This month at The Sage Forum we’re reflecting on a topic that looms large in conversations about the second half of life–friendship. We live in a time when reports of increasing loneliness show up regularly in media. The effects of loneliness on mental health are well documented. The changes of midlife can exacerbate that loneliness when many of us find some of our long-time friendships downshifting or ending,
If this is you, please know you’re not alone. This month’s newsletter has a couple of encouraging short pieces that offer empathy and a helpful nudge toward continuing to engage with others even when it’s challenging to do so. Friendships can be fraught. They can be a source of great strength and growth. They aren’t always easy, but we believe even when they aren’t always easy, these relationships are worth the risk.
We’ve got an informal poll that asks about places where you might be choosing to be involved with others in a small group setting, and some great summer media picks from our team. Please read on and weigh in, friend!
Friends: I’ll be there for you!
By Rachel Campbell
I wonder if you’ve ever stopped to think about who your friends are. In reflecting on who my own friends are, I can see that some of them are more like me than me, while others are very different. One of my closest friends was even an Indie rock star–not anything like me!
Friendships are precious, offering us much and allowing us to be the best version of ourselves. Friendships enrich and sanctify us. And, unlike mentorship, which suggests a seniority, friendship offers equality and mutuality. Each of our friendships is an inherently valuable, unique creation. In my thirties I lost a lovely friend to cancer. I grieved her deeply and in that grief I recognised the loss of an irreplaceable friendship.
Friendships are forged through shared experiences and are strengthened through journeying together, creating bonds that can last decades. Last Easter, my husband went on a long overdue trip back to his homeland of New Zealand. On his travels he was welcomed by a number of his university friends–people he has known for over 35 years but who he has only seen a handful of times in the years since. Their formative university experiences had woven friendships that have endured the separations of time and distance.
However, by the second half of life, as well as valuing friends old and new, we have also endured lost friendships. We know all too well that some we called close friends in the past and who traveled with us for a season have been reduced to a yearly Christmas card. Sometimes that loss is a painless evolution, a slipping away. On other occasions we may ourselves make the difficult decision to prune a friendship that is no longer bearing fruit. And some of life’s most painful experiences involve the loss of a friendship that was once very precious.
Here at The Sage Forum, we understand the value, benefits, and occasional wounds of friendship. In this age of social media’s cheapening of what it means to be a friend, our hope is to become your friends in words as we navigate the second half of life together.
As you consider your current friendships, what has surprised you most about the people who are in your life right now?
Finding Friendship in a Crowd?
How many people can an introvert handle at one time? One? Two? Five?
I recently read a blog that addressed this question. The writer offered some tips to help introverts navigate groups of people, but this writer also highly encouraged the “stay home” option. I found my introverted-self shaking my head and mumbling, “No!”
Just to be clear, I do sometimes avoid group events that involve chit-chat. I know this type of environment greatly taxes me. But as often as I say “no” to such events, I also say, “Yes.”
Yes to church and chit-chat after the service.
Yes to family parties and events.
Yes to neighborhood block parties.
Yes to Bible Study, with a break for the summer.
Why “Yes”?
Because I yearn for my life to reflect God’s two greatest commandments: “Love God and love your neighbor.” Those commandments, as much as I would like them to, do not mean, “Love God and love two or three close friends.” They do mean, “Love God and let that love compel you to build relationships with those in your orbits, loving them as God loves you.”
And so into the fray (the room with more than five people) I go!
Walking into a room of people takes courage. And so does loving people and building friendships. Especially for introverts.
And it hurts sometimes.
Friends can behave in unpredictable ways.
Friends can say hurtful words, bathed in jealousy or fired off without thought.
Friends can leave you hanging when you need comfort.
Friends can move across the country.
BUT…
Friends can also weep with you as you share a painful memory.
Friends can text you life-giving support as you sit with a dying parent.
Friends can call out the gifts God has given you and challenge you to use them.
Friends can speak gentle words of challenge that prompt a life-altering, God-honoring course correction.
Friends can act as the hands and feet of Jesus.
When I weigh it all and think of staying home alone instead of venturing out into a crowd of people I don’t know well, I remind myself that someone in that crowd likely needs encouragement, the first small seed of friendship. That someone could very well be me. I also remind myself that I can’t obey God’s command to love my neighbor if I hang out mostly with myself or with two or three other people.
So…Into the fray (the room with more than five people) I go!
Additional helpful reads about friendship
Were they ever really my friends?
Why Making Friends in Midlife Is So Hard
What I Learned About Friendship in Midlife When I Had to End One
Please take our one-question poll:
New friendships can form and existing friendships can grow deeper when you share purpose, interest, or activity with others. We’d love to know if our readers are involved in any of the following kinds of small groups.
Feel free to tell us more about groups you’ve enjoyed, groups that fried your last raw nerve, or why you’ve elected to stay away from small groups at the present time.
July Media Picks From The Sage Team
[BOOK] The Spacious Path: Practicing the Restful Way of Jesus in a Fragmented World by Tamara Hill Murphy. Hill Murphy walks her readers along the spacious path of humble living shaped by contemplation and community, the foundation of the Rule of Life. A beautifully written book grounded in Christian faith. (CD) Note from Michelle Van Loon: I endorsed this book because I appreciated Tamara’s practical call to readers to live with intention – a gift to those of us in the second half of life who may be reevaluating our life and choices.
[VIDEO-PBS] The documentary by Ken Burns, The Roosevelts, is well done, a good refresher on 20th century history, and I’ve learned a thing or two about Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor. (JA)
[VIDEO-Netflix] Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial. You’ve probably seen your share of WWII documentaries, but this six-episode series offers you a different look at a familiar story. This exploration of the rise and collapse of the Nazi party uses the lens of the words of journalist William Shirer, who reported from Europe during those years. Everyone I know who has watched the series has reported that they’ve learned something new. I did, too. (MV)
[BOOK] The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger is an excellent novel set in the 50’s about the impact of the war on individuals and communities, difficult situations in the lives of women, those who can see beyond race and the past to the true heart of individuals, prejudice, coming of age and the truth that everyone is broken in one way or another. (JA)
[BOOKS] The Annalee Spain Mysteries (All That Is Secret, Double The Lies, Truth Be Told) by Patricia Raybon. Annalee Spain is a Black Bible professor who finds herself drawn into solving mysteries in 1920’s Denver. Raybon creates a memorable protagonist who navigates the challenges of culture and new relationships while using her notable intellect and powers of observation to discover whodunit. These page-turners make perfect summer reading! (MV)
What are you reading, listening to, or watching this month?
Coming in The Sage Forum newsletter next month: Why bother with church?
Here we are, you and I, and I hope that Christ makes a third with us. No one can interrupt us now...So come now, dearest friend, reveal your heart and speak your mind―Aelred of Rievaulx
Photos by Surface, Kenny Eliason, Craig Cameron on Unsplash
What began as a mentoring relationship with a much younger woman has become the friendship I’ve always longed for. I'm a deeply spiritual Jesus Freak, and my singular focus and intensity has made people uncomfortable when they get to know me. I've had to mask it to fit in. But this woman likes me for exactly those qualities, and her friendship has given me the freedom to be my authentic self for maybe the first time ever. Her friendship has given me the courage to be more authentic and not so wary of the reactions I might get when I share in other settings. I've always been the listener in my friendships, and it's been freeing to see the other side.
I’m astonished whenever I stop to notice that during this season of life when I imagined that I would have more time for friendship, I simply don’t make time to reach out.
And I just finished reading Luci Shaw’s new poetry collection Reversing Entropy, which was lyrical and lovely as usual.