learn how to make friends and I didn't need to change; I just needed to find my people.

I still only have a small circle of very close friends, and I like it that way. I also have a huge circle of good friends, people I like to be with. I look back at my younger years and I understand and I want to tell the children who don't quite fit in with their peers: Be patient. Your time is coming. You will find your people.

“The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”...[I]t is there that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude."

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

A Busy Weekend

Friday I headed out to roughly the middle of nowhere to visit with friends. Actually, I took the bus as far as I could and they picked me up for the rest of the drive. They have a lovely home and it's so beautiful out there. Mom, oldest daughter, and I went for a walk to see some of their property and I loved it. We chatted as she finished making supper and discovered more we had in common and that was nice.

After supper we all headed back into town for soccer. It's mostly church kids and there are teams from the little ones all clumped together chasing the ball wherever it goes to the high school kids who actually (mostly) know how to play. I watched part of 5 different games and cheered for everyone.

Saturday was the woman's spring brunch at the church. There were over 100 ladies present. We had fun talking and eating and then listening to the leaders answer questions about topics including friendship, confronting sin, and how to make your home welcoming. Also, there were new pens!

Sunday was the regular routine of church and Sunday School (and I don't say "routine" like it's anything boring or mundane, just that it's a regular thing, one that I enjoy greatly). Then I hurried home, dropped stuff off, picked stuff up, and raced out the door to catch the bus to downtown. There I met a couple small people in my life for our outing to the symphony. My young friends are around 8 and 9 years old and loved the symphony for kids; it was about the history of music, told with a lot of joking, fun, and brass instruments. After that, we took the train and bus back to my house (public transportation is part of the fun for them) and ordered cheeseburgers, fries, and ice cream for supper.

It was a full, busy weekend, and I'm very glad for a quiet day! It was also a wonderful, fun weekend, and I'm very glad that I got to enjoy it!

More About Friendship

I overheard a bit of conversation at church one day; someone was talking about how a group of girls were talking about ... something ... not deep enough, evidently, because they had been asked how their conversation was edifying (and I don't actually remember the something, only that it was just normal conversation). And there was a book that basically said that any conversation that wasn't about God (or didn't include Him) was a wasted conversation.

Both of those ideas bothered me. Granted, there is a time for deep conversations about deep topics, and granted, God should be such a part of our lives that it shapes our conversations. And we shouldn't keep all friendships surface-level.

If we never talk about deeper ideas, I'm not going to trust you for the big stuff in life, but if all we talk about are the big theological topics, I'm also not going to trust you when I need someone to help with the big thing. Either way, you don't really know me and I don't really know you.

Friendships are not build solely on the big conversations; they're also build on the little things. They're built on conversations over coffee that range from deep and insightful to silly and nonsensical. They're built on tears and laughter, on trust and inside jokes. They're built over building puzzles and watching movies and playing games. They're built on stories and silly texts and late-night conversations. There's a lot of little bits that make up friendships.

The thing is, some surface-level conversations aren't edifying and might not help. On the other hand, a lot of them are useful at building friendships and helping people. Someone might need the conversation to feel out whether they can trust this person, or because it's been a really bad day (week, month, whatever) and big conversations are too big to deal with right then, but the smaller conversations are helpful to keep some perspective and focus, or just to be part of a group without any great demands just now. So yes, those conversations that don't seem edifying enough because they're not spiritual enough just might be edifying someone and you just can't see it.

About Friendship

I've been thinking about friendship lately. I always found it difficult to make friends; as a child, I was the one on the sidelines, never quite fitting in, and usually picked last. I didn't seem to see the world the same as other people, and I didn't like the same things.  Looking back now, I can see that I grew up with a very small number of people (in elementary school, my class had (I think) 12-15 people). There simply wasn't enough diversity within the group to accommodate someone who wasn't quite the same, and there were a couple strong personalities to dictate how things were done. Growing up, though, I didn't understand that and I thought that there was something wrong with me and that I would never quite fit in. I think that it kept me from reaching out for a long time, because I was afraid of being rejected.

This is what I realized this week: I have a lot of friends now, ranging from "casual acquaintances for light, surface talk" through "pretty good friends" to "friends who are like family" and "she who knows way to much about me for us to ever stop being friends".

Some of them came from others reaching out to me, but a lot of them came from me not being afraid to reach out. I started inviting people over for dinner (starting with families of my Sunday School students, and then other families in the church), and getting to know them. Sometimes it proved that we could be friendly but not really friends, but other times it's resulted in an unexpected friendship as I learned that we thought alike in many ways, that we laughed at the same jokes, and that we were all "of the race that knows Joseph" (see Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery).

What I've learned is that "if you want to have a friend, you have to be a friend" is true, although you have to accept that not every attempt at reaching out will end with a friend. Sometimes you just don't click, and that's okay. It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you or them; it just means that you need to try with the next person. And sometimes other people are afraid to reach out, and it's nice for them if you do the work of starting a friendship.

Also, it's okay to not have a lot of really close friends. I'm pretty happy with a very, very small circle of "kindred spirits" in my life (see Anne of Green Gables). If you look at friendship as a set of concentric circles, there are only a couple people in my inner circle, a few in the next circle, a lot in the third circle, and then the others start to blur together (it gets too hard to categorize friendships after a while). That's the way friendship works.

For a Friend

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine died.

He was one of the elders in my church. He could make anything we needed (and had the parts for it in his garage somewhere; everything was in there somewhere and he knew exactly where everything was). He helped me win a Scrabble game once by looking at the letters, looking at the board, and telling me where to place my letters for the most points (generally in places that I would never notice). He laughed a lot, and laughed big, with his entire self. When I picture him in my head, he's always laughing, and even now I'm smiling.

