“Friendship above all ties doth bind the heart, and faith in friendship is the noblest part.”

–Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery (17th Century)

 

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the ways in which relationships positively influence our health and longevity (Tuesday Thoughts; May 16).  More today on this notion of fulfillment in our lives.

How many friends do you have? No, not those friends–not the ones on social media, some of whom you don’t even know. Real friends. People you see and interact with face-to-face. Drill it down even more and ask this: How many true friends do you have?

Let’s define a true friend as one you could call any hour of the day or night and they would drop everything–or hop out of bed, as the case might be–to come to your aid. How many? Most of us probably have only a handful. Five, maybe ten if we’re lucky, who we’d call with no regard to inconvenience or embarrassment.

Back to social media. Let it suffice that “friends” with whom we connect through a screen is testimony enough to the vapidity and dearth of interpersonal relations. The savvy “tech heads” saw a void and filled it with pseudo friends. Sadly, it worked.

Don’t get me wrong. Media sites have a role to play. I joined Facebook in preparation for my high school class’s fiftieth reunion (unfortunately, “fiftieth” is not a typo!). It was a great way to reconnect with friends who live far away. And, some of you are reading this post because I “advertised” it on Facebook and Instagram. So, social media sites can serve for good. They can also be mean and detrimental to users’ mental health and perception of self worth, but that’s a topic for another day.

I would posit that we need much more than two-dimensional friends and online followers–we need real, in-person friends and people who will walk with us, not “follow” us.

And speaking of walking, how’s your daily walk going? Not literally your gait, but your life’s journey? Despite declining numbers of churchgoers, members of mainstream denominations, and those who claim any religious affiliation, more than nine out of ten people polled still believe in God. Even nonbelievers aren’t willing to give up hope!

Your concept of God may differ mightily from mine but, at the very least, belief in a God is testament to a higher power that put us here and plays the preeminent role in our lives. A “New Testament” version of God, espoused by Christians, is Jesus Christ, who literally walked this Earth incarnate and then made the ultimate sacrifice for the justification of our sins. That same God walks with us on life’s journey, and even carries us when we’re too weak or afflicted to walk. I bet a lot of us have been there.

Our houses of worship should be open to and accepting of anyone. Jesus taught us not to judge. Even if your faith isn’t Christianity, that’s not a bad lesson. Corporate worship should be an experience of friends and strangers sitting together and hearing the precepts of their faith, as well as the challenges they’re asked to accept in order to practice that faith.

Heaven knows we don’t need to hear politics of any sort from the pulpit. Don’t we get enough of that from our news source du jour? It’d be good for our politicians to be in church along with the rest of us, but let’s all leave politics at the front door.

Perhaps many people have turned away from the church because of all the violence and vitriol in today’s world. “Where is God in the mess?” is a reasonable question. I don’t know; I’m no theologian. But I do know this: If folks have walked away from organized religion because they don’t see God as instrumental in their lives or, worse yet, they blame God for the bad things that happen to good people, we’ve failed as  communities of faith. Big time.

Unchurched or non-religious parents are unlikely to raise their children in the church. Without that parental influence, children have little chance of coming into faith. What’s more, after the mid-teen years, the chances are slim they’ll ever practice any kind of religion and realize the fulfillment it offers. Sadly, without a faith-based rudder, they’re more vulnerable to alternative, nefarious influences on the direction their lives take. Today, that’s on full display.

But consider the alternative: a life grounded in faith, and friends to enrich the journey. Could it be any better than that?