by Pieter J. Friedrich
8/5/03
Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it: nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing.--Jean de La Fontaine
I cannot count the times people I hardly know have referred to me as a "friend," or have written to me and signed their letters "your friend," or done some such thing. I have come to believe that, second only to "love," "friend" is the most misused word in the English language.
It is not my wish to offend or to hurt anyone who has, in the past, called himself my "friend," but merely to set them straight. There are a good many upstanding people...people whom I admire...who have called themselves "friends." Most of these are people who I enjoy spending time with and conversing with, but they are not friends. These people must learn to distinguish between "friendliness" and "friendship."
Whenever I tell someone that I have only a handful of friends, they're not entirely sure how to respond. The proper response would be hearty congratulations, for I have taken the advice of George Washington, who said, "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation."
The word "friend" is one that is slung around often in this world, but very few people seem to know what it actually means. "Friend" is not a word to play fast and loose with, nor is it a term to be hastily applied to a person you happen to be acquainted with. "Friend" is a word to be used carefully, because "friends" are to be chosen very carefully.
"What is a friend?" ask Aristotle. He answers, "A single soul dwelling in two bodies." Your average acquaintance, however close and however interesting, does not share your soul. (A note here: when Aristotle uses the word "soul," I take it to mean shared natures, emotions, and affections, rather than the immortal soul.)
"A true friend," said British minister Robert South, "is the gift of God, and He only who made hearts can unite them!" Friends are rare, and one may live many years without finding even one true friend. Henry Home said, "The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for." I count myself rich because I have found even one true friend worth dying for.
A true friend is more than just an interesting person to speak with for an hour or two so as to pass the time. Rather, a friend is someone to depend on, someone to lean on, someone who is (almost) necessary for life. In Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, we are told, "Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken."
Real friendship is lasting. I know people who have spoken of their "school friends" who they forgot about when they graduated and began college or a career. These people were not real friends. "A friend loveth at all times," we are told in Proverbs 17:17a, and Saint Jerome said that, "The friendship that can cease has never been real."
Friends argue, friends offer correction, friends are even sometimes (wrongly) angry at each other...and these things are all natural and to be expected in a real friendship. The philosopher Hume said, "Truth springs from argument amongst friends." Indeed, argument is a positive facet of true friendship (Pro. 27:17) and correction from a friend is something to thank God for (Pro. 27:6a). And as Christians, friends can and must always forgive one another. C.S. Lewis writes, "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you."
Though friendship with unbelievers and evil people is discouraged (I Cor. 15:33), true friends are open with each other, and overlook one another's faults. Thoreau wrote, "True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance." Elbert Hubbard said, "Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you."
I said "overlook" but that's probably not the correct word. Rather, I should say "forgive." Moliere tells us, "The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself."
I said friends are open with one another. Writer George Eliot said it more eloquently than I ever could when she wrote, "Oh, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away."
It has been over a year-and-a-half since I made a new friend, and I am not only content with that, but happy for it. Old friends are the best. Thomas Jefferson wrote, "I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial."
Walt Whitman spoke gospel truth when he said, "I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends."
