Hello again, blogosphere. It's been a while.
Today* I went to see the new Captain America movie. This is significant for three reasons. Firstly, I don't often go to the movie theater because I'm cheap, and when I do it's usually an event instead of a spur-of-the-moment decision. Secondly, I'm not a big superhero-movie fan, so me going to see this movie of all things is pretty weird. Thirdly, and this is most significant, I went with one of my guy friends, and this was the second time we'd hung out this week.
This school year has been a tough one for me, mostly because I've felt pretty consistently lonely. It's an odd thing to move back home after five years of school. All of the people I used to know and love have gotten older and left, and I'm left with a shell of a town that, beautiful as it is, seems to have lost most of its heart. I still know people, of course, since my town could all enroll at my school twice over and still have spots left (and in towns as small as mine, you know just about everyone), but I don't know hardly anyone well. What you're left with is a bunch of shallow relationships that you don't make any deeper because everyone assumes they already know you even though you've gone away for five years and everything's changed. But hey, he still goes to church and sings in the choir and acts in community theater. He must be the same old Jacob. Of course, they didn't know me that well before, either.
Anyway, it's been hard to break into circles and find people to connect with, especially having been obscenely busy doing a long-term sub gig at the high school for four months in the middle of it. The other day, though, I happened to cross paths with an old camp friend. We sort of grew up together--in high school, for a while, we were kind of doppelgangers and would get confused for one another all the time--and we spent two summers together working at summer camp, but still I don't think we were ever very close. We got talking and realized we were both pretty lonely and dreadfully bored, so we set up a time to get together the next week.
On Tuesday we met at a local hot dog place. It was new in town, and the only place I know of that you can get mac & cheese on your hot dog. (Is that a thing? Really?) We sat down with our incredible edibles at about 4 and didn't stop talking until 6:30, at which point I was almost an hour late to my next thing. I was surprised to find conversation to be so easy with this guy that I had known for years without really knowing hardly at all. I was even more surprised to get a text at 1:30 that night (/morning?) saying that he really enjoyed it and wanted to get together again on Thursday, which we did.
I was secretly glad that his roommates couldn't make it to the movie. As much as it would be great to get to know them, I kind of wanted to spend more time alone with my friend. Some time after the trailers ended, amidst our whispered "Woah"s and "What the heck?"s and "Did you see that!?"s (or maybe that was pretty much just me. I'm not a particularly quiet movie-goer) I started to feel something I hadn't felt in a long time. Here I was, sitting next to a friend, enjoying something together. As I realized the simple beauty of this sudden togetherness, a thankfulness suddenly started shouting inside me like a redneck's truck stereo on the Fourth of July (is that just a small-town Michigan thing?) and it was all I could do to keep myself giggling. Yes, sometimes I giggle, and I'm ok with that.
Due to circumstances that I'll probably write about in the near future, I've always been a little hesitant to show or even feel affection for my guy friends. But I've done a lot of reading lately, and it's causing me to re-evaluate what is "good" and what is "bad" in friendships. In the past, that internal warmness of delight in my friend probably would have made me terribly uncomfortable, but the other day (I'm always so terribly slow at writing these posts) instead of quelching it** I risked basking in the glow of it. I allowed it to inspire a wondering at the beauty of the world, a being-in-awe at the nature of friendship and love. Slowly, the corners of my mouth started stretching upward, and I found myself grinning and thanking God for the person sitting next to me--for a friend.
I think our culture has done us a disservice in reserving affection for romantic partners only, in the process diminishing friendship to a strange, distant sort of relationship that often looks more like what co-workers would share rather than what family would. I haven't come to many conclusions about it yet, but without getting too theological or doing too much hastily-put-together proof-texting, I have a feeling that the "Love one another"s in Scripture weren't just of the detached, "Don't-make-me-touch-him" type, but of the sort that requires great sacrifice and, maybe consequently, great devotion and even affection. It seems a little silly to assume that our friendships (perhaps out of a disproportionately-heightened defense of personal chastity?) should be completely devoid of feeling, but that's often the message that we Christians send to one another, especially to the guys. Men don't feel anything, you know. *facepalm*
Anyway, the surge of feeling pointed me toward God and his goodness and grace toward us. How good to feel not only loved and valued by another, but to feel love for and value another! What a wonderful thing to know this man as my brother and to feel the joy that comes from that! And how incredible to know that this friendship in some way points toward the friendship (what an astounding word to be able to use!) that we share with the God of the Universe that made us and loves us! Sometimes that relationship seems too abstract to be of any good, but some days, like Thursday, I am blown away by the incredible intimacy that we share. Maybe, in part, that's why God gave us human friendship: to know that we are known, not only by one another, but by the one who made us in the first place.
With much love and much hope,
Jacob
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*"Today" being, at this point, Thursday, two days ago, when I started writing this blog post. I don't know how more consistent bloggers find the time. I really don't.
**I am finally coming to fully utilize the capability of hyperlinks!! I never realized how much non-standard verbage*** I use, but as a bit of a word nerd, it kind of fascinates me, and I'm glad not to have to defend myself in the actual text of the post. Not that anyone except me honestly cares.
***But I care, and apparently 'verbage' isn't really standard, either, but is even more confusing. I mean it as, apparently, a "rare alternate spelling of verbiage," which itself means "diction, wording, verbal expression" according to the word's second OED definition. In case anyone was wondering, which you probably weren't.
No comments:
Post a Comment