Concrete Practices
How to Practice Friendship
These are suggestions—nothing more—that try to capture the practical side of the reflections in this book and yours truly’s own experience. You should feel free to modify them. In fact, you should modify them. The most important step is to take to heart the truth that friendship is the point of being human. Then ask God to lead you to that fulfillment. All the rest are details—variable practices that are subject to change. With that in mind, I suggest the following.
1. Identify the true friends you have. These will be a few people, at least three and probably no more than six, who are (or you sense might become) your friends in the primary sense of the word, whose friendship is based on the good you see in each other, the good you draw out in each other, the good you see and wish to promote in the world, and the good you find in God. (If you are married, one of these friends is likely your spouse.) Pray for them daily, and give thanks to God that he has given you them. Contact them regularly. If you can’t meet with them, speak with them by telephone at least monthly for enough time to share your lives and to hear their “living voice.” Meet with them face to face whenever possible; it seems to me that a personal annual visit is the minimum. Seek to do things with them (meals, projects, exercises, events, and so on). Enjoy their company and with them seek the good. Hold each other to high but realistic standards, yet do so encouragingly. If one of your friends tells you something about yourself that is hard to hear, thank her and take it to heart; this doesn’t mean that you need to agree but rather that you will seriously consider it. Talk with each other about God, about love, about the things in the world that are good. Be sure to talk sometimes about friendship itself, not in an inward-turning way but in a way that opens you and your friend to embrace the world. Any true friendship will open out into the world—will reach for the good. Or it may already be situated there; you might well have become friends because you were together engaged in a common project (at work, play, church, or elsewhere). Remember that the time you spend on and with your friends is the most important time in the world.
2. Keep old friends in mind. You have former friends, people you used to be close to but who, for some reason, have fallen away. This need not be a concern. Of course, if there was a harm done or some sort of sin that caused the separation, then you should identify it and repent, as we have learned as Christians to do. But generally, you have former friends because of happenstance—as happens when someone moves to a new city. Realize that such former friends remain friends, even though your friendship is not presently being actualized. Such a friendship is “on hold.” Pray for them whenever you think of them, commending them to God’s ongoing care. But do not feel guilty that you lack the time to keep these friendships going. We are finite beings. God’s promise is that in his fullness these friendships will be enjoyed again. Look forward to that day, and in the meantime, if it happens that you can do something for a former friend, then do so.
3. Be open to new friends, even as you seek to deepen the friendships you have. When the kingdom comes in its fullness, the salvation that Jesus has wrought will be consummated in a universal friendship embracing all his friends. We cannot yet imagine how that will be. But we can anticipate it in the concrete expectation that God always intends to give us a new friend, and then another. So when you find yourself drawn to someone, consider whether God might be offering him or her to you as a new friend. It might not be so—friendship takes serious time and commitment—but it might be so. You should aim neither to make friends too quickly (for that prevents you from the depth that friendship needs) nor to avoid making new friends (perhaps out of fear or tiredness or complacency).
4. Aim to have friendly relations with the many other people in your life. Insofar as you can, learn their names. Show yourself glad to see them. Appreciate what each of you brings to the common life. I am thinking here of coworkers, neighbors, relatives, store clerks, bus drivers, doctors—all the people you meet on your daily walk. As Oliver O’Donovan puts it, when we are friendly with someone, we are saying that although we are not actually friends, if it should turn out in God’s good time that we were to become friends, that would be “no bad thing.”1 Which is to say again that you have a place in your heart that is open to having more friends, and you would be glad for that circle of friends to expand again and again. Our being friendly is a way of showing our readiness for that future consummation, when all the friends of Jesus will be the friends of all the friends of Jesus.
5. Love every human being, as our Lord bids us. In our present life, this Christian love must be distinguished from friendship. Unlike friendship, universal Christian love does not discriminate between the good and the bad, and it does not look for reciprocity. It does not overshare; it holds back from inappropriate openness. It is, as it were, a friendliness that extends to the unfriendly. It is not friendship, because it is unidirectional; it is not intimate sharing. Nonetheless, it is an offer. To your enemies, to people who seem to you to be on a wicked path, indeed (if it were possible so to judge) to people who really are committed to wickedness, you are still to offer love. This takes such concrete forms as a basic respect of human dignity, a recognition of a common humanity in another person, a desire to prove yourself a neighbor when that is possible (again recognizing human finitude). You should pray for your enemies, that God would turn their hearts to him. When Christ’s kingdom comes in its fullness, there will be no difference between this universal human love and friendship: it is a distinction necessitated only by the persistence of sin in this in-between time. So in this meantime, do some concrete works of charity in your life. Indeed, talk over with your friends what concrete works you can join in together. That too is a way to prepare the ground for the spread of friendship.