He was a good man. He was solid and reliable and I always felt safe with him, like I could trust him completely. He loved God with his whole being and that love flowed out to everyone around him.

He had been battling cancer for 2 years, and one day his body stopped. From outward appearances, it looked like the cancer won, but that's not really true. God was always in control and decided that it was time to take him home. I'm happy for my friend; I'm sad for the rest of us.

At the memorial service, the pastor talked about 1 Thessalonians 4, about not mourning as the world, as those without hope. He said that it's okay to grieve, but to remember the hope that we have in Christ (and not "I hope this will happen", but the hope that is completely confident in the promises of God).

Sunday Stuff

Pastor Mike preached today about unity in the church. It was good; he was talking about how all believers are already united in Christ. He also showed how unity cannot be based on shallow beliefs, but needs to be based on the truths of Scripture. It was encouraging, and it helped me understand how the bond of unity with some people I know can still be strong even though we disagree about some things (mostly to do with how the church is run, and a few other non-essentials).

Canada Day was a lot of fun. I spent time with friends I haven't seen in a few months (some even longer), catching up on things, laughing, and eating. I was only intending to go for an hour or so in the afternoon (we were celebrating an 80th birthday), but ended up being invited for supper since I'm considered family. In the evening, I went to see the fireworks with a family from the church. There are fireworks close to where we live (I could probably have watched some of them from my balcony), so we got to celebrate and get home before midnight. It was a really good day of fellowship and fun.

Next week is one of the busiest at work. It's the first week of summer break, and everyone will be getting schedules sorted out and such. The good news is, it's only a week (or two) and then things settle into summer routine.

Here is a hymn to start your week off well.

Remembering

This morning I was looking through my inbox for an email. I couldn't find it, so I started looking through different folders. A lot of them have old stuff from years ago when I saved and organized almost every email. I don't do that quite as much now.

In one folder, I found a couple emails from someone I couldn't remember. I had to read one almost through before I could place her. That was a bit strange. Most people, though, I could remember, even if I hadn't heard from them or even thought about them for years. I wonder what they're doing now.

I found several from one particular friend. We've always kept in touch to some extent, and now we're on Facebook so it's a lot easier. Many years ago we spent a couple summers with Child Evangelism Fellowship, leading Bible clubs through southern Ontario. We were partners for part of one summer; the other summer (I think she only did 2 summers, but maybe she did all three with me) we only saw each other for the 2 weeks of training. Then we lived together for a year when I was at Brock. We have only seen each other one other time, I think in 2001. It's a good friendship, though: the type that could pick up where it left off.

These emails come from the couple years after we lived together. Some of them are silly and some are sad and some are sweet. Most are a mix of whatever came to mind; that's the way we wrote to each other. Somewhere I also have some letters that she wrote. We both communicate so much easier with written rather than spoken words.

As I read the emails I remembered and I laughed and I cried a bit and I missed my friend terribly. I missed the "us" that we were back then, when life was simpler (or at least differently complicated). We've both grown and changed so much, and that's good. That's the way it should be, and it hasn't harmed our friendship, but it had to change as well. And right now I miss that year and that friend and that person who I was and that life.

And I wouldn't change who I am and where I am now. I don't want to live back then again, but I would like to visit.

Friends for Dinner

Tonight I had friends over for dinner. We had blueberry pancakes, sausages, and carrot and celery sticks. These friends have small children: a 2-year old daughter and a 3-month old son. The daughter called the celery "broccoli" since that's the vegetable word she knows best. She also decided that I was Daddy and her daddy was Miss Dorothy. She's a sweetie and a lot of fun.

We continued a discussion from Bible study the night before: can a Christian be a government assassin? My friend had thought about it and he said that it would be a unique witnessing opportunity: you're about to die; let me tell you about Christ. I'm not so sure; what if you were a sniper and didn't talk with your marks before you shot them? We figured that it wouldn't be a job that a Christian should enjoy. We started talking about being a spy, but then there's a lot of deceit involved...we're not sure. Also, he thinks that there will likely be annoying people in heaven but they won't annoy us there. Then we were distracted by the small daughter who was happy to have an extra playmate.

It was a good day.

Friendships

Today I was downloading a lot of books, chapters, whatever from a friend from school. Another friend scanned them when we were down in California (he was only taking the morning class and we were quite happy to have him do some of our research for us in the afternoons!). After I downloaded the files, I decided to save the emails as well as a sort of back up, and also to make the research accessible when I'm not at home. To do this I created another file in my hotmail account. When I did that, I noticed the files that were there and started glancing through them at the emails I thought were worth saving.

Some of the files had emails from many years back, from in and around my university days. I saw names I had almost forgotten from friends that are mostly just memories now. I haven't seen some of them since those days and haven't heard from them in almost as long. Even the ones I've reconnected with on facebook are not really friends; they are friendships based on shared memories only. Yet, once upon a time, we were friends for a season. It seemed a bit sad at first, that we could be friends and then become little more than memories. Then I kept looking and found other names: people I knew that far back and still know today, and it set me to thinking more.

Here's what I think: God gives us friends at different times and for different purposes. Some friends are only ever intended to be for a season, whether for their sake or for ours or both. And when that time is over, we move on and become memories. It isn't a bad thing; it's just the way life is. Other people stay in our lives, sometimes coming and going, but always based on more than just memories: we share today with them. Either way, God has a reason and we need to enjoy and cherish and love our friends while we have them.