[Bittersweet, 2005, JA Van Devender]
Location: Hattiesburg, MS.
2 Samuel 1:19 (NKJV)
19 “The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places!
How the mighty have fallen!
From Montaigne, Essays, On Friendship...
The ancient Menander declared him to be happy that had had the good fortune to meet with but the shadow of a friend....
There is perhaps not other word in the English language that has suffered such degradation in meaning and importance as the word "friend." I don't particularly intend to furnish a detailed examination of all the words that have undergone such deterioration and prove the uniqueness or extent to which this particular word has suffered, I shall just simply state it and let the "nit-pickers" have their fun.
From the so-called "social networks" through modern colloquial conversation, the idea of "friend" has so merged with "acquaintance" to the point that both are essentially meaningless.
I met a very charming young lady yesterday. She was just turning six and she was waiting in the dentist office as was I. I engaged her in conversation and she was most happy to talk about things. In her fire-hose manner she gushed about this and that, her plans for the summer, her swimming lessons and how much she loved them, and how she loved to spend time with her "BFF." Being ancient and entirely at a loss, I asked her what a "BFF" was. She looked at me with that moderate astonishment that rises in us when we encounter an alien life form and said "Best Friend Forever, of course." Duly chastened I said "of course" and she gaily rambled on to other subjects.
It occurs to me, that taken on face value, the general appreciation this young lady had for her "BFF" pretty much sums up that which really is, or should be, our understanding of "friendship" itself.
David's lament over the death of his friend Jonathan and to a lesser extent, Saul, borders on the feminine. I think it difficult these days to form an adequate conception of what "friendship" really meant in Classical & Biblical antiquity. In Philippians 1:27 Paul writes of how those Christians should strive to be "one spirit, one mind" with each other. The word translated "mind" is most often translated "soul" and there are those, among whom I am one, who think that might be the better translation.
To be a "friend" with another is to be of "one soul" with that person and it is among the rarest jewels that can be possessed in human society. "Friends" in this sense, as recognized by Montaigne and celebrated by Aristotle, Cicero and countless others, are treasures of the soul. Their companionship, when present, is as natural as breath itself. There is no particular imperative to entertain each other... there is no sense of obligation to do something... they simply "are" as part of life itself. When absent there is no romantic pining, nor jealous suspicions regarding their affections, in the interval. There is simply the sense of something missing that one wishes to have restored. Life is complete when our friend is present.
Today "friends" are thought about in terms of having someone to "talk to" but this is not essential to the relation. It is entirely possible for "friends" to spend hours in each other's company with very few words being exchanged. This is virtually incomprehensible in the "Valley Girl" age, accentuated as it is with the omnipresent cell phones, text messaging and vacuous communication. Between "friends" though the need for spoken words is diminished because their mutual understanding is such that they often know what the other is thinking before it is said.
All this is to say that having a "friend" transforms our lives, cements its value, and is, in many cases, that which constitutes its most compelling endorsement. I really can't imagine how someone with a "friend" could commit suicide though I can readily understand how someone who had lost such a "friend" would.
I think we Christians need to reclaim this word and, more than the word, what it represents. We need to reclaim it with respect to our relation to the Lord Jesus Christ first and foremost. He said "no longer do I call you servants... but I have called you friends." (John 15:15). If we don't have at least one (and there is a definite limit to the number that it is possible to have) friend, then how can we really understand what this means? If there is not someone in our life, whose very life is so integrated in our hearts and souls that the quality of our lives is directly enhanced in fundamentally inexpressible ways by them, how can we really understand and appreciate what it means to have Jesus as our friend?
Secondly, we need to reclaim it with respect to how we view our church family. God has given us to them and them to us such that "friendship" is to bind us together. There are levels of friendship. James Aubrey called Stephen Maturin his "special friend." (If you haven't read Patrick O'Brian's nautical series with these two men as the main characters you should!) God doesn't expect us to have intimacy with every one of our Christian brothers and sisters at the same level as that of David and Jonathan. However it is to be a matter of "degree" rather than "essence" in our relations. To be of "one spirit, one soul" with our brothers and sisters is to understand their combined value and integrated gifting as an essential aspect of our individual lives. To be apart from them is to have a sense of "missing" something and longing for it to be restored.
This is nothing less than to say that we, as Christians, are to pursue building a community of "friends." The old Quakers were on the right track even if they fell short in other areas.
We Christians should lead the way in demonstrating to the world about us that superficiality in life, relations and thought, does not really constitute human behavior. It is sub-human at best and bestial at worst. True humanity lies in relation, in having friends, and is not so much built as discovered.
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