Intro:
This was actually the first “Leaf” I thought of writing about, and had been thinking about this topic since November or so. But it isn’t the easiest to just whip up a quick couple of paragraphs about.
I like to think I’m a nice balance of extrovert & introvert, but if I had to pick one, I would undoubtedly have to say that I am truly an extrovert. As much as I relish my “me time,” I definitely draw energy from being with people. I meet new people with relative ease, and tend to be viewed as a well-rounded, fun & amiable young woman. But, that says nothing about my friendships. A person can be generally well-liked by everyone they meet, but not have true, deep, valuable friendships.
One quotation about friendship says,
“A friend is one with whom you are comfortable, to whom you are loyal, throughwhom you are blessed, and for whom you are grateful.” (William Arthur Ward)
It’s a memorable sort of saying that holds truth. But to take it a little further, consider the personal choice and intentional action indicated by this quotation;
“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth,and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.” (George Washington)
Finally, to dig a little deeper, the substance and fullness of the relationship is that,
“A true friend unbosoms (confides) freely, advises justly, assists readily,adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.” (William Penn)
These are the kinds of friendships I want to develop & focus on; the kind that take time and effort, but as a result run deep and strong with immeasurable value.
Love is Priority
I truly feel that the relationships we build in this life are more important than any of the jobs we hold, places we go, or accomplishments we attain. Too often, I hear those stories about people who’ve reached the end of their lives with the regret that they didn’t invest more in their meaningful relationships, and I don’t want to be one of them. To add weight to the seriousness with which I regard this, consider the Christian teaching that God is, and is building, a Family (a great commentary of key scriptures is at: http://www.gnmagazine.org/booklets/WG/familyofgod.htm). His goal is the unity and harmony of His creation, and for us to become like Him. 1 John 4:8 says that “God is love,” it’s the first of the fruits of the Spirit listed in Gal 5:22, Christ said His disciples would be known by their love for one another (John 13:35), and Paul spends a whole chapter (1 Cor 13) talking about this “greatest gift.” Love is defined and described in many ways, but the common thread is that it cannot be developed apart from relationships. When we become spirit beings in God’s Family, the two things we carry with us from this life are the character we develop and the relationships we build. True, our character and relationships are affected by the experiences we go through in this life, so our jobs and travels and accomplishments are important, but rather than allowing them to control our lives, we should be using them as tools to develop and enhance the more important aspects of our lives.
“Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.” (Sydney Smith)
All that being said, lately I’ve been feeling like I’ve gotten pretty good at being independent. Too good, actually. The past few years have supposedly been the time for me to “take advantage of opportunities” and “enjoy the freedom to focus on myself” (my education, my personal direction, etc), so ties to other people have been sacrificed. And, since I’ve spent those same years living with people who don’t fit into my closest family & friends circles, I’ve gotten pretty used to sharing living space without sharing life. In fact, sometimes I nearly feel that I’ve forgotten what it’s like being part of a deeply-meaningful unit like family or a close circle of friends. Oh, I have my family, and I have my friends, but they come second to everything else; to work, to school, to me. Taking time to call gets pushed off “until I can get ‘xyz’ done,” but then there’s always another “abc” on its heels that gets in the way. Oh, and that “freedom” thing? Not so cool as it’s cracked up to be. Yes, it’s nice that I don’t have to worry about leaving my responsibilities to a husband & children & pets & house for long periods of time to go on some adventure, but often adventures lack a certain meaningfulness when they’re not shared with friends. It’s so much more fun to have “oh, remember when…” dialogues than to provide monologues on “it was so cool, I guess you had to be there” moments.
“No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?” (Elbert Hubbard)
Christian Fellowship
Now, lest you think I’ve gone and fallen into a hole that I’m complaining I can’t get out of, let me reassure you that, in fact, one of the reasons this post has taken me so long to write is that I’ve been taking advantage of the many recent opportunities I’ve had to spend Sabbaths with brethren, both friends and “adopted” families. So, of course I’ve spent that time fellowshipping instead of writing! These visits have been wonderful, and are probably what keep me sane these days.
On the weekend I went north to see Talitha & Andrea, my 2-scriptures-per-week calendar coincidently quoted Mat 18:20,
“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst.”
Being with people who are brought together by God’s Holy Spirit is a wonderful, beneficial, and important part of a Christian’s life. According to Strong’s, the word used for “fellowship” in the Greek means “partnership, participation, or social intercourse,” and comes from one meaning “a sharer, associate, companion, partaker, or partner.”
For an online sermon about fellowship, listen to: http://members.ucg.org/sermon/why-fellowship
For more reading, see Jeremy’s posts “On Friendship,” & “On Fellowship” found on his “Sabbath Thoughts” Facebook page.
When time is taken for fellowship with brethren and special moments with family & friends, I want that time to be deep, significant, meaningful and edifying. In December I went to both the UCG-sponsored Winter Family Weekend in Louisville,KY and the UCG Challenger II Rock Climbing program at Mt. Lemmon in Arizona. They were back-to-back, and gave me a jam-packed two weeks of fellowship to soak in & process.
