Friendship, Part 3 of 3

Over the last two weeks I have been making a case for the importance of friendship for growing spiritually and morally. Some of you may still not be convinced of the importance of friendship based on the voices of those who have come before us. What could someone from the 4th century BC and the 13th Century possibly be able to tell us today. If this is you, then this week we turn to prominent voices in 20th century psychology.

Everybody needs friends. Whether baptized or not, this is a universal truth. Even for the most introverted of us, this is the case. We are social animals. Augustine wrote that friendship is something that is desired by those members of both the City of God, and the City of Humankind; it is a deeply human desire. Modern psychological studies on happiness have noted the importance of relationships and friendship for a flourishing life. For Martin Seligman, positive relationships and other people are required for happiness. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi notes, based on his extensive happiness studies, that people who live alone and don’t go to church, or other religious gatherings, think that holy days are the lowest part of their weeks, “because with no demands on attention, they are unable to decide what to do.” In this lack of structure people look for new goals and things to do and ‘psychic entropy’ sets in. It is with friends that we have our most powerful and meaningful experiences. These relationships are what contribute to happiness, or ‘Flow,’ because in these relationships we are able to express ourselves. In our friendships we express common objects of love that we enjoy together. A community, a people, has a common love, and in the context of the church a shared view of the Good as that common love. In this we are no longer an individual but a community capable of common action, susceptible to common suffering, participating in a common identity. The better the object of affection, the better the community. Though, Csikszentmihalyi notes, “few people nowadays are able to maintain friendships into adulthood. We are too mobile, too specialized and narrow in our professional interests to cultivate enduring friendships.”

All this to say, our age is in a crisis of friendship, and this is a place where churches like St Paul’s can become truly counter-cultural. We can fulfill spiritual and psychological needs that have atrophied over nearly a century of loneliness and isolation. This is the pandemic of our age. This is the disease passed on from generation to generation that we can all see right in front of us, but not do anything about. When we share our lives intimately with others, burdens can be lifted and anxiety reduced. Let’s be a place of deep meaningful friendship. What would it take for this to happen?