By Bishop Ann Svennungsen
Sitting by a Minnesota lake over the Fourth of July, I marveled watching my daughters with their friends. College friends had flown from Philadelphia and Indianapolis with their babies to be with my younger daughter. My older daughter was circled by two families whose friendships were made stronger because of the joy their school-age children found in each other.
Friendship. How does it happen? Why is it important?
We are created for relationships – but find ourselves wary about making friends. Human evolution plays a role in this hesitancy. We have survived by knowing that the risk of mistaking a foe for a friend could cost us our very lives. Mistaking a friend for a foe might cost us a friend. But, we would still be alive.
“Intimacy starts with attention and attunement.”
Today, we may not fear such consequences. However, making friends is not always named in our list of life goals or New Year’s Resolutions. And yet, psychologists, neuroscientists, (and faith leaders) agree that “intimacy with other people … is one of the most profound ways to be happier, healthier, and calmer.” (NY Times, November 20, 2019: Emma Pattee, “How to Have Closer Friendships (and Why You Need Them”).
As vaccinations make gatherings possible, now is a good time to “work on our friendships.” The Times suggests five steps:
- Create a foundation of security. (Hint: answer that text.) Before we attempt closeness, we need to feel secure.
- Pay close attention. Intimacy starts with attention and attunement.
- Let yourself be known. The next time you’re with a friend, start diverting the conversation into exposing more vulnerability.
- Ask for help. Lean on your friends.
- Accept that closeness isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some of us need dozens of connections; some of us need only two or three.
WHEN RECALLING BIBLICAL friendships, we think of David and Jonathan, Mary and Elizabeth, Naomi and Ruth. New Testament scholar, Dr. Gail O’Day, challenges us to look to Jesus as Friend – especially as he is revealed in John’s Gospel. In Jesus’ farewell (John 15), he calls the disciples his friends. In the cultural world of the first century, friendship included two key characteristics: a willingness to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (Aristotle) and the courage to speak the truth as opposed to “being a flatterer” (Plutarch). Flattery is primarily used for selfish reasons; speaking the truth in love is a mark of authentic friendship.
“Why is friendship important?”
In Jesus, “these two friendship traits are connected. Jesus is willing to speak and act boldly throughout his life because he is willing to lay down his life. … Friendship in John is the enactment of the love of God that is incarnate in Jesus and that Jesus boldly makes available to the world” (from “Jesus as Friend in the Gospel of John”, by Gail R. O’Day, in Interpretation, April 2004, pl. 157; emphasis in quotation is mine).
I marvel at the friendships my daughters have built. And, I have hope that the generations coming after us may teach us anew the God-given gift of friendship.