Ideals of Spiritual Friendship - Love

Love

Friendships involve a bond of love, never simply an obligation of love. Jonathan was described as loving David as himself and being one in spirit with him. This made his sacrifices and risks inconsequential.

True friends experience each other as being part of themselves in some profound way. Once I heard a woman describe such a friendship as involving the discovery of the other half of her soul. Plato used this same metaphor to characterize deep friendship: the experience of a single soul in two bodies.

Metaphorical allusions to being one in spirit or soul should not be interpreted so literally as to suggest that apart from such relationships we are missing half of our selves. But they do point towards the sense of deep connection that exists in friendships like David and Jonathan’s. This connection involves much more than recognition of an overlap of interests or values. People can be similar in personality yet not experience any deep soul connection. They can also be different from each other yet experience deep soul connection. Like Siamese twins connected in their bodies, soul friends are connected in the depths of their inner life.

According to C.S Lewis, the bond of deep friendship involves the experience of another person as what he calls a “kindred soul”. He suggests that kindred souls are people who see the same truth – or perhaps better, care about the same truth. Friendship involves passion. In contrast to romantic love, where the passion is between individuals, in friendship the passion is shared in relation to something outside of the friendship. Friends share a love of at least one thing – be it ideas, politics, art or the spiritual journey. Apart from this there would be nothing for the friendship to be about. As noted by Lewis, those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow travelers. The sense of being a kindred soul is therefore based on shared passion regarding important aspects of life.

While friends can be lovers and lovers should ideally be friends, Lewis notes some helpful contrasts between these two forms of love, if we don’t push them too far apart. Speaking metaphorically, he suggests that whereas lovers stand gazing into each other’s eyes, friends walk side by side in pursuit of their shared interests. Lovers are always talking to each other about their relationship. In contrast, friends hardly ever do so. Their focus is elsewhere – on the journey they share.

This is clear in the relationship between Jesus and the disciples. While the disciples were more than workers recruited to a cause, their focus was not just their friendship with Jesus. Jesus continually pointed them toward the will of the Father and the kingdom activities that were part of surrender to his will. Their friendship was not simply a feel-good mutual admiration society. It was built around knowing, loving and serving God.

Another important difference between friends and lovers is that friendship is much less vulnerable to jealousy. In contrast to romantic love, friends lose nothing by sharing their friends with others. There should be no place for exclusiveness in friendship. In fact, under normal circumstances, circles of friendship expand as other “kindred souls” are discovered, each addition to the circle enhancing, not diluting, the value of the network of relationships. Each person in the circle of friendship brings out particular aspects of the personality of each of the others. Each can thus be welcomed rather than warded off as a threat.

The inclusiveness of Jesus’ friendship must have been difficult for the disciples to understand. They were used to friendships that were more exclusive, where the boundaries between inner and outer circles of acquaintances were clearer. Imagine their shock when after reprimanding the unknown man who was casting out demons, Jesus pronounced all who were not against as for him (Mark 9:38-40). Imagine their shock when he welcomed sinners and outcast into his circle of friendship. Imagine their shock when women were publicly included.

Friends show their love in an endless variety of ways. Under girding these, however, is a central desire for the blessing of the other person. Friends long for each other’s well-being and do whatever they can to support it.

In caring for me, my friends support my emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical development. They do not simply want me to stay as I am. Rather, they seek my growth. They want me to become all I can be. They want me to develop my gifts and fulfill my potential. They want nothing less for me than that I become the full-orbed person I am called from eternity to be in Christ. They want nothing less than my wholeness and holiness. What a blessing is it to have even one such friendship!

It is important to note that friendship love is grounded in reality. This begins with the absence of idealization. The great weakness of romantic love is that lovers see each other through the unrealistic lens of idealization. This is, of course, why romantic love is unstable. Eventually reality sets in and shatters the unrealistic perceptions of the loved one.

True friends, in contrast, see each other realistically. Because they know each other so well, they know the weaknesses that are hidden from the view of those at a distance. This awareness, however, does not diminish the respect, affection and admiration that they feel. But they are not prone to idolization. Friends are not fascinated by each other. Nor are they awestruck. They know each other not by the outer garb of persona but by the dependable and relatively stable elements of habit, character, disposition and trait. It is this down-to-earth quality of friendships that gives them stability and endurance. They may be unromantic, but they are anchored in reality.

One incident in the Gospel record of interactions between Jesus and his disciples in particularly striking in this regard. Matthew tells the story of how Jesus called him to disciple friendship, leaving his previous work as a tax collector. Tax collectors in first-century Palestine were notoriously corrupt and almost universally despised. So when Jesus went to Matthew’s house for dinner and some of Matthew’s fellow tax collectors turned up to meet his new friend, the Pharisees criticized Jesus for eating and drinking with sinners. His response is instructive. Rather than defend Matthew and his friends, Jesus accepted their status as sinners. In fact he went further, identifying with them and declaring that it was sinners who were his priority and not the righteous, as it’s the sick, not the healthy, who need a doctor (Matthew 9:10-13)

Such grounding in reality gives true friendships their enormous growth potential. Anything that calls a person to a firmer grasp on reality calls him or her to growth. There is no meaningful growth apart from solid reality contact.

One final aspect of friendship love that should be noted is loyalty. Jonathan’s loyalty to David is at the core of the story’s timeless appeal. The same is true of Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi. Loyalty is always a gift of love. It is a gift, as it cannot be demanded. However, without it there is no real friendship – certainly nothing deserving to be called a spiritual friendship. Loyalty is given to the friend as an act of honor for the friendship and the friend.

Loyalty means faithfulness to commitments, spoken and unspoken. True friends preserve confidentiality, commit themselves to being honest with each other, avoid public criticism of each other and offer each other courtesy and respect. They carry their friends’ best interests with them, always seeking to protect and advance them. They are also prepared to protect those interests, even at personal cost. Loyalty sometimes requires a sacrifice of self-interest. But this is a small price to pay for the priceless pearl of friendship.

- David G.Benner