The Rooftop View

The Rooftop View

Many, many years ago, I was introducing a person I knew to another person I knew, acting as sort of a bridge. I said something like, "so this is one of my best friends, '____'...". The introduced person then acknowledged the introduction but somewhat humorously shrugged off the comment by saying, "well, I don't know about "best" but anyway..." It was almost an under-the-breath sort of thing, almost as a side-note in passing, but it came as a shock to me.

His point - Yes, I was a friend, but not so close a friend that he would take responsibility for me. And I could be identified with him, but not identified as part of him or as someone he would be voluntarily be a part of.

From an objective standpoint I guess he was right after all. I was a friend to him, and he was a friend to me...just not that close. And when I said, "this is one of my best friends," I was probably overly-enthusiastic in my description. So, no fault with him being accurate. Perhaps if I had spoken with less haste, I would have phrased it differently, but nevertheless I did say what I said for a few reasons -

(1) I wanted the other person to know that the person I was introducing was important to me
(2) I wanted the person I was introducing to be complimented, if I were to be so vain as to think that such an introduction would be a compliment.
(3) And, probably most of all, I wanted the label to be accurate, if not then, then in the future.

I also knew that the harm in being inaccurate (over-label), was certainly less egregious than the harm in being inaccurate (under-labeling). What is the harm in calling someone a close frend, even if they weren't?

Well, he shot that thought down nearly immediately, which did a few things:

(1) Announced he was nobody's "buddy", but his own person who makes his own judgments;
(2) Told everyone that I was mistaken, embarassingly, about a relationship that in my own words, I should have known better about;
(3) Warned me that his correction of me off the bat like that was designed specifically to me, so that if I were to introduce him to anyone else, that I should refrain from using inaccurate labels, at the pain of being embarassed in a like manner again, and
(4) Announced to all close by that this kind of public correction was required because he obviously didn't want to be known as a good friend of mine, for whatever reason, and a private correction would have been ineffective.

It was a short-lived but embarassing moment for me, and it engendered a brief bout of sadness in me. A person that I respected, and wished to be a close friend, rejected the offer. Despite the time spent hanging out and doing things, despite the shared experiences and so on, I was no better of a friend (or only insignificantly better) than any of the other acquaintances that he had. Not only was I rejected for the past, I was rejected for the future. A sobering moment, when really, the main impetus was just to make introductions and to compliment a friend of mine.

I call it "The Rooftop View." You aren't socializing in the party, you aren't even at the party, but you can see the party if you go out onto your rooftop. From this vantage point, you can get to know a lot of things about the goings-on, who attended and what they ate or drank, and you can certainly imagine all things that you would do if you were at the party, but you were never there. And so I went from being at the party, to being left outside. The incident was thus over, and almost certainly not remembered by anyone involved. But it has stayed with me for all these long years, and it has bearing today.

Friends and Fellowship

I cannot grasp the idea of fellowship (this is a topic for another time, in any case, because it is far too big to handle here), but I can say this about it - what we are called to do is love one another as ourselves, and our bond in fellowship is out of such self-love.

But what does this have to do with "like"? You don't have to "like" the person to "love" a person, right? This is what has always gotten me messed up.

IF, for example and only as an example, I were to take the people that I know, now, and start introducing them to some random other person, how many of them would consider me to be a close friend? Further, let's take the reverse of that. If I were the one being introduced, would I actually feel the same way about the other? How many claims of close bonds of friendship would I agree with? Now, let's match them up. How many close friends do I have?

Honestly, at this point, with respect to the fellowship of the church that I attend, I would probably say that the number of coincidences (in a Venn diagram, say, the dark shaded areas) would be, maybe zero. The rooftop view that I once had with respect to this individual whom I thought I was a close friend, has now expanded. Maybe it is mostly my fault, or a combination of factors, but it is what it is.

Still, I would say, I try pretty hard to get to know the people in my church, and express my relationship with them in terms of love. What I would do for them, I would do for myself. What I would give to them, I would give to myself, and nothing less than that. But like? Are we called to like them, and them to like us? If so, then why am I stuck on the roof, and if not, then, I guess, you end up with the kind of relationships that I have at church: where you love everybody, and are fairly content in the steady-state of having few, if any, close friends.

- More on this in a bit, David