Cultivating friendship – a lost art

We are fashioned to thrive within meaningful community, cultivating friendship – to work, learn, play and worship together. As we seek to live in community well, we are given friends to walk alongside us in love. And we are gifted to them in return. We may have multiple friends, including one or two (three perhaps) with whom we can share our innermost dreams and disappointments. 

Through all life’s stages

As we navigate the art of friendship, we model for our children acceptance of, and investment in, others, and discernment to make wise choices. Our children observe the importance of grace and hospitality. They learn that at times we are called to give, and other times we must humbly receive. They learn that life is not about keeping score. They learn that most of the time, friendships don’t just happen – they take work.

Remembering our younger years with friends, we recall bouts of hideous laughter, shared escapades, fighting side by side for our ideals and important accomplishments. Many of those friendships included shared vacations, evening meals, debates, songs, games and laughter.  Looking back, we may wonder where they’ve gone. How or why did we lose touch?

As people become older, they often live alone and become isolated. They’ve lost their partner, and their families live at a distance, or don’t have the time (or sadly, the inclination) to visit regularly. Cultivating friendships throughout our lives enlarges our social network as we age. It also makes us more comfortable forging new friendships as we begin to lose others. We need each other as we age – to help out when health fails, to cheer each other and to offer hope. 

In her book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, Bronnie Ware, an Australian palliative care nurse, writes about the regrets of patients in their final 12 weeks of life. The top five included not staying in touch with close friends. Ware observes, “Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved.”

A unique nature

In our western world, close friendships are in many ways an anomaly. These relationships seem to float on the periphery of our lives, and no one really knows what to do with them. Consider: When we lose a family member or significant other, either through estrangement or death, people are prone to empathize with us in our devastation. But tell someone that your dear friend has died, and you’ll likely receive a sympathetic word or two before the conversation turns to something else. A sympathy card would take you by surprise, as would follow-up phone calls to check on your wellbeing over the next weeks or months. Our culture does not place significance on friendship in the same way they do romantic or family ties. Perhaps this is because we believe that friendships are easily replaced. Since no blood ties or formal covenants are involved, we assume that anyone could, theoretically, be a candidate. But deep friendship can prove elusive unless there’s a connection, and both parties are willing to invest. 

Intentionality

A true friend often knows more about us than our family or spouse. It may feel safer to share our deepest thoughts and feelings – and even our past – with a trusted friend who knows us fully and still loves and accepts us. To cultivate deep friendship requires intention and attention. In rare cases, people see each other infrequently, the years falling away as if they’d never been. But most friendships must be tended to foster growth. 

Susan S. Phillips, in her book, The Cultivated Life, explains that friendship between Christians adds the obvious dimension of shared discipleship. She asks whether those of us who “value spiritual thriving live as though we believe that friendship shapes persons and the world, or do our choices indicate that we regard it as a morally neutral, private accessory in a full life?” Phillips goes on to assert that friendship is actually a spiritual discipline. It is a place to foster truth, honesty and acceptance of, and about, each other. Just as specific disciplines call forth physical dimensions -space (a sanctuary), position (kneeling), voice (singing), and emotion (laughter or tears), our practice towards friendship requires presence, whether face-to-face or through technology. We all schedule priorities and follow our own spiritual rules – giving thanks at meals, morning meditations and weekly gathering to worship. No different, then, to schedule regular time to focus attention on a friend, in a desire to give and to receive as we shape each other’s lives through the Spirit’s grace.

Showing up

The bonds we form go as deep as our vulnerabilities, our willingness to offer ourselves in truth and in understanding. To have a friend, we must be one. It’s celebrating with the other’s victories and sharing our own triumphs. It’s healing through someone else’s recognition of our pain. It’s showing up for one who needs to voice their pain. Holly Cole’s recording of “Cry”, (Capitol Records, lyrics by Casey Scott) expresses it well:

Cry if you want to

I won’t tell you not to

I won’t try to cheer you up

I’ll just be here if you want me…

don’t ever apologize venting your pain

It’s something to me you don’t need to
         explain

I don’t need to know why

I don’t think it’s insane

You can cry if you want to…

I won’t make fun of you

I won’t tell any one

I won’t analyze what you do 

or you should have done

I won’t advise you to go and have fun

You can cry if you want to

Well it’s empty and ugly and terribly sad

I can’t feel what you feel but I know it feels
        bad

I know that it’s real and it makes you so
        mad

You could cry

Cry if you want to I won’t tell you not to

I won’t try and cheer you up

I’ll just be here if you want me; to be

near you

That’s the kind of nourishing friendship we all desire – where we feel no need