Friendship

 

"Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more beings. In this sense, the term connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection and respect along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis. Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other, often to the point of altruism. Their tastes will usually be similar and may converge, and they will share enjoyable activities. They will also engage in mutually helping behavior, such as exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship. A friend is someone who may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective behaviors. Yet for many, friendship is nothing more than the trust that someone or something will not harm them."(1)

I have been thinking a lot about friendship lately, how simple and complex friendship can be sometimes. How great it can be to have someone who we feel really knows us, who is connected to us... and other times how complicated it seems to navigate those friendships within life, whether it is our own inability to function as ones friend or their inability to continue functioning with us on the level of friend. Some friendships last a long time while many of them seem to only last for a season.

How people even become friends sometimes seems to make absolutely no sense logically. Why do we decide to talk to the person on our left rather than our right? Why do some connect with us on this level of friend instead of the level of merely acquaintance? As a person who only has a few close friends, I cherish the friendships I have, seeing them as a blessing from God with the ability to offer both companionship and great joy to my own life (hopefully to my friends life as well).

In general, what is friendship anyway, except a commitment to relationship between two people? Even if that commitment is unspoken, it is said by actions and by responses. Otherwise wouldn’t they only be an acquaintance? In friendship, there is a communication, commitment, and reciprocity that is vital to the continuing of that relationship and its function between the two people involved. If one person changes, either the relationship will change or it will dissolve. Mostly there are two choices in any friendship at any time: the first is the continuing growth and vitality of the friendship while the second is the decline and dissolving of that friendship until there is (practically) nothing is left.

"In emulating [Jesus] one loves not only those deserving of love, but all in the company, lovable or not…. This sounds like what Aristotle and Aquinas called 'benevolentia', the love that wills another’s good. It comes from the stance of one situated above. In contrast is the love of desire, 'concupiscentia', in which one hopes to gain something from the person loved. Its primary motive is need of fulfillment. Better than both is 'amicitia', the love of friendship. That term sounds pallid [or dull] to our modern ear, but the teachers who made the distinction ranked it as the highest of the three. It is the love God had for us and it puts us on par with God. This is the agape of the New Testament."(2)

~ Daniel

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship
(2) Gail R. O’Day. “The Gospel of John: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflection,” in the New Interpreters Bible. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 756.

Interesting Articles about Friendship:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=20061102-000001&page=1
http://www.ehow.com/how_2004357_repair-friendship.html
http://www.cyberparent.com/friendship/maintain.htm
http://www.burnsurvivorsttw.org/stories/friendship.html

Others:
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/giftedforleadership/2008/10/whats_missing_in_friendship.html
http://blog.todayschristianwoman.com/walkwithme/2008/10/the_friendship_secret.html

Pic:
http://www.desicomments.com/uploads/2008/02/friendship-graphics1.jpg