How to Practice Friendship with God
Again, these are nothing more than suggestions.
1. Read some Scripture daily, directly encountering it. If you turn to a commentary for help, go back from that commentary to the text. I repeat the point, because nothing can take its place: directly encounter the text. Have a plan for doing so, at least an initial plan (e.g., to read for fifteen minutes each morning from Saint Matthew). A lectionary can be a good guide; there are also schemes for reading the Bible through in a year. You may find that when you finish a book (e.g., Matthew), you want to go back and start it again. Do so! Ask God to fill your heart with a longing to be familiar with his written Word. Seek to understand God’s character. Seek above all for him to show you his strange friendship, that although he is the creator of the world, he loves it and gave his life to establish friendship with you (and me and uncountable others).
2. Daily communicate with God as with a friend. Imagine Jesus is right beside you. What do you want to say to him? Say it—or, as I do presently, write it. Or draw a picture for him. You need dedicated time for this, and it should be every day. I think fifteen minutes is minimal. Friendship takes time—a truth that applies to friendship with God as much as any other friendship. Many of us feel that our lives are too busy, that we don’t have time for friendship. I suspect everyone feels that at times. But friendship should not be sacrificed for other busyness. Your daily talking with God needs to be informal. It needs to be in your own words. It needs to be honest. It can include anything, from a foot that’s hurting, to a child who’s in trouble, to a problem at work, to financial desires or worries. It can of course include talk about sex. It must include talk about things that embarrass you, or attract you, or make you happy. The point is intimacy: nothing should be excluded from your conversation with this friend.
3. Talk with God about your friendship with him. Perhaps, like me, you have wondered how Jesus can be your truest friend of all. There is of course no competition between real friends: friends are not jealous of one another but rejoice in sharing their love with new friends. Yet with all my other friends, I can, for instance, share a hug, their voices can enter my ear, and so on. So I ask Jesus, “How are you my friend?” He talks with me in prayer, and he gives me himself in Communion. But still I can’t look into his eyes. So I tell him, “I long to see your eyes.” Expressing this longing is an important practice of friendship with God.
4. Find opportunities in your life to experience the transcendence of God, his power, his awesomeness, his beauty. This might mean visiting a grand church when you can, kneeling, staring, smelling. It might happen in your Sunday worship. Some people climb mountains. Others listen for birds. Some are just suddenly caught, as they walk, by bright berries on a bush. In Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead, John Ames sits in the silence of a simple church, waiting for the sun to rise.2 The one who holds all this in being offers each of us the chance to be lifted out of ourselves. You need to find these divine invitations to be still and know he is God.
5. Try to think about God throughout the day. Try to offer short prayers whenever there is a space for them in your life. Ask God to remind you that he is always with you. This, I think, is the meaning of praying always. Your friend is always with you. Indeed, in these little prayers, you may sense the difference you make to Jesus. You might hear him say, “I like the way you’re doing that” or “Do you see how you’ve helped this person?”—which is to say, you might get a glimpse of how you are pleasing him (in addition, of course, to the important self-knowledge that comes from our sins). Keeping your friend in mind throughout the day is one concrete way to see how divine friendship has both giving and receiving.
6. Look for ways to become cognizant of this great mystery: not only do we desire to be a friend with God, but God himself also desires to be a friend with us. The awesome truth is that the longing goes two ways. Not only do you want him but he also wants you. (Remember the Song of Songs!) Consider the bread and wine of the Holy Table. This is his gift to you of himself, a true sign of his longing to be one with you. He wants, even as we want, for him to dwell in us and us in him.
7. Let your life be full of thanksgiving. Thank God daily most especially for the friends he has given you. Let him know that even as you are glad to be his friend now, you also look forward to that great day of sharing in his friendship with all his friends.