No Frosting, Please

A little can be a lot. Especially with friendships.



For a long time, I was a friendship skeptic. A disbeliever. A scoffer at those who’s experience testified to the uncommon gift of true friendship. The kind that is resilient and long-lasting.

Now I believe.
 
Through triumph and trial I’ve come to understand that real friendship wraps itself around authenticity. A simple but elusive qualifier, an authentic person is honest about themselves — with themselves, and with others. They know the pull of dark things yet strive to offer what’s genuine and true. Positive and gracious, they live with quiet, unassuming confidence. They resist doctoring their persona and crafting facades.

They’re unfrosted.

From my unfrosted friends I reap a bumper crop of relational nourishment. Together, we tend and till the soil of our souls. We gently receive what’s true of the other. We share and laugh and celebrate success. We also, with compassionate authenticity, pull from one another the brambles of pride, pity, and selfishness. Linked by commitment and love, we stumble and gallop and skip and slide and occasionally stand still on our predestined pathway. A troop of pilgrims, we are, bound by a sticky grace infused with divine elasticity.
 
Over runny eggs and mediocre coffee, during spontaneous sidewalk conversing, through sandwich shop dialogue woven with 80’s tunes, and when seated side-by-side in the red dirt of Kenya, my desire is to be an authentic, patient, unfrosted friend.

To my few, my unfrosted few!

“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.” ~ Aristotle

Alone with my Friends

Peace and quiet. I collect them. In my home they’re readily found before the sun rises, mixed with the scent of freshly brewed coffee. They prefer a dimly lit room. They also have an affinity for my desk – the one I’ve pieced together like Frankenstein from mismatched chunks of walnut-colored tabletop. I hoard as many peaceful, quiet moments as I can before they’re chased into seclusion by bright lights and waking children.

Despite my propensity for introversion, I’m not anti-social or a recluse. I think people are great. I just enjoy moments without them.

Regular infusions of solitude refresh my perspective. They energize my work. Silence helps unclutter noisy thoughts and smooth pathways to clarity. Quiet mornings lead me toward spiritual renewal and reorientation.

But sometimes my solitary re-creation becomes conflicted, even paradoxical as my mind fills with thoughts of…people. Faces and conversations and shared experiences. In the serenity of my solo time I drift into pondering the mystery and wonder of being with people.

Sitting this week at Franken-desk in the pre-dawn stillness I’ve been rehashing a collection of recent experiences. A montage of relational highlights that include soccer games and a poetry reading. Wiring three-way switches, installing can lights, and rerouting furnace duct. A video parody. A pair of playful beavers. Eating half-chickens and tailgating through a Chicago rush hour. Comedy that wasn’t, goose poop that was (sort of) and a hotel fire alarm.

Broken trust. Tears of lament. Soulful petitions in a rain-spattered parking lot. The embrace of authentic friendship.

Confessions, celebrations, classic literature, and an ancient language. A highly viscous (but tasty) squash soup. A tale of providence and obedience. Children and their prayers of blessing. New connections and shared passions. A common faith.

We are made to relate. Be together: face-to-face, hand-in-hand, soul with soul. It is good to participate in humanity’s sacred solidarity. To be communal. To give and take.

I like my alone time. I like people more.

Thanks, friends.

"What's friendship, when all's done, but the giving and taking of wounds?” 

~ Frederick Buechner, Godric, p.7

The Crying Man

Graveside.

He’s standing there now. A woman sits crouched at his feet, shaking with sobs. The grave has engulfed her brother, who was precious to her.

Slumped on His shoulder is another woman. Sister to the first, her fingers ebb and flow with constriction upon His shoulder, syncing with erratic bursts of breath that flirt with His neck. His body gently resonates with her waves of sorrow. The woman’s ever-freshening tears have darkened the front of his cloak, bringing a poignant unity between them.

He finds his emotions building as cries from black-clothed mourners continuously loop their cacophonous wail. Closing His eyes, scenes flash across his mind with rapidity – the dead man, these sisters, shared meals, raucous laughter, late-night conversations, confrontations.

His eyes begin to burn as they prime a flow of salty grief. His mouth is dry but he reflexively swallows. Plagued with emotional tightness, His throat resists. Thorns and thistles. Life and death. This is the curse.

Gone is Lazarus.

The man, Jesus, weeps.

A tear pushes through the dust of Palestine that lightly coats His cheek. A second tear chases the first and nestles in His beard. His chest undulates with erratic heaves as He tries to dampen the outburst of grief welling inside. The woman at his shoulder shifts her arms to hold Him, briefly suspending her grief to offer comfort. He loved her brother. Great friends. Death has robbed their joy.

Jesus fully enters this interlude of grief. On His heart rests mankind’s dilemma and the burden of loss. He embraces the deep soul sorrow of separation through death. He doesn’t rescue by cueing the next scene. Instead, He stands there.

Crying.

Unashamed. Feeling the pain of life in His humanity.

Through His tears, Jesus offered uniquely human streams of compassion for his friends. Streams of anguish for our cursed humanity. Streams of love that foreshadow another flow.

Jesus is not above our pain. He is the answer to it.

Read the whole story in John 11.

Lone Ranger Manhood

Last week I was privileged to be a special guest.

No, I wasn’t invited to join Prince William and Kate at the London Aquatics Centre to cheer Phelps, Adlington, Lochte and Franklin. It was better than that. I was selected to be a guest blogger for Trevin Wax. Trevin’s blog is called Kingdom People and can be found on The Gospel Coalition website (www.thegospelcoalition.org).

Even though Trevin and I haven’t met, I think he’s amazing (yes, I admit my bias). He blogs daily. You should follow him. I’ve been encouraged, educated, challenged and motivated through his writing and collection of valuable tidbits from around the web. He also has a keen eye for excellent guest bloggers.

Anyhow, click here to read my guest post. Below is the long-version of the link.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2012/07/31/you-are-not-called-to-be-the-lone-ranger/ 

In other news, my family is heading-out on an epic American West adventure. I’m sure our travels will provide plenty of fodder for future posts here on “Dwelling…”

Stay tuned.