Friends

This morning I read a brief article on friendship. While the article focused on the concept of friendship with God, it brought out a point or two of interest in human friendships, too.

One of the things that struck me was the friendship requires equality. On one level—the level of plain and simple humanity—that leaves us all with the possibility of friendship, since we’re all human. But beyond that, I can observe that the closest friendships seem to exist between people who are most equal in the areas that are of most importance to them.

As an example, I have had some of my best friendships with people who are much older than I am—and that is possible because age just doesn’t matter. On the other hand, I don’t believe I’ve ever had much of a friendship with someone whose intelligence is noticeably greater or noticeably lesser than mine. Such variables tend to make communication laborious. Though no two persons can ever be entirely equal on every level, some types of inequality seem to put a full stop to an ongoing relationship.

Some may say that they are friends with people who are not at all their equal, but I would say it’s more to the point to look at the equality that exists in areas that matter to you. For instance, you may say that because you have friends who are on different financial levels than you are, that your friends are not your equal. But if that is the case, clearly financial status doesn’t matter to you. Instead, perhaps you can be friends only with people who are interested in health—and share many of your views—or interested in movies, or in music, or in hi-tech stuff, or farming, or who share your political views. Maybe none of that matters, as long as they home school their kids, or attend the same church that you do.

The bottom line is that friends need an area in which they can form a strong connection—and you just can’t do that if you aren’t equal. One hears stories of odd friendships between people who don’t appear to be equals, but I believe these are merely people who have what we would perceive as odd priorities. They are equal on a level that the rest of us deem non-existent or unimportant. A friendship between a black person and a white person seems unequal only to someone who considers race to be important, but there are Ohio State football fans who would consider it entirely impossible to be friends with a University of Michigan alumnus. (Meanwhile, the rest of us say, ‘what on earth does that matter?’)

As the days go on, I feel less and less guilty about who I am and am not friends with. The effort of attempting to forge an unequal friendship only robs me of the energy I could put to better purpose elsewhere.

Where your heart is, there you’ll find your friends.

If this message has been forwarded to you, and you would like to be added to Charissa’s mailing list please send your request to info@charissaschalk.com. Thank you.