Thursday, October 15, 2020

The Profound Simplicity of Friendship

 

Thursday, October 15, 2020

I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.  John 15:15

What Jesus said to his disciples presents the stark opposite of the culture of false images, or merely pretense, which we so often find in today’s relationships.  The profoundness of this startles me, as well as draws me into its’ very center, because it requires the destruction of every vestige of personal protection, opening oneself to another human, unreserved, vulnerable, trusting, and without recourse.  It is to be naked of any covering on who we are at our core.  And, to do that with another human being (given the knowledge of how that works out, beginning with, say Cain and Abel) is, well, more than a rare miracle.

In C. S. Lewis’ fertile mind the clarity of such a miracle produced a keen insight into true friendship:

In a circle of true Friends each man is simply what he is: stands for nothing but himself.  No one cares twopence about anyone else’s family, profession, class, income, race, or previous history.  Of course you will get to know about most of these in the end.  But casually.  They will come out bit by bit, to furnish an illustration or an analogy, to serve as pegs for an anecdote; never for their own sake.  That is the kingliness of Friendship.  We meet like sovereign princes of independent states, abroad, on neutral ground, freed from our contexts.  This love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections.  At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or sister, chief, colleague, or subordinate. Not among our Friends.  It is an affair of disentangled, or stripped, minds.  Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.[1]

I believe this simplicity of unmasked (or naked) personalities also carries with it much more in the way of possible, if not necessary, complexity.  In fact the very unmasking of the complexity of our createdness by God promises so much more.     It is only when the human stands before God and man, totally unclothed, devoid of excuses, choices, resources, or remedies that we can truly be known, even to our own minds.

I believe this is what Jesus was uncovering for his disciples in this declaration of friendship.  If it is true that the unexamined life is not worth living, the inverse shines just as brightly, and with more promise:  the fully-examined life is the whole point of living.

For You Today

You cannot create or demand friendship; you can only recognize the presence or absence of it.  Our calling is to do that, and treasure what God has given.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title image:  source unknown           W   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For more posts on friendship see:  The Last Great Race on Earth and Blessed Enemy



[1] C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 1960, (Edition:  http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/Ebooks/ ), p.49  (with thanks to Brainpickings BY MARIA POPOVA)



 

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