Compassion and Confession

In a world of increasingly lonely and separated people, where technologies that were meant to bring us all together have separated us, I think we need to take a new look at what friendship means. I have around 300 friends on facebook. What does that really mean? I think it means I at one point in time was friendly with or an acquaintance of around 300 people. But how many were truly friends?

Friendship has less to do with convenience and compatibility than it does with love. That love may take time to develop, but that is what makes a true friend.

So many profess to desire community, but what is really desired are all the glamorous aspects of community and fellowship. We want the sense of being a part of something, we want the caring and love. But what we want to exclude is the compassion (the suffering along with others), and the confession. Until we can be real with each other and share our faults as well as our virtues, we have yet to master friendship. Until we live in a place where a member can bring to the whole their troubles and their struggles, both internal and external, then we have yet to master community.

I know I’m not there yet. I have a few true friends, and I hope to become more real with the rest. I have a small community with those few friends, but I look forward to its expansion.