Always Searching . . .

I was with someone who kept getting phone calls. Her husband said that it must be one of her many friends. I don't have "many" friends. Perhaps because I'm an introvert. But, I'm frequently looking for ways to do friendship better.

C. S. Lewis, one of my favorite authors, said this:

[W]e picture lovers face to face, but Friends side by side; their eyes look ahead. That is why those pathetic people who simply "want friends" can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where the truthful answer to the question Do you see the same truth? would be "I see nothing and I don't care about the truth; I only want a Friend," no Friendship can arise--though Affection of course may. There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. C.S. Lewis The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1960), 98.

Perhaps I'm one of those "pathetic people," just wanting friends to have friends, so my phone can ring off the hook. And at least there is some part of me that does want this. The other part of me would be annoyed if the phone rang so often! I really just want a few friends with a friendship about something but not dominoes or white mice or hiking, or music, or books. I want friends that look to the spiritual. . . how to do life, what matters, where do we go and how do we get there. . . . I want to share real life, not the stuff we fill it with until life ends. I want to know the other person so well that I can better love him/her. And I want the other person to know me as well. And yes, we will focus on something and someone beyond us.

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