At WFW I got to see many people I haven’t seen in a very long time; ABC classmates, camp friends, and brethren from previous congregations I’ve attended. I also met new people; friends of friends, faces I recognized from photos online, names I recall being included in stories, and a few I had talked to without ever previously meeting. It was an invigorating whirlwind of activity and socializing, full of hugs & laughter, smiles & photos, good food & late nights. When it was all over, though, I was a little sad that while trying to make the most of seeing as many people as I could, it also meant that the time I did have with people was short & in some ways superficial. Not “superficial” as in “fake,” but as in “surface-y.” Now, months after WFW, the moments I remember & treasure are those times when I had one-on-one time with dear friends, sharing heart-to-heart conversation.
I flew straight from WFW to CII and jumped into a week of camping & rock climbing with a much smaller group of people. There, everyone spends the entire day together as one group, tasks are accomplished as teams, activities and goals are shared, and evenings are spent sitting around the camp fire talking. The focus of the week is developing ourselves for leadership with an emphasis on “the 3 Cs of Character;” Conviction, Commitment, and Courage. Most of the participants also had deep personal goals. Many of these were shared with each other in a heart-to-heart group discussion, and it opened the door for continued one-on-one & small-group talks.
With all the available fellowship time during the week, one of our discussions was about the difference between frivolous conversation and edifying conversation. So often it’s too easy to allow day-to-day idle chatter to clutter our thoughts & conversation, even amongst brethren. But we’re called to think on virtuous things (see Philippians 4:8) and our speech should be seasoned with grace (Colossians 3:6) and edifying to others (Ephesians 4:29). With that reminder freshly in our minds, I noticed a positive shift in casual “down time” talks.
Authenticity
One of my personal highlights of CII was having incredibly open, honest, & trusting conversations with a brother I’d only just met there. We were genuine with each other, shared struggles we’ve been facing, and were able to just talk things out with someone we quickly identified as worthy of the title “friend.” Sadly, it’s been very difficult to stay in regular contact, but we each know that the other would be there for an ear if needed, our respect for each other means there’s a trust & type of protection, and the camaraderie we’ve established means that whenever the opportunity presents itself, we’d totally be up for hanging out.
These two socially-packed weeks reminded me that regardless of how long I’ve known them, my best friends are the ones I’m open with. I think back over all my closest friends currently & in the past, and the people I’d name first are not necessarily the ones I’ve seen the most, but the ones I’ve shared significant quality time, experiences, and conversation with. Some of those friendships might have taken something difficult to work through before we got to that kind of openness, others might have been like that right from the start, but all of them are dear brothers & sisters, friends with whom I’ve shared my heart & mind, friends who know who I am and what I value.
I work with the general public on a regular basis. I also, as previously mentioned, share living space with people I’m not really deep friends with. I’ve come to see that for many it’s simple to create a public persona; to say what you want to display yourself as the person you want others to think you are. But then you can feel like a fraud if you don’t live up to your proclamations, even if that public claim is that you’re “genuine.” The beauty of the deeply authentic friendships is that those people see through all that. It’s OK for truly trusted friends to see your unedited version, the deeper “you.” You don’t have to fear judgment because there’s a confidence that they know your flaws and love you anyway, and even if you totally mess up, they’ll still love and support you. And if you’re just plain silly, well, chances are they’ll be silly with you.
“It is one of the blessings of old friends is that you can afford to be stupid with them.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
So What This All Means…
1. I want to make sure that my most important relationship, with God, is always top priority. Without it, nothing else will work right, and nothing else is really ultimately worth it.
"You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage - pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically - to say 'no' to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside. The enemy of the 'best' is often the 'good.' " (Stephen Covey)
2. I want to put in the effort it takes to stay better connected to my family while I’m physically separated from them, and want reasonably-near-future plans to include being closer again.
“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained” (Winston Churchill)
3. I want to make sure that my current self-preservationist-independence doesn’t prevent me from being involved in my friends’ lives & vice versa. I sense in myself a possibility of becoming so used to operating in an “only the essentials to get to the goal” approach, & so set in my ways & my life that I lose touch with the true compassion for others & healthy willingness to yield to others’ wills that I’ve worked so hard to develop. God designed us to need each other, and I must constantly be aware of how I relate to others. Gotta keep watering those friendship gardens. ;-)
“Love must be learned, and learned again; there is no end to it.” (Katherine Anne Porter)
Wrapping It Up
I think that about covers everything on this topic that I’ve been mulling over for the past, oh, 5 months! Some of the quotations I included came from my thinkexist.com collection and some came from other friends’ collections (with much credit to one brother’s Facebook page). There were a few others that I felt were related & worth sharing but didn’t quite fit into the flow, so for your further pondering, I’ll include them here:
"Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still." (Robert Sternberg)
"You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough." (Frank Crane)
"Trouble is part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough." (Dinah Shore)
My apologies for such a long post (this is 4 ½ pages in Word), and for leaving so much time since the last post, but now that this is done, hopefully my future writings will return to the shorter & more frequent schedule. :-)
“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” (2Co 13:14)
~Michal Lisa~
