Of Family and Friends

I think I have settled on a few things, trying to understand family and friendship.

The first notion is the puzzle that family is usually regarded as a stronger relationship than friendship, but any family relationship that does not involve friendship can be (and may in fact be) weaker than friendship.

The reason for this is that friendship is by choice, and so there is automatically an imprintur of mutuality that follows friendship. You simply cannot be friends with someone who does not want to be friends with you. And when you are friends with someone, you know you are accepted, just as you accept them. This is the strength of friendship. It is mutuality by choice, and there is trust and comfort in the knowing that you are accepted.

The second notion is that the dynamics of friendship often "disintegrate" into a familial relationship which can carry none of the aspects of mutuality, and so a paradox forms - the closer you are as a friend, the more likely you may come to be considered family, which then can be the death of a friendship.

Isn't this a bit odd? With many (but not all) friendships, there is an irresistible evolution of friendship to family. If the evolution is real, then the erstwhile friend is no longer part of your life by choice. There is no choice with family. Oddly then, we consider family to be the closest grouping of individuals, where forgiveness is granted due to status rather than by merit, and where obligation is a priori over grace.

And, in some cases, somewhere along the line, the warm comfort and trust of mutuality developed by true friendship is slowly replaced by the vulgar and base requirements of family. Here then we see expectation, need, obligation, utilitarianism, sacrifice, and sometimes even by emotional trauma, because only a person who is truly close to you can hurt you. It doesn't have to happen, but far too often, mutuality disappears within the family unit.

You can see it all the time. Husbands anger wives and vice versa, children disappoint parents, and vice versa. Different reasons, different circumstances, but the common thread is that family units suffer far too often because mutuality is either impossible, or it has been replaced by need, expectation, sacrifice and even resentment.

And so a circular progression develops. Close friends become family, and over time, the once bright relationships grow darker as mutuality can wither and in its place grow expectation, obligation, need, and sacrifice. And the fruit of all of this is what everybody knows - you get the highs and lows of it all, with unyielding love on one end and emotional trauma on the other as individuals fail. And this is how family units can fail, and often do fail. Few family units can withstand the ups and downs without a safety net of mutuality. And as family units dissolve, new relationships are formed from the pieces, based once again on the idea of friendship first. New replaces old, the cycle repeats itself, like a tree's many branches through spring, summer, fall and winter, and back to spring.

And so it is that a Christian church is a constantly moving in a slow spiral. We meet each other, and we deem ourselves to be friends. And so those relationships, at least some of them, develop into a close knit structure, with the strongest ties being those grounded in mutuality. And as time passes, those ties begin coalesce into a familial structure. We call each other brother and sister, we call each other uncle and auntie, we have traditional gatherings on those holidays reserved by hallmark, for family.

And then we say, we are a family, part of a Christian fellowship where we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. This is easily translated from the Bible, because as the children of God, we must all be related by Christ's blood. As children of the same Father, we are siblings by a new birth.

But somewhere along the line, the link of mutuality can sometimes disappear, or be taken for granted, and all we have left is a fellowship that is predicated on the vacillations of common faith, hope and trust in God, that we would be made perfect someday through the Holy Spirit. But this sounds better than it plays out in practice, unfortunately.

In this time, in this period, in our lives here, we are not perfect, and we are not always linked by the Holy Spirit. And we are not united by the blood of Christ, and we are separated and limited by our own faculties, by our own lack of vision. And then there is nothing, because we threw away our mutuality. While our own poor faith to bind us together may be sufficient for God to keep us, in this time, in this life, there is still need, expectation, obligation, selfish utilitarianism, sacrifice, and even emotional trauma when we are left alone, when our own powers fail.

Where did the Christian family go so far wrong? God is perfect, and so why is not His strength perfect in us?

I think it has to do with the absence of mutuality, the same mutuality that starts the idea of friendship.

See, family often condescends friendship. In fact, Christian "family" does more than condescend friendship, I think it discourages it indirectly through structural and institutional means. Friendship is consdescended because people consider it to be a much lesser form of family - people see friendship as being transient, as being without obligation or strength, especially since the word "friend" is so loosely defined, it is often synonymous with any individual who is not an enemy. But true friendship has what is often missing in family, which, as I have said, is mutuality. And how important is mutuality?

In the epitome of what it means to be Christian, we are challenged to answer two questions:

1. Do you love your God, with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, and
2. Do you love your neighbor as yourself?

The second question is almost never fully appreciated for what it is. The question isn't asking whether your neighbor is "family," because there is no expectation or sacrifice or obligation here. What the second question is asking is what friendship presupposes. Would you treat your neighbor in the same way as you would treat yourself. If there is a clearer definition of mutuality, I cannot find one. (And, in fact, mutuality is presupposed in the first question as well, because we are able to love God because God loved us first!).

***

In a bit of tangent, I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding when it comes to the standard mode of thinking, when Christians ponder mutuality. The lesson goes like this - when we love God, we complete the mutuality, and so we are able to love others as well. Thus do we even get our mutuality from God. When we fellowship with the Holy Spirit, we are able to fellowship with others, because fellowship does not come from us.

Is this a true statement? I think the answer is "yes," but the answer is not a complete one for now. While we are here in this world, while we are yet imperfect, while we are in desperate states of light and darkness, we hold onto whatever we can.

And a lack of human mutuality dissolves the physical foundation of relationships. Holy mutuality makes human mutuality possible, but the latter is not a given even if you profess to love God. And without both, you really can't follow both of the greatest commandments. So where does that leave us, watching the seasons of our lives pass before us, moving in a cycle of change across individual relationships? I'm not sure, exactly.

There is a lesson here that I am supposed to learn, but I am without mutuality, because I have but few friends, and it is hard for me to bring myself to understand the lesson. There is a bitterness associated with isolation, and though the bitterness is a flavor like all others, the acetic life can only go so far. Luckily, I have been well trained in such aceticism all my life. So it all works out for the best, I guess.

-David